What is it about?
Scaffolding, offering help when students struggle and stepping back when they succeed, has been a key teaching strategy since it was first studied in the 1970s by David Wood and colleagues. We attempted to replicate the findings of that classic study using the same task and structure with a large sample of children. Surprisingly, we found no significant difference in outcomes between scaffolded instruction and other forms of instruction, like giving full demonstrations or giving only verbal cues.
Featured Image
Photo by Natasha Hall on Unsplash
Why is it important?
This replication study suggests that providing instructional scaffolding might actually be a two-way interactive process. In practice, what counts as “more” or “less” help from a teacher is not as straightforward as we thought. In some instances a small gesture may be more effective than detailed verbal guidance, and for some learners repeating the same kind of help might be just what they need. Teachers and learners might have actually different goals when it comes to providing or seeking help: teachers might aim to build independence, whereas students may simply want to complete their task quickly. If this is the case learners might also ask for help even when they do not really need it. Timing of support is another important challenge when it comes to scaffolding. When should a teacher step in to offer support to a struggling child? Children differ widely in their behavior, motivation, and help-seeking habits. According to David Wood, author of the original 1978, scaffolding means that it takes two to tutor: teaching should be “leading by following”—knowing your goal, but staying open to surprise.
Perspectives
We hope this replication paper will inspire researchers and practitioners to rethink the meaning of the well-known term "scaffolding". We propose to view it as a flexible, responsive process in which real-time adjustments of that process from help providers, help users and help seekers might actually be the key to really understand what it takes to provide the right support at the right moment in time. We think the possibility to respond in new ways is incredibly motivating for teachers who want to keep learning on the job and a great hope for the future of human face-to-face interaction.
Dr Nienke Smit
Universiteit Utrecht
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: What it takes to tutor—A preregistered direct replication of the scaffolding experimental study by D. Wood et al. (1978)., Journal of Educational Psychology, July 2025, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/edu0000965.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
