This research sought to integrate findings from two previous studies: a study of first-year undergraduates' learning difficulties in their encounter with the abstractions of advanced mathematics within a tutorial based pedagogy and a study of the tutors' responses to and interpretations of the learning difficulties. Then, through a semi-structured interview process, the researchers examined how tutors thought about their teaching practices. Six individual university based tutors were interviewed weekly for 8 weeks over the course of a university term. The tutors explored teaching approaches and their relationship to epistemological issues in the mathematical content of the tutorials. Education; group work; higher education; mathematics education; mathematics; students; teaching methods; teaching; tutorials, undergraduate courses; undergraduates; universities, university courses.