Online Tutoring Analysis
Comparison of the Effectiveness of Online Tutoring to Traditional Tutoring
Patricia D. Carter
Liberty University
Introduction
Tutoring has been around for hundreds of years. It has come from tutoring one-on-one to tutoring in groups, peer groups and now even online at a distance. One of the first forms of tutoring, which is still used today, was conceived by a well-known educator by the name of Andrew Bell. This form of tutoring was referred to as "peer tutoring" which is a system of instruction in which learners help each other and learn (themselves) by teaching. Andrew Bell 's initial reasoning behind using peer tutoring was to give under privileged children the opportunity to learn. This method of tutoring has been used and is still being used today in schools and learning centers. It was designed to have the more advanced students to help the students who were challenged in the same area, to understand content better. This allowed for more students to continue to learn a subject and not keep a teacher or instructor from being able to progress further because of …show more content…
students who were falling behind. It was also said to be an effective method because students felt more comfortable when a peer was helping them. Tutoring can teach new content, or it can also be purely remedial. (VanLehn, 2011)
Traditional Tutoring
Conventionally, parents used to hire tutors to help their children overcome weaknesses in particular subject. (Therefore, when someone hears the word tutor, they think of it as a face-to-face time period with someone, who is helping someone with something. According to dictionary.com, a tutor is said to be a private teacher, who typically teaches a single student or a very small group. Now that times are evolving into the state of technological advances, tutoring has entered that very same arena of the use of media and technology. Educational institutions are increasingly relying on online academic support services.” (Corrigan, 2012)
For many children, classroom instruction is supplemented by personal training. As the definition states, Gordon, Morgan, O 'Malley & Ponticell reconfirm that the benefits of tutoring are assumed to arise from one-to-one interaction between a knowledgeable and skilled individual (the tutor) and a less knowledgeable and less skilled individual (the tutee) and the educational standards has led to an increased demand for personal tutors. (Johnson & Bratt, 2009) Services such as e-tutoring have become an asset because it meets the needs for the rising demands of public accountability over standardized testing with decreasing budgets. (Corrigan, 2012)
With the increase, tutoring has become a necessity. "Since at least the fourth century B.C., adapting has been viewed as primary requirement for successful instruction, and adaptive tutoring was the common instructional method until the mid-1800s. (Spector, Merrill, Merrienboer, & Driscoll, 2008) Parents are now leaning towards the online tutoring world because they want to give their children access to as much instruction as they need and on demand.
Coming about of Online Tutoring/ E-learning An e-learner is described as learning facilitated and supported through the use of information and communications technology. (Mitra, 2010) Thanks to digital innovation, students have many more options of seeking help with their studies. (Kumar, 2012) Tutors and e-learning combined has brought about tutoring services that are now available online across the world.
As with the debate of the effectiveness of traditional brick and mortar school learning and online learning, it is the same debate that is being viewed with the effectiveness of online tutoring. In a 2010 article, online tutoring according to Sylvan Learning 's CEO, Jeff Cohen, is still in its infancy. Sylvan Learning started their online delivery in 2001. They took time to do it because they wanted to make sure that they didn 't lose any of the quality of education that they were providing and known for with taking their tutoring to the online world. They have since been very successful in the development of their program and continue to grow their business because it did open up doors for others who possibly did not have access to a learning center in their area. Research shows that, "students who learned via the internet performed as well or better than students in regular school programs." (Johnson & Bratt, 2009) While Sylvan still offers face-to-face tutoring, they have opened up a whole new world for online tutoring in support of education as a whole.
Comparisons
On top 10 reviews, the five highest rated online tutoring services were provided by homeworkhelp.com, followed by tutor.com, eTutor.com, and tutorvista.com.
Sylvan Learning being rated number ten. The way that these services were rated was based on account tools, features, payments, and help and support. One of the hardest things about traditional tutoring has to adhere to a specific time frame. Things that have to be taken into account with face-to-face tutoring are things such as time, location, price, and personalities of the tutor and tutee. When determining an online tutoring service or online tutor, you need mostly be concerned with the price and being the fact that technology is involved, then the specifications of your computer and internet connection in addition to the price of the service is very
important.
It’s been questioned, how a tutor can effectively give guidance to a person who needs help in school or in content. The first way to find out how the two main types of tutoring pair up with each other, it must first be understood what each are capable of in depth.
As stated earlier, face-to-face tutoring involves a private teacher, typically one who teaches a single student or a very small group. They provide guidance and feedback to a student on a specialized topic or subject. Traditional tutoring is referred to in some cases as "human tutoring." VanLehn argues that tutoring can be done as a supplement to the students ' classroom instruction or as a replacement such as with home schooling. (VanLehn, 2011)
Research shows that it is commonly believed that traditional tutors are more effective than computer tutors when both teach the same content. Then there is additional research that has been looked at that showed that ultimately, untraditional tutoring such as distance learning or distance tutoring has proven just the same.
Some of the ways that make traditional tutoring effective are how a tutor can infer an accurate, detailed assessment of the tutee which can give them a better understanding of how they will need to present their sessions to the tutee during their tutoring sessions. On the other hand, when a tutee is being tutored on line, this is not an issue. The tutor does not have the opportunity to build a rapport with their tutee. In most instances, the way that the tutoring sessions are designed online, tutees will more than likely not have the same tutor for each session that they are engaged in, meaning that online tutors cannot make the same assessment of their tutees. Thus in theory they simply create a learning environment based on the content that is needed to be learned, and it is taught. Face-to-face tutoring in essence is tutee-based and the online learning environment is content-based.
In a study provided by Sleeman, Eklly, Martinak, Ward, & Moore, when a tutor is placed in the same position as an online tutor, their effectiveness is no different. One study showed that when a traditional tutor was unaware of their tutees strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and so on, they were no more effective when they moved around for different tutees as an online tutor.
Building on the last reason why traditional face-to-face tutoring is assumed to be better, it is in theory, better, because a face-to face tutor would be able to prepare and provide their tutee with "exactly" what their tutee needs to learn. The tutor is able to get an understanding of the steps that their tutee have already mastered and build on that. Just as a teacher does when they prepare their lessons for their classes, a tutor would have the ability and opportunity to create different ways to teach their tutee a certain concept. It is more personalized to the tutee so that in theory that student can achieve a better understanding in a "more effective" manner for the way that they need to learn. However, with this argument, computer based tutoring is able to simply rely on the steps and needs for the content to be learned and not paced, giving the online tutoring another advantage to being more effective than the traditional tutor.
Another characteristic of how some believe that traditional tutoring is more effective is because of the personal dialogue that would exist in the tutoring session. The teacher can ask questions as well as a student is able to ask and they can give each other answers immediately. The one thing about this is that, when the tutoring session ends, if the tutee needs additional help later, outside of their normally scheduled session, they would more than likely have to wait to ask that question the next time they have a tutoring session. However, with the way that online tutoring is set up, a tutee has the ability to simply log into their accounts and ask a question immediately to any tutor that is currently available. This being how student are able to learn more, because they are not limited to the one or two hours per day or week that traditional tutoring offer. There is a tutor available 24/7 for tutees.
In theory, it is also believed that, “the effectiveness of human tutoring perhaps may be due to increasing the motivation of students,” (5) thus, giving the impression that having a “warm body,” present to give praise is helpful. However, in a study that was conducted, Lepper et al (1993) found that some tutors give negative feedback to incorrect answers. In this instance it can be inferred that having a tutor present, can actually harm a tutee more than help them. In retrospect, it shows that with the online tutoring, being that it’s been established that online tutors do not have a vested interest or a rapport with each of their tutees, its more effective because they are capable of giving negative and/or positive feedback where due.
On the subject of feedback, traditionally, “tutors help students both monitor their reasoning and repair flaws. As long as the student seems to be making progress, the tutor does not intervene, but as soon as the student gets stuck or makes a mistake, the tutor can help the student resolve the lack of knowledge and get moving again. (As cited by Merrill et al., 1992) This is a good concept and is one good reason of how traditional tutoring could possibly be more effective than that of an online tutor. With online tutors, feedback is immediate; however, they are unable to stop a student in their tracks instantaneously when a mistake is made. When it comes down to the framework of the tutoring sessions, traditional tutoring and online tutoring will ultimately depend on the type of tutee that they are tutoring. Every person learns differently as in a classroom, the same concept would need to be followed for tutoring, as it is an extension of instruction. According to an article, VanLehn, shows that there are three types of student behaviors that should be taken into account when deciding the type of tutoring that a student would need. There is passive, active, constructive, and interactive, student behavior, which is thought to predict the order of effectiveness.
“A passive student behavior would be attending to the presented instructional information without additional physical activity.” (VanLehn, 2011) This meaning that the student is listening or paying attention, however, there is no sign of note taking or something as simple as just reading a text. This type of student is only receiving the information that is being provided. This type of student would best be suited for online tutoring, mainly because it would be interactive and engaging for the student. This would demand for the tutee to become involved in his/her learning.
“An active student behavior would include doing something physically.” (VanLehn, 2011) Thus, this type of student could do either traditional or online tutoring mainly because interaction takes place with traditional tutoring as well as use of the computer or other media technology is being used for online tutoring.
“A constructive student behavior requires producing outputs that contain ideas that go beyond the presented information such as self-explaining a text or drawing a concept map.” (VanLehn, 2011) This type of student/tutee would be able to engage in either form of tutoring as well. They are able to pose questions, form hypotheses, compare and contrast ideas of what they have been learning. Both a traditional and online tutor would be able to give feedback for this type of tutee.
Finally there is the “interactive” student. This behavior can be satisfied with either form of tutoring as well. The interactive student “includes co-construction and other collaborative spoken activities that are currently beyond the state of the art in computer tutoring.” (Chi, 2011) states that interaction does not have to be via dialog.
Keeping all of these behaviors in mind when choosing which format of tutoring is better for a tutee, is one of the key factors of whether or not a type is more effective than the other.
In another case study done in 2002, a course was offered to a group of undergraduate students who were permitted to choose which version of the course they preferred to take. This group consisted of 52 students who chose to complete the course with online tutorial support and a random sample of 102 students who had completed the course with the traditional face-to-face tutorial support. The students all received questionnaires at the end of the study. A total of 99 students, which represented 645 of the participants were reviewed. The proportion of females respondents was somewhat greater on the online version of the course 970%) than on the face-to-face version of the course (53%), but the difference was not statistically significant. The students were assessed by their coursework and an exam that was not permitted for use in the study. There was a difference in scoring, giving the more effective medal to those who participated in the face-to-face tutorial over the online tutorial. However, the face-to-face tutorial students were permitted telephone and email support. Those who chose the online tutorial support version had access to e-mail and computer conferencing. This study was not as accurate as some other because, the tutors who were participated in the online version, some were inexperienced with providing tutoring in the distance educational format. Only two of the tutors had performed online tutoring support prior to the study taking place, while in comparison with the tutors who were used in the face-to-face side, were staff members who quite possibly had been trained to tutor and were very experienced.
(Price, Richardson, & Jelfs, 2007) According to the United States department of Education, with more than a thousand studies performed on online learning, between 1996-2008 (as cited by Means et al,. 2009) found that the students who participated in e-learning environments outperformed their counterparts in the traditional classroom. (Corrigan, 2012)
To date, numerous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of both convention and online tuition as a valid form of academic intervention, especially in the area of mathematics. Schools across the nation are focusing on mathematics and literacy. “Although tutoring has long been a way for student to get remediation, or even a competitive edge, e-tutoring is a relatively new phenomenon that exploded onto the scene with improvements,” (Corrigan, 2012) Just as with distance learning courses, tutoring works in the same manner when engaged online. There are many different media avenues that technology has allowed for people to participate in online tutoring. Not to mention that some are very cost efficient for the family who cannot afford the $20 per hour tutor. (Kumar, 2012) Some of the avenues include things such as VoIP like Skype; podcasts; interactive white boards and email. With this, it has opened doors for people not to have to search high and low for a tutor who specializes in a specific area because all content areas are in one centralized location. One of the big tutoring service companies is tutor.com. Tutor.com, which has been used personally, has all content areas available. The profile that is built at registration includes information that is pertinent for a tutor to know about their tutee. Tutors are filtered by this information such as the content area, and the grade level, which makes a difference on the level of expertise or understanding is needed to help the tutee with their needs.
Furthermore, while the importance and effectiveness of online tutoring/e-learning/e-tutoring, whichever is preferred, is not the only comparison that is viewed when looking at tutoring services. Other reasons included are cost, convenience/individual attention, and speed. (Corrigan, 2012)
Online tutoring is reasonable when you are looking to cut costs. Some institutes even offer online learning material for free! In addition to the universities offering material for free, the growing fleet of free or paid online tutoring services allows students to get help instantly on video platforms such as YouTube. Financial problems are the most common reason for students to quit traditional tutoring, but online tutoring has given them the opportunity to continue their education. (America.edu)
One of the most attractive benefits of online tutoring over traditional tutoring is convenience. Just as online/distance learning courses, tutoring would work the same way. Traditional tutoring is set on a schedule of a tutor more times than not. When “your” traditional tutor is not available, then a tutee is simply out of luck for that session. With online tutoring services, the tutee is in control. It gives the tutee the opportunity to set their own schedule, pace and hours of study, allowing them to do other things and not setting any time constraints on the tutee that are unreasonable, or unchangeable at any given notice. In a traditional setting, for example in a university classroom, there could be as many as 100 students in the class. Individual attention is not an option for struggling students. They would have to look for outside help or be at the mercy of their instructor’s already busy schedule to get help when needed. With online tutoring, it ensures a student that they can get help whenever they want. Finally there is the speed of the online tutorials as opposed to traditional tutoring. Stated earlier, not every student learns at the same pace. Online tutoring gives a tutee the reassurance that when they have mastered a skill set, that they can move on to the next. In a traditional classroom, teachers have an “objective map.” This map is designed to be taught accordingly. The down side is that, traditional learning is paced as a whole and not on an individual. When a student doesn’t quite get it, the teacher runs the risk of one student not being fully equipped to move on. However, there is a natural speed of things that have to occur in order to meet specific benchmarks for standardized testing and or regular class progression. Tutoring is very similar in that regard. If a tutor is teaching a small group, it runs the same risk as in the student’s classroom. However, online, there is one tutor for each individual and there is no need to rush because there is always a tutor available.
Conclusion
There is no solid proof that one particular form of tutoring is better than the other. However, there is a lot of content that can give people enough information to make a solid and sound decision about how they would like to go about getting tutoring services. On the traditional setting, the most important aspects to think about are whether or not time, location and cost will not interfere with learning. The student or tutees behavior, in regards to how you or they learn and whether or not a physical person is necessary to get a lesson across is very important. Other factors to consider when making a decision are things such as transportation, backup tutors or session, and environments conducive for learning. For online tutoring, cost, convenience, speed, and individual attention are the aspects that would need to be viewed in order to make a sound decisions. Not to mention the affordability of online access and a computer that will meet the requirements to participate in the online environment are other factors that would need to be thought about. However, with all the information provided, either form of tutoring can be sufficient for an individual if based on the right characteristics of the person receiving the tutoring.
References
10TopTenReviews. (2013). Retrieved 2013, from http://online-tutoring- review.toptenreviews.com America.edu. (n.d.). Retrieved July 2013, from America.edu: http://www.america.edu/online_tutoring_vs._traditional_tutoring__which_is_better.html Chi, M. (2011, November 18). ICAP: A Framework for Differentiating Levels of Cognitive
Engagement in "Active learning". Arizona, United States . Retrieved from http://www.nectec.or.th/icce2011/speakers/ICCE2011_michelene_20111118.pdf
Corrigan, J. (2012). The implementation of e-tutoring in secondary schools: A disffusion study. Computers & Education , 59 (3), 925-936.
Dabkowski, B. (2000). The History of Peer Tutoring. Retrieved July 2013, from http://wrt intertext.syr.edu/VIII/dabkowski.html Johnson, G. M., & Bratt, S. E. (2009). Technology education students: e-tutors for school children. British Journal of Eucational Technology , 40 (1), 32-41.
Kumar, R. (2012, March 7). wiredacademic. Retrieved July 2013, from Wired Academic: http://www.wiredacademic.com/2012/03/opinion-online-tutoring-disrupting-traditional-tutor-model-but-expanding-the-tutor-industry/ Mitra, S. (2010, February 5). One Million by One Million Blog. Retrieved July 2013, from
JISC Digital Media: http://www.sramanamitra.com/2010/02/05/online-tutoring-still-in-its-infancy-sylvan-learning-ceo-jeff-cohen-part-3/
Price, L., Richardson, J. T., & Jelfs, A. (2007). Face-to-face versus online tutoring support in distance education. Studies in Higher Education , 32 (1), 1-20.
Spector, J. M., Merrill, M. D., Merrienboer, J. V., & Driscoll, M. P. (2008). Handbook of
Research on Educational Communications and Technology (Third ed.). New York: Routledge.
VanLehn, K. (2011). The Relative Effectiveness of Human Tutoring, Intelligent Tutoring
Systems, and Other Tutoring Systems. Educational Psychologist , 197-221.
Patricia D. Carter
Liberty University
Introduction
Tutoring has been around for hundreds of years. It has come from tutoring one-on-one to tutoring in groups, peer groups and now even online at a distance. One of the first forms of tutoring, which is still used today, was conceived by a well-known educator by the name of Andrew Bell. This form of tutoring was referred to as "peer tutoring" which is a system of instruction in which learners help each other and learn (themselves) by teaching. Andrew Bell 's initial reasoning behind using peer tutoring was to give under privileged children the opportunity to learn. This method of tutoring has been used and is still being used today in schools and learning centers. It was designed to have the more advanced students to help the students who were challenged in the same area, to understand content better. This allowed for more students to continue to learn a subject and not keep a teacher or instructor from being able to progress further because of …show more content…
students who were falling behind. It was also said to be an effective method because students felt more comfortable when a peer was helping them. Tutoring can teach new content, or it can also be purely remedial. (VanLehn, 2011)
Traditional Tutoring
Conventionally, parents used to hire tutors to help their children overcome weaknesses in particular subject. (Therefore, when someone hears the word tutor, they think of it as a face-to-face time period with someone, who is helping someone with something. According to dictionary.com, a tutor is said to be a private teacher, who typically teaches a single student or a very small group. Now that times are evolving into the state of technological advances, tutoring has entered that very same arena of the use of media and technology. Educational institutions are increasingly relying on online academic support services.” (Corrigan, 2012)
For many children, classroom instruction is supplemented by personal training. As the definition states, Gordon, Morgan, O 'Malley & Ponticell reconfirm that the benefits of tutoring are assumed to arise from one-to-one interaction between a knowledgeable and skilled individual (the tutor) and a less knowledgeable and less skilled individual (the tutee) and the educational standards has led to an increased demand for personal tutors. (Johnson & Bratt, 2009) Services such as e-tutoring have become an asset because it meets the needs for the rising demands of public accountability over standardized testing with decreasing budgets. (Corrigan, 2012)
With the increase, tutoring has become a necessity. "Since at least the fourth century B.C., adapting has been viewed as primary requirement for successful instruction, and adaptive tutoring was the common instructional method until the mid-1800s. (Spector, Merrill, Merrienboer, & Driscoll, 2008) Parents are now leaning towards the online tutoring world because they want to give their children access to as much instruction as they need and on demand.
Coming about of Online Tutoring/ E-learning An e-learner is described as learning facilitated and supported through the use of information and communications technology. (Mitra, 2010) Thanks to digital innovation, students have many more options of seeking help with their studies. (Kumar, 2012) Tutors and e-learning combined has brought about tutoring services that are now available online across the world.
As with the debate of the effectiveness of traditional brick and mortar school learning and online learning, it is the same debate that is being viewed with the effectiveness of online tutoring. In a 2010 article, online tutoring according to Sylvan Learning 's CEO, Jeff Cohen, is still in its infancy. Sylvan Learning started their online delivery in 2001. They took time to do it because they wanted to make sure that they didn 't lose any of the quality of education that they were providing and known for with taking their tutoring to the online world. They have since been very successful in the development of their program and continue to grow their business because it did open up doors for others who possibly did not have access to a learning center in their area. Research shows that, "students who learned via the internet performed as well or better than students in regular school programs." (Johnson & Bratt, 2009) While Sylvan still offers face-to-face tutoring, they have opened up a whole new world for online tutoring in support of education as a whole.
Comparisons
On top 10 reviews, the five highest rated online tutoring services were provided by homeworkhelp.com, followed by tutor.com, eTutor.com, and tutorvista.com.
Sylvan Learning being rated number ten. The way that these services were rated was based on account tools, features, payments, and help and support. One of the hardest things about traditional tutoring has to adhere to a specific time frame. Things that have to be taken into account with face-to-face tutoring are things such as time, location, price, and personalities of the tutor and tutee. When determining an online tutoring service or online tutor, you need mostly be concerned with the price and being the fact that technology is involved, then the specifications of your computer and internet connection in addition to the price of the service is very
important.
It’s been questioned, how a tutor can effectively give guidance to a person who needs help in school or in content. The first way to find out how the two main types of tutoring pair up with each other, it must first be understood what each are capable of in depth.
As stated earlier, face-to-face tutoring involves a private teacher, typically one who teaches a single student or a very small group. They provide guidance and feedback to a student on a specialized topic or subject. Traditional tutoring is referred to in some cases as "human tutoring." VanLehn argues that tutoring can be done as a supplement to the students ' classroom instruction or as a replacement such as with home schooling. (VanLehn, 2011)
Research shows that it is commonly believed that traditional tutors are more effective than computer tutors when both teach the same content. Then there is additional research that has been looked at that showed that ultimately, untraditional tutoring such as distance learning or distance tutoring has proven just the same.
Some of the ways that make traditional tutoring effective are how a tutor can infer an accurate, detailed assessment of the tutee which can give them a better understanding of how they will need to present their sessions to the tutee during their tutoring sessions. On the other hand, when a tutee is being tutored on line, this is not an issue. The tutor does not have the opportunity to build a rapport with their tutee. In most instances, the way that the tutoring sessions are designed online, tutees will more than likely not have the same tutor for each session that they are engaged in, meaning that online tutors cannot make the same assessment of their tutees. Thus in theory they simply create a learning environment based on the content that is needed to be learned, and it is taught. Face-to-face tutoring in essence is tutee-based and the online learning environment is content-based.
In a study provided by Sleeman, Eklly, Martinak, Ward, & Moore, when a tutor is placed in the same position as an online tutor, their effectiveness is no different. One study showed that when a traditional tutor was unaware of their tutees strengths, weaknesses, preferences, and so on, they were no more effective when they moved around for different tutees as an online tutor.
Building on the last reason why traditional face-to-face tutoring is assumed to be better, it is in theory, better, because a face-to face tutor would be able to prepare and provide their tutee with "exactly" what their tutee needs to learn. The tutor is able to get an understanding of the steps that their tutee have already mastered and build on that. Just as a teacher does when they prepare their lessons for their classes, a tutor would have the ability and opportunity to create different ways to teach their tutee a certain concept. It is more personalized to the tutee so that in theory that student can achieve a better understanding in a "more effective" manner for the way that they need to learn. However, with this argument, computer based tutoring is able to simply rely on the steps and needs for the content to be learned and not paced, giving the online tutoring another advantage to being more effective than the traditional tutor.
Another characteristic of how some believe that traditional tutoring is more effective is because of the personal dialogue that would exist in the tutoring session. The teacher can ask questions as well as a student is able to ask and they can give each other answers immediately. The one thing about this is that, when the tutoring session ends, if the tutee needs additional help later, outside of their normally scheduled session, they would more than likely have to wait to ask that question the next time they have a tutoring session. However, with the way that online tutoring is set up, a tutee has the ability to simply log into their accounts and ask a question immediately to any tutor that is currently available. This being how student are able to learn more, because they are not limited to the one or two hours per day or week that traditional tutoring offer. There is a tutor available 24/7 for tutees.
In theory, it is also believed that, “the effectiveness of human tutoring perhaps may be due to increasing the motivation of students,” (5) thus, giving the impression that having a “warm body,” present to give praise is helpful. However, in a study that was conducted, Lepper et al (1993) found that some tutors give negative feedback to incorrect answers. In this instance it can be inferred that having a tutor present, can actually harm a tutee more than help them. In retrospect, it shows that with the online tutoring, being that it’s been established that online tutors do not have a vested interest or a rapport with each of their tutees, its more effective because they are capable of giving negative and/or positive feedback where due.
On the subject of feedback, traditionally, “tutors help students both monitor their reasoning and repair flaws. As long as the student seems to be making progress, the tutor does not intervene, but as soon as the student gets stuck or makes a mistake, the tutor can help the student resolve the lack of knowledge and get moving again. (As cited by Merrill et al., 1992) This is a good concept and is one good reason of how traditional tutoring could possibly be more effective than that of an online tutor. With online tutors, feedback is immediate; however, they are unable to stop a student in their tracks instantaneously when a mistake is made. When it comes down to the framework of the tutoring sessions, traditional tutoring and online tutoring will ultimately depend on the type of tutee that they are tutoring. Every person learns differently as in a classroom, the same concept would need to be followed for tutoring, as it is an extension of instruction. According to an article, VanLehn, shows that there are three types of student behaviors that should be taken into account when deciding the type of tutoring that a student would need. There is passive, active, constructive, and interactive, student behavior, which is thought to predict the order of effectiveness.
“A passive student behavior would be attending to the presented instructional information without additional physical activity.” (VanLehn, 2011) This meaning that the student is listening or paying attention, however, there is no sign of note taking or something as simple as just reading a text. This type of student is only receiving the information that is being provided. This type of student would best be suited for online tutoring, mainly because it would be interactive and engaging for the student. This would demand for the tutee to become involved in his/her learning.
“An active student behavior would include doing something physically.” (VanLehn, 2011) Thus, this type of student could do either traditional or online tutoring mainly because interaction takes place with traditional tutoring as well as use of the computer or other media technology is being used for online tutoring.
“A constructive student behavior requires producing outputs that contain ideas that go beyond the presented information such as self-explaining a text or drawing a concept map.” (VanLehn, 2011) This type of student/tutee would be able to engage in either form of tutoring as well. They are able to pose questions, form hypotheses, compare and contrast ideas of what they have been learning. Both a traditional and online tutor would be able to give feedback for this type of tutee.
Finally there is the “interactive” student. This behavior can be satisfied with either form of tutoring as well. The interactive student “includes co-construction and other collaborative spoken activities that are currently beyond the state of the art in computer tutoring.” (Chi, 2011) states that interaction does not have to be via dialog.
Keeping all of these behaviors in mind when choosing which format of tutoring is better for a tutee, is one of the key factors of whether or not a type is more effective than the other.
In another case study done in 2002, a course was offered to a group of undergraduate students who were permitted to choose which version of the course they preferred to take. This group consisted of 52 students who chose to complete the course with online tutorial support and a random sample of 102 students who had completed the course with the traditional face-to-face tutorial support. The students all received questionnaires at the end of the study. A total of 99 students, which represented 645 of the participants were reviewed. The proportion of females respondents was somewhat greater on the online version of the course 970%) than on the face-to-face version of the course (53%), but the difference was not statistically significant. The students were assessed by their coursework and an exam that was not permitted for use in the study. There was a difference in scoring, giving the more effective medal to those who participated in the face-to-face tutorial over the online tutorial. However, the face-to-face tutorial students were permitted telephone and email support. Those who chose the online tutorial support version had access to e-mail and computer conferencing. This study was not as accurate as some other because, the tutors who were participated in the online version, some were inexperienced with providing tutoring in the distance educational format. Only two of the tutors had performed online tutoring support prior to the study taking place, while in comparison with the tutors who were used in the face-to-face side, were staff members who quite possibly had been trained to tutor and were very experienced.
(Price, Richardson, & Jelfs, 2007) According to the United States department of Education, with more than a thousand studies performed on online learning, between 1996-2008 (as cited by Means et al,. 2009) found that the students who participated in e-learning environments outperformed their counterparts in the traditional classroom. (Corrigan, 2012)
To date, numerous studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of both convention and online tuition as a valid form of academic intervention, especially in the area of mathematics. Schools across the nation are focusing on mathematics and literacy. “Although tutoring has long been a way for student to get remediation, or even a competitive edge, e-tutoring is a relatively new phenomenon that exploded onto the scene with improvements,” (Corrigan, 2012) Just as with distance learning courses, tutoring works in the same manner when engaged online. There are many different media avenues that technology has allowed for people to participate in online tutoring. Not to mention that some are very cost efficient for the family who cannot afford the $20 per hour tutor. (Kumar, 2012) Some of the avenues include things such as VoIP like Skype; podcasts; interactive white boards and email. With this, it has opened doors for people not to have to search high and low for a tutor who specializes in a specific area because all content areas are in one centralized location. One of the big tutoring service companies is tutor.com. Tutor.com, which has been used personally, has all content areas available. The profile that is built at registration includes information that is pertinent for a tutor to know about their tutee. Tutors are filtered by this information such as the content area, and the grade level, which makes a difference on the level of expertise or understanding is needed to help the tutee with their needs.
Furthermore, while the importance and effectiveness of online tutoring/e-learning/e-tutoring, whichever is preferred, is not the only comparison that is viewed when looking at tutoring services. Other reasons included are cost, convenience/individual attention, and speed. (Corrigan, 2012)
Online tutoring is reasonable when you are looking to cut costs. Some institutes even offer online learning material for free! In addition to the universities offering material for free, the growing fleet of free or paid online tutoring services allows students to get help instantly on video platforms such as YouTube. Financial problems are the most common reason for students to quit traditional tutoring, but online tutoring has given them the opportunity to continue their education. (America.edu)
One of the most attractive benefits of online tutoring over traditional tutoring is convenience. Just as online/distance learning courses, tutoring would work the same way. Traditional tutoring is set on a schedule of a tutor more times than not. When “your” traditional tutor is not available, then a tutee is simply out of luck for that session. With online tutoring services, the tutee is in control. It gives the tutee the opportunity to set their own schedule, pace and hours of study, allowing them to do other things and not setting any time constraints on the tutee that are unreasonable, or unchangeable at any given notice. In a traditional setting, for example in a university classroom, there could be as many as 100 students in the class. Individual attention is not an option for struggling students. They would have to look for outside help or be at the mercy of their instructor’s already busy schedule to get help when needed. With online tutoring, it ensures a student that they can get help whenever they want. Finally there is the speed of the online tutorials as opposed to traditional tutoring. Stated earlier, not every student learns at the same pace. Online tutoring gives a tutee the reassurance that when they have mastered a skill set, that they can move on to the next. In a traditional classroom, teachers have an “objective map.” This map is designed to be taught accordingly. The down side is that, traditional learning is paced as a whole and not on an individual. When a student doesn’t quite get it, the teacher runs the risk of one student not being fully equipped to move on. However, there is a natural speed of things that have to occur in order to meet specific benchmarks for standardized testing and or regular class progression. Tutoring is very similar in that regard. If a tutor is teaching a small group, it runs the same risk as in the student’s classroom. However, online, there is one tutor for each individual and there is no need to rush because there is always a tutor available.
Conclusion
There is no solid proof that one particular form of tutoring is better than the other. However, there is a lot of content that can give people enough information to make a solid and sound decision about how they would like to go about getting tutoring services. On the traditional setting, the most important aspects to think about are whether or not time, location and cost will not interfere with learning. The student or tutees behavior, in regards to how you or they learn and whether or not a physical person is necessary to get a lesson across is very important. Other factors to consider when making a decision are things such as transportation, backup tutors or session, and environments conducive for learning. For online tutoring, cost, convenience, speed, and individual attention are the aspects that would need to be viewed in order to make a sound decisions. Not to mention the affordability of online access and a computer that will meet the requirements to participate in the online environment are other factors that would need to be thought about. However, with all the information provided, either form of tutoring can be sufficient for an individual if based on the right characteristics of the person receiving the tutoring.
References
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