These days I'm a bit less active on my blog because I'm struggling with the statistic analysis of the surveys and data about tutor support for the E-business course that is delivered through a virtual classroom (for more info on the course check one of my previous posts). And so it is only fair to share some findings that already surfaced during the analysis. I actually found out that tutor's activity (i. e. number of post) has significant positive effects on how students grade their tutor. However, the number of students' posts shows no correlation with the number of posts from the online tutor. In other words - students have to write a certain number of posts to complete the task anyway and the number of posts by the tutor serves mainly to increase the satisfaction with the tutor's work. What the tutor usually does in his/her posts is to answer questions, lead students in the right direction and that is why it is not surprising that students are more satisfied with e-learning in general and are able to focus on learning and not on their doubts and technical problems. Also, the frequency with which the tutor checks in the virtual classroom positively affects the grades students assign to their tutor. Of course, these results are mainly based on quantitative analysis and don't say much about the quality of post, but I think they represent a good starting point for further development of tutor support (and also future training courses for online tutors).

So, that's just a brief update on my research work and findings. If you've got similar experiences to share or questions about my research feel free to leave a note :)


Originally published at http://ialja.blogspot.com/2006/11/online-tutors-and-student-satisfaction.html