Do tutors make a difference in online learning? A comparative study in two Open Online Courses | Zendy

Richard F Heller | Zendy; Edward Chilolo | Zendy; J. Elliott | Zendy; Brian Johnson | Zendy; David J. Lipman | Zendy; Victoria Oze | Zendy; Justin Richards | Zendy

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Do tutors make a difference in online learning? A comparative study in two Open Online Courses

Author(s) -

Richard F Heller,

Edward Chilolo,

J. Elliott,

Brian Johnson,

David J. Lipman,

Victoria Oze,

Justin Richards

Publication year - 2019

Publication title -

open praxis

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

eISSN - 2304-070X

pISSN - 1369-9997

DOI - 10.5944/openpraxis.11.3.960

Subject(s) - tutor , massive open online course , online course , open university , significant difference , mathematics education , online learning , computer science , medical education , psychology , distance education , multimedia , medicine

Two free fully online courses were offered by Peoples-uni on its Open Online Courses site, both as self-paced courses available any time and as courses run over four weeks with tutor-led discussions. We tested the hypothesis that there are no measurable differences in outcomes between the two delivery methods. Similar numbers attended both versions of each course; students came from multiple countries and backgrounds. Numbers of discussion forum posts were greater in tutor-led than self-paced courses. Measured outcomes of certificates of completion, quiz completion and marks gained were very similar and not statistically significantly different between the tutor-led and the self-paced versions of either course. In light of little discernible difference in outcome between self-paced learning compared with courses including tutor-led discussions, the utility of the time cost to tutors is in question. The findings may be relevant to others designing online courses, including MOOCs.

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