The Relationship Between Tutoring Mode and Learners’ use of Help Tools in Distance Education |
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Authors: | Bruno De Lièvre Christian Depover Pierre Dillenbourg |
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Institution: | (1) Educational Technology Unit, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Mons-Hainaut, Place du Parc, 18-B-7000 Mons, Belgium;(2) Craft – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland |
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Abstract: | This article presents an experimental study demonstrating how 120 learners use help tools in a virtual learning set-up. More
specifically, several types of tutoring are investigated to find out the extent of the use of help tools in each. The effects
of two independent variables which may have an impact on the behaviour of learners are studied: (1) whether or not they have
access to a human tutor (HT) and (2) the tutor’s means of intervention (reactive or proactive). One of the goals of the study
is to determine whether these modes of tutoring can influence positively or negatively distance learners’ use of lexical,
conceptual, metacognitive and navigational help tools. The results of analysis of variance show that it is useless to prompt
(effect of proactivity) learners to use the help that is available to them but that prompting is sometimes more subtle than
initially foreseen. It appears that the presence of an HT pushes learners to use help tools, but this effect (of the presence
of the HT) is still relatively weak and therefore may not justify the cost of employing a human tutor. It is also important
to show the necessary intrinsic quality of the tools made available in order for a given mode of tutoring to have an effect
on their use. |
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Keywords: | experimental study distance learning virtual learning tutoring help tools human tutor computerised tutor proactive tutor reactive tutor |
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