ONLINE TUTOR-STUDENT INTERACTION COULD COMPENSATE THE LACK OF MOTIVATIONAL EFFECTS THAT CHARACTERIZE FACE-TO-FACE LEARNING

摘要

It is well known that students in a blended-learning system (a hybrid learning system that facilitates the use of E-learning tools as a complementary resource to face-to-face lectures) have less opportunity to personally interact with their tutors. We studied this issue by considering the relative effect of tutors' online behavior on students' overall performance by using the Learning Management System (LMS) of the Arab Open University in Kuwait. We found a considerable discrepancy in the way and amount of time tutors interacted online with their students. Not only the frequency of using the LMS by students was affected in response to tutors' online activity, but also students' overall performance in the corresponding courses. A linear correlation between tutor's online activity and students' overall performance in the corresponding courses suggests that the frequent use of the LMS by tutors could compensate the lack of motivational effects that may otherwise proliferate through face-to-face interactions between tutors and students in the traditional learning system. These findings imply that as tutoring in higher educational institutions shifts from pure face-to-face lectures to embedding E-learning components, tutors should correspondingly shift their behavioral repertoire to increasingly depend on the LMS when interacting with their students.