Tutoring
Tutoring is private academic help, usually provided by an expert teacher; someone with deep knowledge or defined expertise in a particular subject or set of subjects.
For other uses, see Tutor (disambiguation).A tutor, formally also called an academic tutor, is a person who provides assistance or tutelage to one or more people on certain subject areas or skills. The tutor spends a few hours on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis to transfer their expertise on the topic or skill to the student (also called a tutee). Tutoring can take place in different settings.
Costs of tutoring[edit]
Some studies have estimated costs associated with "shadow education". In Pakistan, expenditures on tutoring per child averaged $3.40 a month in 2011. In India, average spending was lower, but still equated to about $12.51 per month.[14]
In Georgia, household expenditures for private tutoring at the secondary school level was $48 million in 2011.[15] In Hong Kong, the business of providing private tutoring to secondary schools reached $255 million in 2011.[16]
In India, a 2008 survey estimated the size of the private tutoring sector to be $6.4 billion.[17] In Japan, families spent $12 billion in 2010 on private tutoring.[9]
In South Korea, where the government has attempted to cool down the private tutoring market, shadow education costs have nonetheless continually grown, reaching $17.3 billion in 2010. Household expenditures on private tutoring are equivalent to about 80% of government expenditures on public education for primary and secondary students.[18]
In the United States, the tutoring market is fragmented. Some online tutoring marketplaces, however, have managed to aggregate a large number of private tutors on their platform and also tutoring data. For example, one such site has over 34,000 registered tutors in California and made public their tutoring hourly rate data.[19]
In the United Kingdom, the cost of tuition is dependent upon a variety of factors such as subject, level (Key Stages, GCSE or A-Level), tutor experience and whether the lesson takes place virtually or in person. If you are looking to receive online tutoring from a qualified UK teacher with a verified certificate it will cost between £30 & 40 per hour. It is also common in the UK to apply for tutoring sessions through your local school if you are struggling to help subsidise the cost through the National Tuition Programme.[20]
Effectiveness[edit]
Research supports the literature that students who seek and receive tutoring services outperformed their counterparts.[21] However, private tutoring is not always effective in raising academic achievement; and in some schools students commonly skip classes or sleep through lessons because they are tired after excessive external study. This means that the shadow system can make regular schooling less efficient.[3]
In many countries, individuals can become tutors without training. In some countries, including Cambodia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Lao PDR, and Tajikistan, the pattern of classroom teachers supplementing their incomes by tutoring students after school hours is more a necessity than a choice, as many teachers’ salaries hover close to the poverty line.[3]
In South Korea, the number of private tutors expanded roughly 7.1% annually on average from 2001 to 2006, and by 2009 the sector was the largest employer of graduates from the humanities and social sciences.[22]
Teachers who spend more time focusing on private lessons than regular classes can cause greater inefficiencies in the mainstream school system. Situations in which teachers provide extra private lessons for pupils for whom they are already responsible in the public system can lead to corruption, particularly when teachers deliberately teach less in their regular classes in order to promote the market for private lessons.[23]
When private tutoring is provided by well trained tutor however the effects can be dramatic, with pupils improving performance by two standard deviations,[24][25] a result known as Bloom's 2 sigma problem.
Effects[edit]
Academic performance[edit]
Studies have found that peer tutoring provides academic benefits for learners across the subject areas of "reading, mathematics, science, and social studies"[40] Peer tutoring has also been found to be an effective teaching method in enhancing the reading comprehension skills of students, especially that of students with a low academic performance at the secondary level in schools. Additionally, peer tutoring has been proven especially useful for those with learning disabilities at the elementary level, while there is mixed evidence showing the effectiveness of peer tutoring for those at the secondary level.[40]
One study suggests that phonologically based reading instruction for first-graders at risk for learning disability can be delivered by non-teachers. In the study, non-certified tutors gave students intensive one-to-one tutoring for 30 minutes, 4 days a week for one school year. The students outperformed untutored control students on measures of reading, spelling, and decoding; with effect sizes ranging from .42 to 1.24. The tutoring included instruction in phonological skills, letter-sound correspondence, explicit decoding, rime analysis, writing, spelling, and reading phonetically controlled text. Although the effects diminished at the end of second grade, the tutored students continued to significantly outperform untutored students in decoding and spelling.[41]
Economic effects[edit]
Although certain types of tutoring arrangements can require a salary for the tutor, typically tutoring is free of cost and thus financially affordable for learners. The cost-effectiveness of tutoring can prove to be especially beneficial for learners from low-income backgrounds or resource-strapped regions.[42] In contrast, paid tutoring arrangements can create or further highlight socioeconomic disparities between low-income, middle-income and high-income populations. A study found that access to private tutoring was less financially affordable for low-income families, who thus benefited less from private tutoring as compared to high-income populations, who had the resources to profit from private tutoring.[43]
Issues[edit]
Tutoring as "shadow education"[edit]
Tutoring has also emerged as a supplement to public and private schooling in many countries. The supplementary nature of tutoring is a feature in the domain of what some scholars have termed "shadow education".[44] Shadow education has been defined as "a set of educational activities that occur out side formal schooling and are designed to enhance the student's formal school career."[45] The term "shadow" has four components to it: firstly, the existence of and need for tutoring is produced by the existence of the formal education system; secondly, the formal education system is the mainstream system and thus tutoring is its shadow; thirdly, the focus remains on mainstream education in schools; fourthly, tutoring is largely informal and unstructured as compared to formal or mainstream education.[46] As a consequence of the popularity of shadow education, private tutoring can sometimes overshadow mainstream education with more priority given to enrolling in private tutoring centers. Mark Bray claims that "Especially near the time of major external examinations, schools in some countries may be perceived by pupils to be less able to cater for their specific needs."[44]
Disproportionate use of tutoring services[edit]
In a 2009 research performed by the Institute of Education Sciences, statistics show that for the 2006–07 years, only 22 percent of students received tutoring services out of the 60 percent of those whose parents reported receiving information about the services. Conversely, only 13 percent of students receive tutoring services out of the 43 percent whose parents reported not receiving information about the services.[47]