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

• Main Authors: Richard Frederick Heller, Edward Chilolo, Jonny Elliott, Brian Johnson, David Lipman, Victoria Ononeze, Justin Richards
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) 2019-11-01
• Series: Open Praxis
• Subjects: open online courses, tutors, outcomes, student engagement, motivation, self-paced learning
• Online Access: https://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/960

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.