Online tutorials and active participation – what do students think?

The survey tells us that 59% of students agreed with the statement ‘I enjoy online tutorials where I can actively take part’. This is a promising start; there are links between enjoying learning and successful motivation, interest, and engagement (see for example, Okada & Sheehy, 2020). Indeed, when we move from ‘enjoy’ to recognising ‘benefit’ 66% of students agree with the statement ‘I think there is a benefit to me if I actively take part in online tutorials’. However…

When asked to comment on the statement ‘I feel stressed in online tutorials when I am expected to actively take part’ 33% of students agreed. This is a sizeable proportion of students. Indeed, this may be driving an observed trend whereby students prefer to watch recordings of online tutorials than partake synchronously. For example, on a recent Faculty of Business and Law (FBL) module with over 1,800 registered students, analysis shows that recordings of tutorials were watched by 51% more students than attended synchronously. In an associated question, the statement ‘I feel confident speaking in online tutorials’ attracted only 35% agreement. These findings suggests that online tutors need to be aware of the stress that participation may cause. Accordingly imposing participation may cause a negative association with online tutorials. This is particularly challenging in an online environment, where tutors may be deprived of the visual cues showing discomfort that might be more obvious in a face-to-face setting. We also need to ask whether the style of online tutorial has an impact.

49% of students agreed with the statement ‘In online tutorials the tutor's role is to teach facts’. However, this rises to 69% for FBL students. In a similar vein the statement ‘Thinking and reasoning processes are more important than specific module content’ only 34% of students agreed. Just under half, 48%, of students preferred online tutorials where the tutor does the talking. Only 31% of students agreed with the statement ‘Students learn best by finding solutions to questions and problems on their own’. This suggests students, and especially business and law students, prefer to be given information and methods in the traditional manner, rather than being taught learning processes or encouraged to learn by discovery.

We can bring these last two findings together and ask why students have not participated actively in the past. The top responses are given in this chart:

The top reason given was that students simply did not wish to partake actively, ‘I was happy to just listen’. This lends some support for traditional ways of teaching with the expert transferring knowledge to the student. Also, students express a lack of confidence in their knowledge. Other reasons include being worried about what other students might think. This is presumably the perennial fear of asking a ‘stupid’ question. There is also the problem that the student had not yet arrived at the appropriate part of the module. Clearly a lack of confidence is behind a few of these responses. If module teams are going to encourage active participation, then they need to build-in confidence building activities as part of the design.