The relationship between tutoring mode and learners' use of help tools in distance education

[fr] 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.

Disciplines :

Education & instruction

Author, co-author :

De Lièvre, Bruno ; Université de Mons > Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education > Ingénierie pédagogique et numérique éducatif

Depover, Christian ; Université de Mons > Faculté de Psychologie et des Sciences de l'Education > Technologie de l'éducation

Dillenbourg, Pierre

Language :

French

Title :

The relationship between tutoring mode and learners' use of help tools in distance education

Publication date :

01 June 2006

Journal title :

Instructional Science

ISSN :

0020-4277

Publisher :

Kluwer Academic Publishers, Netherlands

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

97-129

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Research unit :

P303 - Pédagogie générale et médias éducatifs
P304 - Technologie de l'éducation

Available on ORBi UMONS :

since 07 October 2010

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