Tutor strategies in face-to-face and distance tutorial sessions: tutor and student perceptions

Abstract

As university populations become increasingly dependent on distance learning and support services for distance learning, writing centers progressively offer services by telephone, email, or virtual worlds in addition to the traditional face-to-face tutorials. The University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Writing Center offers a "telephone tutorial" service for students from remote locations who fax their papers to a tutor who then conducts a tutorial session over the telephone. This study investigates tutor strategies in face-to-face and telephone tutorial sessions and tutor and student perceptions of effectiveness. I audio recorded 30 tutorial sessions with five tutors in six sessions each, half in a face-to-face setting and half via telephone. After each tutorial session I conducted semi-structured interviews with the student and the tutor. Following data collection, I conducted a member check with each of the tutors and an in-depth interview with the UAF Writing Center Director. I then transcribed, coded and analyzed the data from the audiorecording. Results indicate that the use of affective strategies positively influenced both student and tutor evaluations of a session's effectiveness.