25th April 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A study this week showed that students don’t use help offered to them in the correct way when they are struggling with a subject. A report on the Education Week website explains how students responded to an online tuition program when they were unable to find the correct answer to a question, and in many cases it was shown that students were seeking to ‘cheat’ just to find the correct answer, rather than genuinely trying to learn.
The study initially was very simple. It posed a problem to the students, and recorded the time between responses, and how often each student clicked a ‘hint’ button, which would give increased help, before finally giving the answer. The results showed that students sought help only 25% of the time when struggling, and those that did seek help often simply clicked the hint button repeatedly to get to the answer instantly.
The program was then made more sophisticated, and an interactive tutor would identify when a student was repeatedly clicking the hint button, or was guessing at an answer, rather than asking for help. The tutor would stop students from doing what they wanted to do, and asked them to reflect on the last hint and consider whether it help them to solve the problem. Although not dramatically, this online tutor did reduce the number of students ‘cheating’ to get to the answer, or guessing answers.
The importance of the study is that it can help us to understand how students respond when having difficulties. It identifies students who don’t know when to seek help, and don’t take time to consider their learning process. Over time it’s thought that requiring students to think about the way in which they learn will help them to become better learners. Obviously this is something which a private tutor, or even a mechanical online tutor can do, but it’s much more difficult in a classroom situation.