Use of instant messaging communication in tutoring undergraduate students

Abstract

Some undergraduate courses require students to submit individual essay assignments as the summative assessment. These students are required to work on their own topic and complete a written report with or without oral presentation. These students need to be guided and supported in completing the report. This paper aims to study the use of two teaching methods as well as the use of student support in form of electronic communication (instant messaging) for tutoring a group of undergraduate students. Some survey data and electronic communication made (between the students and their tutor) during the period are collected and analyzed in this study. The impact of using two tutoring methods and instant messaging on the student assessment marks is studied. It is found that the average assessment marks for the two tutoring methods used are not much different. Besides, the use of instant messaging can help some students to perform better in their assignment report.