Collaboration improves student interest in online tutoring

Abstract

Prior research indicates that students often experience negative emotions while using online learning environments, and that most of these negative emotions can have a detrimental impact on their behavior and learning outcomes. We investigate the impact of a particular intervention, namely face-to-face collaboration with a neighboring student, on student boredom and frustration. The data comes from a study with 106 middle school students interacting with a mathematics tutor that provided varying levels of collaboration. Students were randomly assigned to a collaboration or no-collaboration condition. Collaboration was associated with reduced boredom: Students who collaborated more frequently reported increased interest.