Online tutoring is the process of tutoring in an online, virtual, or networked, environment, in which teachers and learners participate from separate physical locations. Aside from space, participants can also be separated by time.
Online tutoring is practiced using many different approaches for distinct sets of users. The distinctions are in content and user interface, as well as in tutoring styles and tutor-training methodologies. Definitions associated with online tutoring vary widely, reflecting the ongoing evolution of the technology, the refinement and variation in online learning methodology, and the interactions of the organizations that deliver online tutoring services with the institutions, individuals, and learners that employ the services. This Internet-based service is a form of micropublishing.
Concept and definitions
An institution, website or individual can offer online tutoring through an internal or external tutoring website or through a learning management systems (LMS). Online environments applied in education could also involve the use of a virtual learning environment platform such as Moodle, Sakai, WebCT, and Blackboard. Some of these are paid systems but some are free and open source such as Google+ Hangouts. Online tutoring may be offered either via a link in an LMS, or directly through the tutoring service's platform, where a subscriber may be required to pay for tutoring time before the delivery of service. Many educational institutions and major textbook publishers sponsor a certain amount of tutoring without a direct charge to the learner.
Tutoring may take the form of a group of learners simultaneously logged in online, then receiving instruction from a single tutor, also known as many-to-one tutoring and live online tutoring. This is often known as e-moderation, defined as the facilitation of the achievement of goals of independent learning, learner autonomy, self-reflection, knowledge construction, collaborative or group-based learning, online discussion, transformative learning and communities of practice.Salmon, G. (2004). (2nd edition). E-moderating: The key to teaching and learning online. London: Routledge Falmer.Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.Mezirow, J. (2000). Learning as transformation: Critical perspectives on a theory in progress. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Schon, D.A. (1987). Educating the reflective practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. These functions of moderation are based on constructivist or social-constructivist principles of learning.
Another form of tutoring, called peer tutoring, connects peers, such as recent or fellow students within a course or subject, tutoring each other, and this may also be conducted as online tutoring over an online conferencing interface.
Most commonly, however, individual learners or their parents either purchase tutoring time with a private vendor of online tutoring service. Such time may also be made available through the purchase of a book, access to a library, a textbook publisher, or enrollment in a particular school or school system. This is known as one-on-one or private tutoring.
Asynchronous online tutoring is tutoring offered in a format in which the learner submits a question and the tutor responds at a later time. This is appropriate to detailed review of writing, for instance. It also enables cautious learners to retain control over how they submit questions and request assistance. The learner and the tutor need not be online at the same time.
Synchronous online tutoring involves a shared interface, such that both the tutor and the learner (or a group of learners) are online at the same time. This may or may not require the implementation of browser-based software and/or the learner to download proprietary software. Some online tutoring services may also use telephonic or VOIP communication, and/or video communication.
There are a number of private firms that provide online tutoring. A third-party online tutoring service offering asynchronous one-on-one tutoring was available as early as 1996.
From the very beginning of online tutoring, controversy surrounded several concerns voiced by educators and parents. Researchers recognized that online tutoring required three components: online tutors adopt a specific pedagogy (educational method), encompassing both instructional and social support or group development; online tutoring management coordinates and organizes the implementation of the service; and unlike traditional face-to-face tutoring, online tutoring requires a usable user interface and technical support to maintain both the hardware and the software sides of the operation. The questions raised by online tutoring include: How does a parent or teacher know that the online tutor is qualified to give help, as opposed to simply giving answers to the learner? Assuming the online tutor is qualified as an instructor, how does online tutoring relate to course instruction? How reliable is the interface? Will it accommodate the discussion of the tutored material at a comparable level to a traditional classroom setting?
Within higher education, tutoring is considered to be adult-to-adult guidance within a specific course or subject for the clear purpose of advancing learning competence in an area of study. Generally, a tutor is an academic, a lecturer or professor who has responsibility for teaching in a degree/diploma program in a university or vocational teaching and learning setting. Learning centers at post-secondary school campuses may incorporate either e-moderating or one-to-one online tutoring, or both, creating a distance learning program, whether or not the campus or student courses are conducted online. In distance learning, tutors may be recruited specifically for the role of teaching and supporting students through online tutoring.
History Online tutoring first emerged in the late 1990s with platforms like Tutor.com (founded in 1998) offering homework help and subject-based support. As broadband internet became widespread in the 2000s, online tutoring platforms grew rapidly. By the early 2010s, services like Chegg Tutors, Wyzant, and Khan Academy were leading the shift toward personalized, flexible online learning.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly accelerated online tutoring adoption as schools moved to remote learning. This shift made virtual tutoring a mainstream solution across education systems worldwide.
In recent years, tutoring platforms have integrated AI, gamification, analytics dashboards, and adaptive learning engines. Some platforms such as Varsity Tutors or Third Space Learning now use AI tutors or assistants to enhance personalized instruction and scalability.
Differences between online and face-to-face tutoring Online tutoring began gaining traction in the late 1990s and early 2000s with the rise of dial-up internet and early platforms like Tutor.com (founded in 1998).
In the 2010s, improved broadband access, video conferencing tools (e.g., Skype, Zoom), and global marketplaces like Wyzant, Preply, and Chegg Tutors fueled adoption.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend further, making online tutoring a mainstream learning method across age groups.
Recent advances now include AI-powered tutoring assistants, automated feedback systems, and interactive learning dashboards.
Practice
Differences between online and face-to-face tutoring
In both online and face-to-face tutoring, similarities lie in the areas of group dynamics, need for roles within the group and design to encourage in-group interaction. Differences include the need for more facilitation to help structure discussions, with group roles emerging more slowly in the online setting.
There is a spectrum of intervention in online discussions from occasional guidance (assignment assistance) to full-scale design and support of learning groups and tasks (instruction). The first of these is known as tactical online tutoring and the second as strategic online tutoring.
Tactical online tutoring
Tactical tutors are expected to display sensitivity to group interactions and progress, or the lack thereof, and to respond within an online interaction at critical moments in which their mastery of the subject and ability to explain it is requested by the learner or in which the learner makes manifest errors. They are more likely than strategic tutors to be employed in one-on-one interfaces. Asynchronous tutoring allows a tutor to convey insight into strengths and weaknesses of a learner's work. Synchronous or live tutoring can provide help at the moment the learner becomes conscious of a problem and logs in.
Private online tutoring services
In general, academic online tutors are available through various virtual learning environments to help learners answer questions on specific subject matter, to help in the writing of essays, and to assist with research. Offerings vary from sites loosely associated with campuses, to sites directly contracted by and operating in concert with educational institutions, textbook publishers, or libraries. Access to the publisher or campus-provided online tutoring may be limited to just a few hours.
Other major concerns of parents or teachers in making use of online tutoring services include: the perceived indifference of an online tutor to a learner's developmental issues that reach beyond a single session; cultural communication difficulties that might arise between remote tutors and a local learner; and doubts as to the academic qualifications of the online tutor, even if certified by a corporation.
Strategic online tutoring
Strategic tutors do more prior planning, including determining the number of learners per groupJacques, D., and Salmon, G (2007) Learning in Groups: A Handbook for on and off line environments, Routledge, London and New York. and membership. Smaller groups are more likely to cultivate trust, whereas a larger group provides for greater heterogeneity and promotes interaction and task achievement. Six is reported to be the smallest size for good online work, and fifteen is the maximum for full participation. For strategic online tutoring, full participation depends upon robust connectivity and efficient use of bandwidth to guarantee full participation.
Design for group learning
The prior design of online activities, sometimes known as e-tivities, is one aspect of strategic tutoring. E-tivities promote peer group learning and result in less online tutoring time. E-tivities have the following characteristics: they can optimise student engagement if they are authentic and relevant learning activities; they can take any form of structured participative group work online; and they are based on one key topic or question to make online e-moderating easy and to provide motivation, engagement and purpose.
Worksheets, online bulletin boards, and threaded discussions are examples of tools for e-tivities. An e-tivity may be an effective learning tool if it has an illustrative title, a stimulus or challenge, involves invitations to learners to post messages, is carefully timed, has postings to which others can add, and summaries, critiques or feedback from the e-moderator.
Online tutors can take a similar approach using podcasts.Salmon, G. and Edirisingha, P. (2008) Podcasting for Learning in Universities, OUP/SHRE Buckingham.
Scaffolding
Two necessary assumptions about online tutors is that they possess academic qualification sufficient to educate and that they have specific training to meet the challenges of online communication. Online tutors also need to be aware of the stages learners usually employ in the online environment; these stages determine the kinds of scaffolding (help) that is appropriate for learners at each stage. Salmon (2004) suggests five stages for learning and scaffolding appropriate to each: