Survey shows shift in attitude towards online learning since lockdown
The survey of 2,063 users of the Bramble live online teaching platform reveals the wholesale shift in attitudes towards online learning since the pandemic struck.
“The shift from in-person to online tutoring is not just for the lockdown”
Of the respondents, 73% were UK-based. Canada (12%), the US (4%), Singapore (4%) and Australia (2%) round out the top five.
Some 60% were tutors and 28% students. Parents (7%) and tutoring organisations such as charities and commercial tuition agencies (5%) also took part.
Teachers who also tutor made up 17% of all tutor responses – 91% of them expected at least some of their classroom teaching to remain online over the next 12 months, while 87% expected live online teaching platforms to have a role in supporting classroom teaching over the next 12 months.
Before the lockdown, 82% of all tutors surveyed said they did no online tutoring and just 6% were online only.
This figure has dramatically flipped following the pandemic – nearly every tutor (99%) say that at least some of their tutoring work will be online over the next 12 months, with 87% saying that at least half will be online.
Of those, more than a third (35%) said that their tutoring would be exclusively online.
Tutors said online tutoring improves upon, or equals, the in-person approach – 72% claimed it was more effective or as effective.
Some 84% of students agree that online tutoring is just more effective or as effective, than being tutored in person
Searchable lesson recordings are proving popular with students, with nearly three quarters (73%) saying that they were likely or very likely to use searchable lesson recordings for learning and revision over the next 12 months.
Parents see more flexible lesson scheduling, more relaxed and focused learning and searchable lesson recordings as the key benefits of online tutoring, with the safeguarding guarantees of lesson recording and a greater choice of tutors as other benefits.
Of these tutoring organisations, 71% believed that at least half of their tutoring would take place online over the next year.
These organisations said the ability to reach more students, work with a wider pool of tutors and deliver more tutoring were primary benefits to them.
“The survey shows that the shift from in-person to online tutoring is not just for the lockdown,” said Will Chambers, Bramble co-founder.
“It also dispels the myth that online tutoring is inferior. Online tutoring is now the most likely way tutors will teach their students for at least the next 12 months, and likely much further beyond that.
“It’s a dramatic change that’s been driven by necessity but there is now a widespread realisation amongst tutors as well as students and parents that tutoring online is just as effective – and for many even more effective – than the in0person approach that was so prevalent just a few months ago,” he added.
Bramble has hosted more than 280,000 hours of live teaching and learning in 123 countries – 21 times greater usage compared to a year ago – since it was made freely available to tutors and teachers worldwide in early March as the lockdown loomed.