Is Tutoring Worth It?

As a parent, all you want is for your child to succeed. If you are considering tutoring lessons for them, you are probably weighing up the pros and cons. Tutoring can be costly, and you may find yourself wondering is it worth it? I strongly believe that tutoring is worth both the money and the time and I will explain this more thoroughly so you can make an informed decision for your child. There are three main reasons as to why tutoring is a great tool for students. Firstly and most obviously, it improves academic performance. Secondly, it boosts confidence. Finally, it provides an individual and unique learning experience.

Improve Academic Performance

The most apparent benefit to tutoring is that it improves academic performance. In 1984, an educational psychologist by the name of Benjamin Bloom published a study on the benefits of one-on-one tutoring. His results concluded that students who receive one-on-one tutoring perform two standard deviations higher than the average student in a normal classroom environment.

But…. How does it actually improve academic performance?

There are different ways tutoring improves academic performance. Firstly, it offers deeper learning. During the school year, there are so many topics to cover, it is hard for students to keep up. One-on-one tutoring offers students the opportunity to take their time covering one topic and explore it more in depth. They can focus on that one topic until they’ve mastered it and are completely confident with no pressure from their peers or their teacher. The job of the tutor is quite literally to help the student with what they request - therefore a student could spend as long as they like on a particular topic.

Following on from this, is the idea of repetition as a way of improving academic performance in tutoring. Because tutors don’t necessarily have any ‘deadlines’ to reach with their students, they can take their time to ensure each concept has been thoroughly covered. One way they do this is by using repetition in learning. Repetition strengthens learning by giving students multiple opportunities to engage with new information or skills. Encountering material several times in different contexts increases familiarity and improves recall. This repeated exposure helps shift information from short-term to long-term memory, making it more likely that students will remember what they’ve learned. Tutors generally offer the student homework at the end of each lesson which also helps with repetition and reinforcing a particular topic. Specifically, at Cell Tuition, we assign homework at the end of each lesson based on the topic of that session. This ensures that over the week, the student will keep engaging with the topic - improving recall.

Boosts Confidence and Relationships

There are more than just academic benefits to tutoring. It turns out, there are psychological benefits too. An increase in confidence is one of the most noticeable changes in students who receive tutoring - second to an increase in academic performance. When students master topics that they previously struggled with, they start to believe in their own capabilities more. This confidence can transfer into the classroom, where they may start to 2 participate more actively, by asking and answering questions, and take on challenges they would have previously avoided.

Being in a class of 30 students can be overwhelming for many. When I was in school, I never asked or answered questions because I was so scared of making a mistake. What if I spoke too quietly and the teacher couldn’t hear me? What if I asked a question that everyone else knew the answer to? What if I answered the question wrong? There were just too many ‘what ifs’. However, when I started seeing a tutor for mathematics, those fears slowly disappeared. Being in a one-on-one environment gave me the confidence to ask and answer as many questions as I liked without the fear of judgement. Eventually this confidence transferred to school as well and I was able to answer and ask questions in class too.

Individual and Unique Learning Experience

Understandably, tutoring can seem very costly, and that may hinder you from signing up your child. Although this is a valid concern, the truth is, very rarely will the teachers at school be able to help your child with the same efficiency as a tutor.

Having 30 students in one class for only one hour makes it very hard for a teacher to equally spread their time and give the students the one-on-one help they may require to succeed in their particular subject. One of the benefits of tutoring is the individual and unique learning experience it offers.

Whether it's done online or in person, tutoring is usually conducted in a one-on-one environment. In class, your child may struggle to keep up with their peers, or struggle to keep up with the teacher’s instructions. One of the great benefits of tutoring is that being the only student in the room enables your child to go over topics they need to at whatever pace they decide. As time goes on, your child’s tutor will become familiar with their learning style and adjust their teaching approach to suit it - maybe incorporating different learning materials that your child particularly resonates with.

Another crucial part of the unique learning experience of tutoring is the tutor-student relationship. Research indicates that trust plays a vital role in learning from others. If a student trusts their teacher they are more likely to learn better, as trust enhances engagement, motivation, and overall academic performance. As tutoring is an 3 individualized and unique learning experience, it's important that there is a strong tutor-student relationship as this creates the conditions for students to take the risks that are needed to make academic gains. The reality is, teachers in a traditional classroom environment do not have enough time to properly bond with each of their students. This in turn makes it harder for students to learn from them because there is no bond or trust there between them. At Cell Tuition we prioritise having strong connections with our students so that they trust us and feel confident asking us questions - leading to a better, unique learning experience.

Bottom Line:

Ultimately, there are many advantages to tutoring lessons for students. Not only does it improve academic performance, but it also improves confidence, and provides a unique, individual, learning experience. Tutoring is not necessary for every student, but if you think your child is struggling or falling behind in class, then this is probably the best avenue for them. At Cell Tuition, we offer both in-person and online tutoring for students of all ages for a multitude of subjects. We take students all year, so if you think that tutoring is suitable for your child, why not apply today? Reach out to us and we will set your child up with one of our experienced tutors.

References:

BLOOM, B. S. (1984). The 2 Sigma Problem: The Search for Methods of Group Instruction as Effective as One-to-One Tutoring. Educational Researcher, 13(6), 4-16.