AN EXAMINATION OF THE INTERACTIONS IN FACE-TO-FACE AND ONLINE TUTORIALS

In an effort to expand tutorial services to the wider university community, the American University of Sharjah (AUS) initiated a new type of writing collaboration between tutors and students: on-line tutorials. In Spring 2011, writing center tutors began conducting tutorials using a synchronous chat program (gtalk) and a collaborative whiteboard platforms (Google Documents). Although tutors were briefed on how to use the technology for their tutorial sessions, training did not specifically address on-line tutoring pedagogical strategies. Tutors had been trained in a semester-long course using the principles and guidelines of face-to-face tutoring. This paper will present the preliminary findings of a small scale empirical study comparing synchronous conference-based online writing instruction (OWI) to face-to-face tutoring received at the AUS Writing Center. In an effort to enhance the effectiveness of the tutor training program, an examination of the differences in the interactions and types of interactions for face-to-face and online tutoring will be examined. Data will be collected from ten tutorial sessions: ten online and ten face-to-face tutoring sessions will be randomly selected for analysis. Hewett's linguistic analysis (2005) will be adapted for this analysis allowing for qualitative content analysis, and analysis of the incidence of types of questions and interactions will be analyzed statistically. This study is designed to identify best practices for on-line writing instruction for non-native speakers of English, changes that might be made in the program, and development of training for tutors to improve a collaborative model of tutoring.