Examining the Support of Students in e-Learning Context: e-Tutors’ Perspectives

Abstract

Student support received some attention from e-learning institutions but with some caution in the extent of empirical studies where -tutors’ perceptions were explored. The premise of this research paper is to contribute to an understanding of how support is understood from the e-tutors’ perspectives. It also aims to suggest new and alternative support mechanisms for the e-tutors. Six e-tutors were participants in the Design Thinking and Technology course modules for honours students at a distance learning institution. A quantitative approach and web questionnaires were used to collect the data and were analyzed and visualized through pie charts to represent the data. The findings reveal a significant gap in the e-tutors' ability to effectively support students based on the constructs that were developed. This highlights a critical area for improvement in the training and resources provided to e-tutors to enhance the efficacy of online education.