SIMULATION OF ONLINE TUTORIAL’S POSITIVE INFLUENCE ON EDUCATIONAL PROCESS

Online tutorial provides the alternative for the traditional classes education. However, the alternative will be highly effective for the students who are highly motivated for the learning, well organized and self-disciplined enough not to digress and get distracted by: social medias, as Facebook and Twitter; computer games; watching online serials and films; etc. Online learning is inappropriate method for students who did not have developed those skills.

Online learning is the decision for the students who wants to learn the additional material, they are interested in ad that fits their life aims and their chosen job and carrier needs, or for the students, which didn’t get everything during the traditional classes, either been absent for several lessons, and now they have to catch up with the material[1,2]. Online tutorials are able to use from anywhere and anytime the user wants. There is no need to lose time to commute to the place, which exclude the spending additional time. There is no geographical factor constraining the breadth of choice, which allows to choose from all the possible options. There is no any established learning pace, which allows students to spend as much time on understanding and reflecting on each of the topics before responding to the next one. There is an access to resources and information all around the world. Most of the tutorials are free or cost much less than the traditional learning. All these causes allow to the online tutorial learners to compile the studying in schools or universities or working with the learning the information, provided by these tutorials, at the same time. [3]

Online learning is a good way of learning for people who are used to be introverted or learn through visual cues and them both require more time to understand and grasp the material. The online tutorials learners do not need to make their own notes, because all the material, they would need to remember and use, learners right at the time can check everything at the online tutorial, or store these notes digitally, digital notes are much harder to lose than normal ones and digital notes doesn’t spend any amount of paper or other materials, which is better for the nature.

Online tutorials have a main disadvantage[4], which obscures the layer of the advantages. There is no any opportunity to interact with the teachers or professors or other learners face-to-face, as while during traditional class education. Therefore, led to the lack of attention from the teacher, instructor or professor and face-to-face interactions and feedbacks.

The potential learners of online tutorials have to analyze all the advantages and disadvantages of online learning and tutorials, in order to make a great supported decision under the use of the online tutorials or that the traditional classes education is better for them.

We have developed an educational website, with online tutorials, that would increase student’s knowledge in Python, programming language.

We have made the quiz with 20 questions for ten students, in order to evaluate their knowledge in programming (Python language). The corresponding results are given in figure1 (fig1.).

We asked the same students to learn Python using our website for ten days and repeated the quiz. The corresponding results are given in figure2 (fig2.).

From the figures we can see, that the students have improved their knowledge in Python.

The results are shown in Python plot. The plot shows the dependence of results average meaning from time (plot 1):

Afterwards we have calculated the coefficient of correct and incorrect responses number changing per day:

correctAnswersCoef = ( correctAverageSecond – correctAverageFirst ) / timeInerval

incorrectAnswersCoef = ( incorrectAverageSecond – incorrectAverageFirst ) / timeInerval

correctAverageSecond –average meaning of the correct responses after second interviewing.

correctAverageFirst –average meaning of the correct responses after first interviewing.

incorrectAverageSecond –average meaning of the incorrect responses after second interviewing.

incorrectAverageFirst –average meaning of the incorrect responses after first interviewing.

timeInerval –interval between the first and second interviewing.

We implemented the simulation of study in two future, random periods:

1. in 10 to 20 days, for this we generate the number from 10 to 20, :

timeInterval1 = random.randrange ( timeInerval, 2 * timeInerval )

timeInterval1 – first period.

2. in 20 to 30 days, for this we generate the number from 20 to 30.

timeInterval2 = random.randrange ( 2 * timeInerval, 3 * timeInerval )

timeInterval2 – second period.

We calculated the number of correct and incorrect responses for the first period:

correctResult1 = correctAverageFirst + ( correctAnswersCoef * timeInterval1 )

incorrectResult1 = incorrectAverageFirst + ( incorrectAnswersCoef * timeInterval1 )

We calculated the number of correct and incorrect responses for the second period:

correctResult2 = correctAverageFirst + ( correctAnswersCoef * timeInterval2 )

incorrectResult2 = incorrectAverageFirst + ( incorrectAnswersCoef * timeInterval2 )

The plots, that reflect our results are shown on plot2 and plot3.

plot2 shows randomly got data: timeInterval 1=15; timeInterval 2=21

plot3 shows randomly got data: timeInterval 1=16; timeInterval 2=22

We showed that online tutorials are very useful and learning by using online tutorials in future will have great positive influence on students’ knowledge.

1. Susan L. Silvera, Lisa T. Nickelb, Are online tutorials effective? A comparison of online and classroom library instruction methods, Research Strategies Volume 20, Issue 4, Pages 389–396, 2005
2. Tian Belawati, The impact of online tutorials on course completion rates and student achievement, Journal Learning, Media and Technology Volume 30, 2005 – Issue 1, 2005
3. Явич М. П. Концепция создания электронных обучающих средств для школьников младших классов [Текст] / М. П. Явич // Технические науки в России и за рубежом (II): материалы междунар. заоч. науч. конф. (г. Москва, ноябрь 2012 г.).  — М.: Буки-Веди, 2012. — С. 162-163.
4. Hickey, Ryan. “5 Disadvantages to Consider about Online Education.” Peterson’s, http://www.petersons.com/college-search/5-disadvantages-to-consider-about-online-education.aspx#/sweeps-modal, 2014

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