The effects of tutoring and team learning on the performance of distance education students

With the massification of higher education in Burkina Faso, university authorities have resorted to online courses in order to increase the number of training opportunities. In this context characterized by the transition from face-to-face teaching to distance learning, the choice of the pedagogical approach appears to be one of the important issues. Our study, based on the theories of cognitive constructivism advocated by Piaget (1936) and socioconstructivism derived from the work of Vygotsky (1962), allowed us to measure the effects of proactive and reactive tutoring on the performance of learners of the certificate of competence in computer science and the Internet at Thomas Sankara University. In addition, this research provided an opportunity to critically examine the influence of group learning on small and large team sizes. Our results revealed that learners in reactive tutoring generally had the highest averages in terms of relative gain compared to those in proactive tutoring. They also showed that learners in extended teams had higher relative learning gains than their peers in reduced teams. In terms of contributions, our study is supposed to help tutors make choices concerning the attitudes to be favored both in terms of accompaniment and team building in a distance training.