Although online tutoring has been around for a while, many students (and their parents) haven’t yet caught on to the possibility of meeting with a tutor virtually, let...
One of the results of being able to look for tutors online is that there tends to be a selection available, which means that you have to evaluate different tutors in order to be able to choose among them. If you are looking for an online statistics tutor, here are a couple of factors to base your evaluation on.
Choose A Specialist
Statistics is a specialized subject that not all tutors, or even all math tutors, will be proficient in. Generally, the more subjects a tutor claims to be able to teach, the less specialized he or she is. A tutor who claims proficiency in statistics and twenty other subjects is probably not as proficient as a tutor who claims to be proficient in just one or only a few subjects.
Look For Reviews
A good place to start is on discussion boards and conversation groups related to tutoring, because these are places where people will often discuss their experiences with individual tutors. This way you can get an idea of which tutors are the best to work with. This is especially important for online statistics tutors, since, as explained above, many tutors may claim to be able to tutor statistics, but relatively few will be truly worthwhile.
Judge By Appearances
Private tutors and tutoring firms usually have their own website, and the appearance of it is an indicator of how they treat their business generally. A tutor with a website that looks undeveloped or out of date either has too much business from other sources to worry about making a nice website (unlikely), or else doesn’t do much business at all. If the website looks like it receives a lot of attention, that’s a good indication that you will receive a lot of attention too. Especially pay attention to the quality of the writing displayed, since good communication skills are necessary for making complex statistical concepts easily understandable.
Compare
It’s best to look at at least three different tutors, and even try out their services, before settling on one. It’s hard to judge without a basis of comparison, and you will probably find that you just feel better working with some tutors than with others. It also helps to remember that you don’t have to stay with a tutor if the relationship isn’t working for you, for whatever reason.
Trust Your Judgment
Ultimately the best evaluation of a tutor is your own experience. You are the best judge of what works for you and what doesn’t. One factor to evaluate is how effective the tutor is for you, taking into account both cost and time. Is the tutor focused and on task? Does working with the tutor actually speed up your learning process? Another factor is how the tutor makes you feel. Does the tutor feel patient and respectful and actually make you feel good about the learning process? Do you enjoy the time you spend with the tutor? This consideration is equally as important as cost and time efficiency.
