Communicating Mathematics Online [microform] : the Case of Online Help

This qualitative and quantitative study intended to define and explore the characteristics of asynchronous online mathematics help environments and look for some evidence that they provide conditions for learning. Data for the study were collected from online contributions on three purposely selected, public mathematics help sites; written reflections of expert tutors; and interviews with them. Peer tutors are found to be mathematics problem-driven and focused in their answers, as opposed to expert tutors who are following general rules of efficiency and honesty, and who are verbose in their answers. Both students and peer tutors are gracious in their acknowledgements, while experts are more direct in theirs. Expert tutors try to adapt their tutoring strategy to a student by holistically approaching the student's question. When a question lacks enough background information to help them to model a student, experts sometimes provide multiple answers. Expert tutors also use probes to gauge and provoke student's comprehension. They prefer to teach general rules and language of mathematics, and provide hints rather than complete work. This study found evidence of learning on mathematics online help sites and potential benefits for participants in discursive activities related to mathematics. The study showed that users of this service have specific goals, that peer tutors and expert tutors teach differently, and that online expert tutors use tutoring strategies that are specific to this medium. The students use mathematics online help primarily to request information. The questions on mathematics help sites are mostly homework related with isolated recorded cases of abuse of online help. In a small percentage of questions students provide feedback to tutors or participate in long discussions. Conversely, students ask a substantial number of deep-reasoning questions. This study also found evidence of achieved comprehension in students' messages and satisfaction with the help received on the Web sites. The study looked into the tutorial discourse with the intent to characterize communicative goals, form, cognitive level, hedging and degree of specification of students' questions in mathematics online help; and to distinguish what and how tutors in mathematics online help teach, do they hedge, and how helpful are their answers.