email homework help service

email homework help service

The Impact of Email Homework Help Services on Student Learning

1. Introduction to Email Homework Help Services

The internet provides a medium through which the educational services are offered. It facilitates the purchase of these services from anywhere in the world, thereby potentially avoiding the costs of attending tutorials in person. Finally, it has also had the effect of broadening the availability of ‘supply’, which has helped to make these services products an increasingly attractive proposition. Prior to the internet, email homework help type services had not been observed and therefore not subject to evaluation in the economics literature. The only literature that students could turn to for assistance with homework were the frequently publicly unavailable answers that were provided to the professionally published textbook example problems. It is therefore useful to explore what the questions resemble, the extent to which a commercial email homework help service has been utilized, and some general features.

This paper addresses the question of whether email homework help services are related to improvements in student performance. The availability and growth of the internet have made electronic services practical propositions for a variety of reasons. For example, as a result of technical advances, the costs of equipment and, to a lesser extent, those of communication have fallen. This paper is closely related to two papers: Borland and Howley (2002), who evaluate a service that aimed to improve student performance through the provision of additional economics tutorial classes, and Borland (2002), who evaluates a number of income support programs that shifted with business cycle conditions. Whereas in these papers, the services provided were both directly targeted to the actions of individuals, email homework help services were aimed at the provision of ‘products’, albeit of the educational variety.

2. Benefits of Email Homework Help Services

The written format of email homework help can be an effective assistance method. Explanations are typically step-by-step and clear. In addition, examples can be presented in a variety of ways, including through diagrams and copied material (i.e., scanned images of hardcopy work). Most messages have a personal element, sent directly to the student. Email help desk responses are more focused on specific problems, while the shift towards email-based support to totally distance-based support (real-time availability, tutoring sessions) allows far greater specific student assistance, although there is wide variation in tutor availability and workload. Effectiveness and cost benefits depend on experience, tutor time allocation, workload, response efficiency, and accuracy.

Some of the benefits of email homework help services for K-12 students have also been recognized for college students. Email homework help can guide students with their own homework and provide them with information, helpful hints, examples, and templates, resulting in greater comprehension of concepts and development of problem-solving skills. Email homework help can assist students who cannot attend regular assistance hours or tutor students who are receiving private tutoring. Email homework help is also one way to offer immediate assistance.

3. Challenges and Ethical Considerations

However, by eliminating face-to-face contact between students and faculty and interactions among students entirely, the email homework help model presented a whole new set of challenges with ethical considerations. There were also technical and logistic challenges associated with the email model. This chapter describes these challenges and the strategies used in the implementation of a funding Email Homework Help Service that was designed to make homework help available as inexpensively as possible to a large number of college students. The work is presented here as a case study. The purpose is to share the design and management methodology, in the hope that the work can be replicated.

The email homework help model was developed in response to some of the challenges outlined above. The challenge of scheduling student appointments was resolved by eliminating the need for appointments. The challenge of time-of-need availability was resolved by allowing students to submit questions whenever they desired. Unlike in-person center tutoring, scheduling of and attendance at study groups, and interaction with other existing academic support services, students did not have to wait for other students’ schedules to align with theirs. The challenge of providing general questions when students were away from the center was resolved by allowing students to submit questions via email from anywhere there was internet access.

4. Best Practices for Using Email Homework Help Services

Macroeconomic Theory is teaching-intensive, but modern teaching principles require some level of support outside of the classroom. Email homework systems can be beneficial in aiding student understanding, but there are some guidelines that can be used to implement these systems successfully.

In summary, email homework help services can be beneficial to the learning process as they offer the opportunity to engage in asynchronous discussion that can support learning and help students to take ownership of their own learning. However, lecturers should establish a clear rationale for their use and should carefully design this mode of communication as part of a range of support processes. Below are some proposals for best practice that we have developed from reflecting on our experiences and reading the literature. As well as contributing toward improving the student learning experience, we hope that these recommendations can inform further research into the relationship between email homework help and student learning. Nevertheless, the current research findings discussed in this study can provide greater understanding for interested practitioners seeking to implement similar pedagogical strategies.

5. Future Trends and Implications

The authors examine past and current educational literature and utilize an exploratory framework to raise future scenarios of questions and issues ranging from the educational institutions’ sponsorship of such services to the evolving role of tutors, the creation of multimedia and testing components, enhanced student monitoring, and the linkage of such services to course, department, or school requirements. The chapter concludes with a summary of its contents and findings and suggestions for future research. Educational professionals continue to impact the manner in which students learn. Educational innovations have been changing for many years. As knowledge explosion, educational budget and resource constraints, major technology developments, and the marketplace revolution continue on a worldwide basis, educational institutions must be able to examine both the latest trends and their associated implications. Both higher and K-12 educators will be asked to seek more ways to accomplish the innovative use of educational technologies.

Today’s students are adapting to the effective use of advanced, portable, and powerful computing technologies within a host of educational settings. Educational institutions are seeking the latest trends and associated implications. This chapter deals with the future trends and implications pertaining to the use of email homework help services as a possible addition to the arsenal of educational tools at the disposal of today’s and tomorrow’s educational innovators. The focus is on the ongoing development and application of these homework help services and possible linkages to other instructional technologies.