Based on Research, how much Tutoring do I need?

Tutoring is effective, everyone knows that. It's one-on-one, personal, amazing teacher focused on a single student.

With the right help and attention, students can understand concepts better, practice doing questions, and apply newfound knowledge under the watchful guidance of a tutor. Don't believe us? Let these research findings speak for themselves.

Table of Content:

• What is a Forgetting Curve?
• How to help students retain their knowledge?
• How much Tutoring is Needed?
• Reference
• FAQs

What is a Forgetting Curve?

Even if a student understands a difficult concept during a lesson, there's no guarantee it'll stick permanently in their minds. When they do homework a week later, sit a test at school, or attempt an assignment, students have likely lost some of the content they learned previously.

It's not the student's fault, and it's not the teacher's fault. It's just the way the human brain works. It's human psychology.

You see, the brain is constantly trying to filter out unimportant information. It's why you don't remember the license plate of every car you see, or what you ate for breakfast on the 17th of February last year. That information isn't needed in your life again, so your brain just got rid of it to make space for more useful information.

Similarly, this is what happens to the content a student learns in school:

1. They learn and understand a new and difficult topic.
2. Then they don't visit that topic for two weeks.
3. They sit a test about that topic weeks after learning it.
4. There, they struggle to remember what was taught to them

This can be illustrated on a graph called the "Forgetting Curve"

When this happens, it's a massive roadblock to a student's progress. And when they move on to the next topic in the syllabus, they'll have to take two steps back to relearn old information before moving on to the next topic. This keeps them in the “catch-up cycle” indefinitely.

How to help students retain their knowledge?

The easiest way to make progress and keep it is to increase the frequency of lessons. This means getting a tutor to help break up the forgetting curve.

Here's a graph of what would happen if you had tutoring sessions regularly:

As you can see, every time you review topics with a tutor by conducting a tutoring lesson, students build on their knowledge from previous sessions. This ensures that things they learn during tutoring sessions move from their short-term memory to their long-term memory. As they keep practising and revisiting the content, the brain marks it as important.

This becomes especially important in high school, when students have more complex concepts they need to understand.

How much Tutoring is Needed?

At a MINIMUM, weekly 1-hour sessions are required to make tutoring effective. Otherwise, there's just no point to it.

For more complex subjects at higher levels, sometimes double lessons (2-hour lessons or 2 x 1-hour lessons a week) are required to help students keep up with the pace school is going at.

Either way, to stay above the forgetting curve, the more often you have lessons, the better. Looking for a tutor? Book a free 30-minute study skills consultation with a KIS Academics tutor today:

Conclusion

Tutoring is not a necessity, but it definitely helps to boost your grades, and build up important study skills to make you a more independent learner. For more study tips and advice, check out these KIS Academics articles:

Reference

Ebbinghaus, H. (1964). Memory: A Contribution to Experimental Psychology. United States: Dover Publications.

FAQs

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