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New Research: Done Right, Virtual Tutoring Nearly Rivals In-Person Version

Two new Johns Hopkins University studies explore how high-quality virtual tutoring can help struggling students.

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Correction appended January 16

High-dosage, in-person tutoring gets , recent research suggests. But as federal funding for remediation dries up and schools struggle to raise students鈥 post-COVID skills, educators have been hoping for a lifeline in the form of live, online tutoring.

While virtual tutors still work directly with students in real time, they can work from anywhere, expanding the potential talent pool and lowering costs.

Until recently, virtual tutoring had that it works very well, with few rigorous studies of its effectiveness. But new findings, including two recent studies from Johns Hopkins University鈥檚 , are beginning to offer a different narrative: Done well and with the same safeguards as traditional in-person tutoring, the virtual version can be nearly as good.

鈥淚 was always one of those people who was so skeptical 鈥 鈥榠t’s never going to work,鈥欌 said Amanda Neitzel, an assistant professor at Hopkins and the research center鈥檚 deputy director. 鈥淎nd then I did these studies, and I was shocked, because it did work.鈥

I was always one of those people who was so skeptical 鈥 鈥榠t's never going to work. And then I did these studies.

Amanda Neitzel, Johns Hopkins University.

In a quasi-experimental study , Neitzel and her colleagues found that first-graders in Massachusetts who used , a one-to-one virtual tutoring program, made substantial progress in reading, with the percentage of students reading on grade level rising from just 16% in the fall to about 50% by spring.

The share of 鈥渟truggling鈥 readers also dropped, from 64% in the fall to 28% by the spring.

The study tracked about 1,900 students in 13 high-poverty Massachusetts school districts in the 2023-24 school year. The data suggest that tutored students showed nearly five-and-a-half months鈥 more progress on a key reading test than the typical student. And they improved across the board, with English learners, students with disabilities and low-income students all gaining ground.

Ignite tutors work with students for 15 minutes every day, typically during 鈥渓iteracy blocks鈥 in class or in separate, staff-monitored rooms.

In a separate, more rigorous study , Neitzel and her colleagues found that students who got online tutoring outperformed their peers by about two points on NWEA reading assessments, a 鈥渟ignificant鈥 change that would raise the average student slightly to the 55th percentile in the class, or just above average.

While researchers saw no difference in impacts for English language learners or those with special needs, they found that first-graders got more out of the tutoring, meaning that the hypothetical 50th-percentile student who got tutoring would rise to the 58th percentile.

Six elementary schools in a district in Texas took part in the randomized controlled trial evaluating Air Reading for 418 first-through-sixth-grade students during the 2023-24 school year. The small-group tutoring ran for just a few months in the spring, from late January through April.

Neitzel said the effect sizes in the two new studies aren鈥檛 necessarily as large as those of the most effective in-person models, but the new evidence provides some of the most compelling evidence yet for schools wondering whether they should offer virtual tutoring. 

鈥淚t’s really exciting that every month or two there’s another out,鈥 she said. 鈥淎nd there are more in the field right now too. So I think in the next couple years, we’ll be able to answer that question better.鈥

Matthew Kraft, an associate professor of education and economics at Brown University, agreed, saying several to amount to 鈥 on the efficacy of virtual tutoring programs,鈥 suggesting they hold promise.

He noted that randomized control trials generally find that virtual tutoring has positive effects, but often of smaller magnitude than those found in meta-analyses of in-person tutoring programs. 鈥淗owever, the devil is in the specific program design details,鈥 he said. For instance, several studies find that one-on-one virtual tutoring is more effective than programs that use small groups.

Jennifer Krajewski, director of outreach and engagement for , a clearinghouse for research-proven tutoring models housed at Johns Hopkins鈥 Center for Research and Reform in Education, noted that both Air Reading and Ignite Reading employ well-trained live tutors and a 鈥渉ighly structured鈥 program, with ongoing coaching for tutors and a clear instructional process that addresses students鈥 individual needs. These characteristics, she said, are often part of in-person tutoring programs that have been found effective.

You could have the best model in the world, but if the kids aren't actually there, it's not going to move the needle.

Jennifer Krajewski, Johns Hopkins University.

Both programs work hard at getting students to actually attend, she and Neitzel said. 

Reviewing the Ignite study, Neitzel said the percentage of students actually receiving tutoring when they were supposed to was 鈥渟hockingly high,鈥 topping 85% for the vast majority of students. That suggests implementation is key in a field where attendance isn鈥檛 always tracked very well. 

鈥淵ou could have the best model in the world, but if the kids aren’t actually there, it’s not going to move the needle,鈥 she said.

Attendance remains one of virtual tutoring鈥檚 biggest challenges, she said. 鈥淲hen it’s a physical person in the building, they can pull you out of class. It’s harder to avoid. Whereas if it’s on a computer, you just don’t log in 鈥 or you log off, or [you say], 鈥極h, it’s not working.鈥 鈥

Krajewski said that for the study, Ignite worked with a local funder in Massachusetts to hire on-the-ground workers who ensured that students were showing up. It also held regular virtual meetings with educators 鈥渢o make sure everyone understood the milestones and the goals,鈥 ensuring that the program would be launched consistently across several districts. 鈥淓veryone was really on the same page because of these meetings,鈥 she said.

Ignite and the local funder also appointed paid school and district 鈥渃hampions鈥 to supervise implementation. Each school champion worked about three hours weekly to troubleshoot problems that arose. And they required that schools review student achievement data weekly, moving students out of tutoring when they succeeded and filling those seats with struggling students. 

Neitzel said one of the keys to Ignite鈥檚 success, at least in the study, was that it paired students with tutors who spoke the same language, offering 鈥渁 little connection鈥 between them, even if tutoring took place primarily in English.

If schools can鈥檛 find enough bilingual teachers locally, she said, 鈥渕aybe virtual tutoring is the best option you have.鈥 In-person tutoring programs might be slightly more effective, she said, but virtual programs offer flexibility on hiring and other challenging aspects of implementation. 

In the Air Reading study, Neitzel said, company representatives met with schools every other week, focusing closely on attendance and which students weren鈥檛 attending sessions.

On occasion, she said, Air Reading teams flew out to schools 鈥渢o make sure stuff was happening and getting set up or trying to troubleshoot what’s going on. I was impressed with just how well they knew the schools they were working with.鈥

In one case, she recalled an Air Reading worker who was so attuned to the school he oversaw that he knew an attendance monitor鈥檚 father had died. 鈥淭hat’s how involved they are with this,鈥 Neitzel said. 鈥淲hen it works well, there are these tremendous relationships with people in the district to make it work.鈥

Krajewski, who was not an author on either study, said researchers haven鈥檛 yet seen evidence of effectiveness for tutoring using AI agents working directly with students. 鈥淲e’ve seen that the most effective models use human tutors,鈥 she said. 

Hopkins researchers are working on an evaluation of an AI-assisted tutoring model developed by Carnegie Mellon University and predicted there鈥檇 be noteworthy data by the end of 2025. 鈥淏ut even then, it’s not that the tutoring is replaced by AI,鈥 she said. The AI, she said, is helping human tutors be more effective.

These studies show how important that human tutor continues to be,鈥 she said. 鈥淲e’re learning that that human tutor, virtual or in person, is driving the instructional process.鈥 

Correction: An earlier version of this story included graphics that mischaracterized the amount of benefit students gained from the two virtual tutoring programs.

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