Virtual tutoring in the education professionals training throughout pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the tutorial services to be moved into a virtual modality, which leaded to the teacher-tutor (man and woman) functions only with the purpose of continuing to provide support to the students. This actual research analyzes the importance of the tutorial function based on virtual modality throughout the pandemic period from the perspective of graduate education professionals training students. The research was set over a qualitative level and phenomenological design. Data was analyzed from a content analysis technique and five analysis axes was stablished: 1) Functions; 2) Teacher-tutor strengths; 3) Environmental conditions that support the tutorial action; 4) Attention areas; and 5) Aspects to be improved. The findings show that teacher-tutor managed attendance and advisory activities; skills and professional expertise, as well as researching, commitment, empathy and positive attitude knowledge was the main strengths that allowed teacher-tutors to create the optimal conditions in order to attend the different students' related areas; and, finally, the period of time for answering e-mail messages should be speeded up, as well as to dedicate more time to student's attendance according their features to be addressed. It is concluded that the virtual-mode tutoring used during the pandemic period contributed to their training process, motivating students to keep going throughout their learning process despite of the imposed uncertainty and obstacles to be faced. Hence, the importance of intervention programs designing in order to strength the personal dimension of tutors and provide useful tools for the tutorial field of action.