Virtual Tutoring and Coaching

In the course of completing their graduate programs, most master’s or doctoral candidates encounter certain courses or concepts that push them to the limits of their abilities. Although you might know your field of study like the back of your hand, subjects such as statistics or skills such as scientific writing may elude you. This is completely normal and understandable. It is also a situation where individualized tutoring and coaching can make the difference between passing and failing.

Our academic consultants can provide you with personalized instruction and support through video-based platforms to ensure that you master the succession of challenges you will face in your master’s or doctoral program. From coursework support all the way through finalization of your graduate research, our experts can assist as minimally or extensively as you would like. You can combine tutoring and coaching with our broader academic consulting services, or you can receive tutoring and coaching as a standalone service. This is a very flexible form of assistance that can be shaped to meet your own specific needs as they change over the course of your graduate studies.

Although the distinctions between tutoring and coaching are often blurred, it may be helpful to consider these two basic paradigms of support:

Academic Tutoring: When working with an academic consultant for tutoring purposes, you can expect to receive instruction on the core elements of the topic at hand, with an ultimate aim of helping you to build foundational knowledge and skills.

Academic Coaching: When working with an academic consultant for coaching purposes, you can expect to receive targeted guidance and feedback on your work to master specific areas that you are finding especially challenging.

Depending on your needs and preferences, you may do well with the more intensive tutoring approach, the more focused coaching approach, or a combination of the two. Because our end goal is for you to fully understand foundational concepts and develop core competencies, we are happy to develop a unique, customized plan just for you.

Overview of Tutoring and Coaching Services

Although each client’s plan of assistance is unique, following are common elements of tutoring and coaching service agreements:

Video meetings with your consultant: You will have the opportunity to participate in one-on-one video meetings with your tutor or coach. Each meeting will have specific learning goals that you can set collaboratively with your tutor or coach.

Customized focus: You can choose the focus of your tutoring and coaching service agreement, so that you make the most of your academic consultant’s sessions with you. Your plan of assistance can be comprehensive, covering whole courses or your full dissertation or thesis, or it can be specific to particular learning modules, assignments, or chapters in your study.

Instruction on core concepts: During your meetings with your tutor or coach, you will receive instruction and explanation related to core concepts associated with that meeting’s learning goals.

Guidance and feedback: Meetings with your tutor or coach may include review of any assignments, written projects, dissertation chapters, etc., with feedback based on our diagnostic review of your work.

Q&A session: Your video meetings will also include the opportunity for question-and-answer sessions, which help to ensure that you fully understand the information related to your learning goals.

Common Areas for Tutoring and Coaching

We can set up plans to assist you with a wide variety of learning goals, but here are some common areas our tutors and coaches assist our clients to master:

Coursework: If you find that a particular course–or even a specific segment of a course–is especially challenging for you, then receiving tutoring or coaching may be just what you need to make it through successfully. You and your tutor or coach can build a plan of assistance together based around your course concepts, course materials, and course assignments or projects.

Developing a research problem: As you embark on your thesis or dissertation journey, you will need a clear and compelling research problem to guide your research. We can provide guidance on all aspects of this process, including: 

1. Defining the nature of the problem
2. Explaining whom the problem affects and how
3. Locating a research gap
4. Establishing the need for the study

Creating alignment: Once you have a research topic developed, a perfectly aligned research methodology is essential. We can guide and support you through key steps to creating alignment in areas of your study including:

1. Problem, purpose, and research questions
2. Theoretical or conceptual framework
3. Literature review
4. Research method and design, data collection plan, and data analysis plan

Quantitative methods and statistics: Whether for a course or for your methods and analysis chapters in your thesis or dissertation, quantitative methods and statistical analysis can be very challenging to many of our clients. Our experts can assist you with key components of this complex topic including:

1. Understanding the rationale for use of quantitative methods
2. Determining the nature of variables
3. Writing quantitative research questions with null and alternative hypotheses
4. Choosing appropriate statistical tests
5. Developing an aligned analysis plan
6. Completing statistical analysis in software such as SPSS

Qualitative methods and analysis: Qualitative research is a very powerful approach when conducted skillfully but can yield findings of dubious value when used improperly. Our experts can ensure that you have the skills to make a meaningful impact with your qualitative research, including

1. Understanding the rationale for use of qualitative methods
2. Selecting an aligned research design based on the aims of your study
3. Writing qualitative research questions
4. Developing data collection protocols that will elicit rich data from participants
5. Developing trustworthiness procedures to promote the quality of the findings
6. Choosing an aligned analysis plan
7. Completing qualitative analysis in leading Computer Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS) such as NVivo, Atlas.ti and MaxQDA.

Academic writing: Even skilled writers sometimes struggle with learning how to properly apply a scientific or academic writing style. Whether you need in-depth instruction or focused feedback on areas that are currently challenging for you, we are happy to assist you each step of the way. Areas our experts often provide support with include;

1. Achieving scholarly tone through use of precise, literal terms and the avoidance of metaphor, figures of speech, or casual language
2. Methods of rephrasing to help you avoid anthropomorphism or passive voice
3. Determining the correct verb tense for reporting research findings and implications, reporting your own findings and conclusions, and describing your study’s procedures
4. Writing an integrated discussion of the literature using the MEAL paragraph structure.