Cross-age peer tutors in asynchronous discussion groups: studying the impact of tutors labelling their interventions

Cross-age tutors were randomly assigned to one of the three tutor training conditions distinguished for the current study: (1) the labelling experimental condition, characterized by requirements to label their tutor interventions, based on the e-moderating model of Salmon; (2) the non-labelling experimental condition, focusing on tutor’s acting upon the role of an e-moderator without preliminary requirements with regard to labelling the phase of e-moderating in their messages; and (3) a control condition, typified by all-round information on online facilitation. The results indicated that tutors are not really capable in labelling their interventions accurately. Nevertheless, labelling did foster enhanced e-moderating activities. Compared to tutors in the control condition, tutors in the experimental conditions performed at a higher level, implying that they adopted more balanced tutor support. Labelling did not result in a differential impact on self-efficacy and perceived collective efficacy.