Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Educational Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev Comparing the effectiveness of cram school tutors and schoolteachers: A critical analysis of students’ perceptions Kevin Wai-Ho Yung Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Shadow education English private tutoring Students’ perceptions Teacher effectiveness Cram schools Hong Kong ABSTRACT This study compares the teaching effectiveness of cram school tutors and schoolteachers of English based on the perceptions of senior secondary students in Hong Kong. It adopts a sequential mixed-methods approach. The result from the online survey (N = 477) indicates that tutors are perceived to be more effective than school- teachers in all identified aspects of effective teaching. However, the qualitative data from focus group interviews (n = 64) reveals a more complex picture. By problematising students’ perceptions with reference to the wider social, cultural and educational context, three themes were generated: (1) students’ utilitarian learning or- ientations in an examination-oriented system, (2) the commodification of education in a consumer culture, and (3) students’ immediate psychological needs in the process of learning. This study sheds light on the complex relationship between private tutoring and mainstream schooling and offers implications for policymaking and teaching in the private and mainstream sectors. 1. Introduction Around the globe, a significant number of students receive private tutoring. In many Asian countries such as Bangladesh, China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand, over half of secondary school students receive some type of private tutoring (see Bray and Lykins, 2012). Other non-Asian countries such as those in Africa, Australasia, North America and Europe have also witnessed a rapid growth in stu- dents’ tutoring participation (see, e.g., Buchmann et al., 2010; Pearce et al., 2018; Silova, 2010; Sriprakash et al., 2016; Šťastný, 2017). Pri- vate tutoring can be defined as the fee-paying services students access outside regular school hours to supplement their formal school learning of academic subjects (Bray, 2009; Yung and Bray, 2017). It carries the metaphor of “shadow education” because it mimics and changes its shape according to the mainstream school curriculum (Bray, 2009; Stevenson and Baker, 1992). Private tutoring can be operated via one- to-one, small group and online modes (see Yung and Bray, 2017). The most prominent in many Asian contexts is lecture-type tutoring in so- called cram schools run by large tutorial companies (Chung, 2013; de Castro and de Guzman, 2014; Yung, 2019). Tutors often promote themselves and their courses through advertisements and tutorial websites (Kozar, 2015; Šťastný, 2017; Yung and Yuan, 2018), making private tutoring more visible and widespread. Private tutoring has attracted a great deal of attention in education research in recent years due to its significant impact on policy making as well as teaching and learning in mainstream schooling. To date, many studies have investigated its patterns, intensity and scale in var- ious contexts (see, e.g., Bray, 2009; Mahmud and Kenayathulla, 2018; Pearce et al., 2018; Silova, 2009). These studies tend to identify policy implications concerning the privatisation of education and its exacer- bation of social inequality (e.g., Bray and Kwo, 2014; Matsuoka, 2018; Sobhy, 2012; Šťastný, 2017). Bray and Lykins (2012, p. 71) suggest that “enough is known about the broad outlines” and “detailed research would reveal the features more clearly.” In this regard, an increasing number of studies have focused on various issues such as the washback effect of private tutoring on mainstream schooling (e.g., Bhorkar and Bray, 2018; Jheng, 2015; Park et al., 2016) and its impact on the lives of various stakeholders such as schoolteachers, tutors, students and parents (e.g., Kobakhidze, 2018; Loyalka and Zakharov, 2016; Matsuoka, 2018; Sriprakash et al., 2016; Trent, 2016). Fewer studies have investigated how students perceive the teaching effectiveness of tutors compared to that of schoolteachers. This is an important aspect for investigation because perceptions drive behaviour and students’ learning is essentially influenced by their attendance in tutorial classes which tend to shadow the mainstream. However, students evaluate tutors and schoolteachers with their own criteria, and their perceptions can be framed by the wider educational context in which they are si- tuated. Therefore, students’ perceptions need to be analysed critically in order to understand how and why tutors or schoolteachers are con- sidered more effective than the other and to uncover the complex https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2019.102141 Received 7 April 2019; Received in revised form 7 November 2019; Accepted 19 November 2019 E-mail address: kevinyung@eduhk.hk. International Journal of Educational Development 72 (2020) 102141 0738-0593/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T Author's copy