1:1 online tuition: a review of the literature from a pedagogical perspective M. Jopling Centre for Developmental and Applied Research in Education (CeDARE), School of Education, University of Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Mid- lands, UK Abstract This paper outlines the findings of a review that examined the literature around current practice in one-to-one online tuition in schools and higher education. It summarizes the purposes, con- texts, scope, and methods of 17 core studies identified through a systematic literature search. It then uses a conceptual framework focusing on pedagogical innovation to explore the findings of the core studies, a discussion that is also informed by the consideration of a number of con- textual studies exploring group online tuition and online learning more generally. The paper concludes by suggesting that the development of one-to-one online tuition has been constrained by comparisons with face-to-face approaches and that more research is needed to map its char- acteristics and potential in more detail as technology continues to evolve. Keywords one to one, online tuition, online tutoring, pedagogy. Introduction In recent years, as technology has become increasingly embedded in education, interest has grown in online tuition as a means of supporting, supplementing, and in some cases, replacing face-to-face teaching and tutor- ing. Moreover, the current political interest in both reviving tutorial teaching and cutting costs may increase interest in one-to-one online tuition still further. This paper outlines the findings of a review that explored the literature around effective practices in one-to-one online tuition. It took as a starting point a definition of online tuition as a tutor teaching a student remotely through an online medium, offering what Johnson and Bratt (2009) termed ‘individualised learning support mediated by learning technology’ and taking the technology compo- nent to range broadly from e-mail and audio confer- encing to video and multimedia. The emphasis on one-to-one tuition, involving at least some form of conversational exchange between tutor and tutee, differ- entiated the studies considered from broader explora- tions of the ‘online classroom’ or ‘cyberclassroom’. The initial focus of the review was school-aged students, but when this uncovered relatively little research, its param- eters were extended to include online tuition in higher education (HE). The paper outlines the methodology adopted in the literature search and in the identification of the 17 core studies that emerged as the focus of the review, before summarizing their characteristics in terms of contexts, purposes, scope, and methods. As the need to identify the pedagogies and learning approaches used in online tuition, rather than its specific application of technology, emerged from the initial review of the core studies, the paper then uses the conceptual frame- work of ‘next practice pedagogies’ to explore their find- ings with reference to relevant studies of group online tuition and online learning more generally. Accepted: 14 June 2011 Correspondence: Michael Jopling, Centre for Developmental and Applied Research in Education (CeDARE), School of Education, Univer- sity of Wolverhampton, Gorway Road, Walsall, West Midlands WS1 3BD, UK. Email: michael.jopling@wlv.ac.uk doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00441.x Original article © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 1