1) Tutor.com has now implemented a daily hours cap that limits how long you can work with students. This was originally put in place during the summer under the guise that it would help allow more tutors the chance to work during the summer, but it seemed to do the opposite as there were barely any hours available.
Based on a previous review, it seems that this daily hours cap is only applicable to California tutors. Tutor.com does not provide tutors the ability to communicate with other tutors, which benefits the company. If the daily cap is just being applied to California residence, it seems that they would be discriminating employees based on their residence, which does not seem to be legal.
2) The way students can review tutors benefits the company as tutor bonuses are tied to their student reviews and the number of hours a tutor works. In my experience, negative reviews come from students that are not willing to put in the effort to learn and just want answers. I have had sessions where I go over concepts with the students and they tell me they understand it, but when I ask them about it again, they don't recall anything (as if it was never covered in the session). When they realize that answers will not be given, they leave the session. The student is not required though to explain why they leave a positive or negative review. If a student were required to explain why a positive or negative review is given, I would feel that a lazy student looking for answers would be lazy to put in the effort to provide an explanation.
3) The time constraints given to tutors are a hindrance and can also result in a student being frustrated with the lack of time provided to help them understand a concept, which results in the student posting a low review for that tutor. Unless you are a "consumer" who purchases time for tutoring, most students are limited to 20 minutes a session. Once a tutor is nearing that time limit, they are reminded that they need to end the session soon. Some students require more than 20 minutes to understand the subject matter be it in science, math or English. They may want to cover some additional problems that are related to make sure they are understanding the concept and with that 20 minute limit, that is just not possible. Tutors are instructed to tell students to just sign back on. This does not help the student because they may be matched up with a tutor that uses a different approach. In science and math subjects, problems can be solved in more than one way, so it is possible that the student will be taught a different approach from what they were previously taught in their last session.
4) As mentioned in #2, there are students that sign on just for answers. Some these answers they are looking for relate to exams and quizzes. A tutor has no way of knowing the directions the students were given about working with others for these exams and quizzes. They can only go on what the student tells them. If the student does tell the tutor it is an open book test, then the tutor is required to treat this as any other session where a student is looking for help and assist them with arriving at the answer. Regardless if the exam/quiz is open or closed book, assisting a student with it creates an ethical issue. The exams and quizzes are put into place so a teacher can determine whether their students are understanding the concepts and ideas covered in class. By helping the student, a teacher will not know if the students have an understanding since they may just be getting an answer without learning the concept.
Over the years, I have had students sign on with exam/quiz questions, but sign off when I do not give them the answer quick enough. If I tell them I cannot help them with their question because it is an exam/quiz, I have encountered students that sign back on and lie stating the problem is now just a HW question. Tutor.com needs to be more proactive in this area since it is unethical and unfair to students who do not cheat and follow the rules when taking the exams/quizzes.
5) Tutor.com requests that tutors not be straightforward with students at times. This has actually been touched on in previous reviews. Tutors are allowed to work with two students at a time. If you are working with another student, mentors and management instruct tutors to tell the other student that you are thinking about the problem, when in fact you are working with someone else. During "tutor assessments" (which are supposed to help tutors become better), I have been told to tell students "I am working on their problem". This gives the student the illusion that it is a 1 on 1 session when it really is not.
Since tutors are not allowed to tell students that they only have a 20 minute time limit per session, this is another area where tutors are instructed to not be straightforward with students. Instead of telling them their 20 minute cap has been reached, we are asked to tell the student that "we are running over our time for the day" or "we need to step away from the service for the moment" so they will need to sign back on to continue getting help. It is embarrassing sometimes when you are reconnected with that same student after you just told them you couldn't help them because you had to "step away".
6) There are some other negatives aspects, but the last one I will touch on is pay. Starting tutors make close to the same amount as someone working at a fast food chain, $9.00. For teaching students concepts and issues that will help them in the future, I feel that starting tutors should be paid more than a fast food wage. As time passes, tutors do receive pay increases, but once again, these increases are minimal and dependent on the subject you teach. With Tutor.com charging consumers $39.99 an hour, it would be nice to see the company pass on some of that revenue to their employees.
While these aspects are negative from the tutors perspective, they are positive for the company. By keeping the hourly wage low for tutors, the company is able to retain more revenue from themselves. By not requiring students to explain why a negative review is being given, the company does not have to pay as much in bonuses to tutors since the bonus is tied to student's reviews. By putting a daily cap on the number of hours a tutor can work with students, the company is not paying tutors as much as they have earned in the past, which also could decrease the bonus since tutors must work a minimum number of hours in order to be considered for bonus.