Abstract

Online tutoring platforms recruit and screen tutors on quality, yet families often explain a failed tutoring relationship by saying the tutor did not suit the student. This study asks whether perceived tutor quality and perceived tutor–student fit are empirically distinct attributes. Administrative records were obtained for 220 tutoring relationships on one online International General Certificate of Secondary Education tutoring platform; student questionnaires were returned for 178 of these, parent questionnaires for 163, and both for 134 matched student–parent pairs. Quality and fit were essentially uncorrelated (r = .12), loaded on separate factors, and both contributed independently to student satisfaction (fit β = .51; quality β = .18). Their variance structures differed: perceived quality showed substantial clustering by tutor (intraclass correlation .31) whereas perceived fit showed essentially none (< .01), consistent with quality having a tutor-level component and fit varying primarily within a tutor’s own caseload. On the parent side, perceived value and platform responsiveness were each independently associated with parent satisfaction, whereas the session fee added no independent association. Findings are associational and from a single platform. They imply that screening tutors on quality cannot substitute for matching, because the two attributes do not vary at the same level.

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