Unraveling the resistance and strategies of human tutors to engaging students in e-learning

Artificial Intelligence (AI) advances in several domains, but in education there is still a lack of solutions that combine the advantages of AI with the performance of human tutors. This article aims to identify contingencies in the role of human tutors in supporting student engagement in online and blended learning. A digital ethnographic study was conducted to analyze the dimensions of tutoring. With re-enactment techniques and interviews to collect the difficulties of acting, from the perceptions of three tutors who participate in tutoring in a specific teaching-learning context mediated by Educational Social Network (ESN) platform. The results highlight the difficulties, outline the skills and conceptually represent the needs. It is concluded that the valuation of the interpersonal facilitates the creation of relationships of trust, which, in turn, contributes to the reduction of difficulties in tutoring. This manifests itself as a promising approach for Intelligent Tutoring Systems (ITS) that complement human skills in action.