With the world coming to terms with a global pandemic, focusing on your studies, preparing for SATs, LSATs, GRE, GMAT, etc. is becoming even harder. However, with universities and colleges shifting to online mechanisms for education, the students need to keep preparing despite the myriad of challenges they are facing in these times of crisis.
When it comes to all these exams, the test preparation market has a huge role. However, the choices that the students make right now will have quite an impact on the future of the test prep market, especially the online test prep market. The test prep market is predicted to reach over $30 billion by 2021.
Transition From Physical Classrooms to Online Classrooms
The current and forced transition of schools to distance learning is revealing several benefits of remote education. Test preparation is now shifting from physical classrooms to online classrooms. There is a lot of benefit for companies to learning how to invest in test preparation courses. Let’s see why is that and how is it good for the online test prep market.
When it comes to education, classroom courses have several benefits that are irreplaceable. For example, for students of engineering or physical sciences, there are a lot of things that can’t be taught remotely. However, when it comes to online test preparation courses, it depends on only two things.
- Instructor Quality
- Curriculum Quality
· Instructor Quality
Previously, to increase their market and to enroll a higher number of students, test preparation centers used to employ a lot of instructors. In doing so, they compromised on the quality of education being imparted by those subpar instructors.
However, when it comes to online test prep, there is no need to hire a below-average instructor because there are no physical classrooms. In this way, not only will the test prep companies will have resources to invest in a quality instructor, but the students will also get quality education, and thus, will be able to perform better.
· Curriculum Quality
When it comes to standardized tests, the curriculum and type of questions that come in those tests are certain. The challenge for the test prep companies is to create an effective curriculum. What they need to do, at first, is to create a simple model that will help all the learners, no matter what their capabilities are.
hen, the second step will be to provide such content that will help the students work on their problem areas. Research says that online learning is as effective as classroom learning. Therefore, the test prep companies have to design a curriculum that will help the students in a better way while they are studying online.
With the help of various online tools such as lesson planners, creating assignments and quizzes, etc., you can ensure that the students get tools for interactive learning. Students need to ensure that they read PrepScholar reviews online of the test prep companies so that they would know that they are getting quality education.
However, not all students belong to the same social and economic class. In the wake of COVID-19 and the transition from physical learning to e-learning, we have seen that the students who are of lower socioeconomic status are facing loads of difficulties. This is since they lack access to the internet and have less reliable devices.
Steps That Online Test Prep Companies Need to Take
With so many test prep companies available online quite a few steps the test prep industry is shifting away from the classroom, they have to address the social and economic disparities that exist in society. Otherwise, it will become just another way for rich and wealthy students to get a leg up.
· Offer Need-based Scholarships
Several students can’t afford the rates of online test prep. Is it fair and just that they will not get the guidance they deserve just because they can’t afford it? This is where scholarships come in. Test prep companies have to implement a mechanism through which bright students of lower economic standing will get scholarships.
· Improve Their Device Availability
Not all of the students have access to high quality, expensive devices. We need to ensure that the online test prep material is compatible with all devices, so that people all over the world, even those with very affordable and cheap phones can have access to quality education.
Moreover, the online test prep industry needs to make their courses available offline as well. Making the course content downloadable would be beneficial for many people who don’t have access to the internet 24/7.
Final Word
In these unprecedented times, even though there are several challenges, the world, especially the world of online preparation has changed for the better. Both the online test prep companies and students need to adapt.
Here’s to a better and effective online test prep world!
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