Applying Matched Sampling to Evaluate a University Tutoring Program for First Year Students.
Our study used a case control matching design to assess the influence of a voluntary tutoring program in improving firstyear students' Grade Point Averages (GPA) To evaluate program effectiveness, we applied case control matching to obtain 215 pairs of students with or without participation in tutoring, but matched on high school GPA and standardized test scores. Next, we examined differences in academic performance between the two groups. A matched pairs t test showed that students who attended the tutoring sessions demonstrated significantly higher GPAs during their first year. We close by discussing implications and suggestions for future research. Introduction Cross Level Peer Tutoring Peer tutoring has long been used in education as an effective learning tool. With settings ranging from elementary school (Ladd Kochenderfer, 1996) to higher education (Colvin, 2007) the practice of students helping to teach other students is often praised in the literature as a method for increasing student motivation (Miller MacGilchrest, 1996) improving student learning (Millis Cottell, Applying Matched Sampling to Evaluate a University Tutoring Program for First Year Students 100 TLAR, Volume 21, Number 1 1998; Entwistle, 1997) and fostering greater student academic responsibility (Goodlad, 1998) Given the effectiveness of such practices, many schools are adding peer tutoring as a method of improving student performance. Peer tutoring differs from traditional lecture methods by employing peers, rather than professional teachers, as the primary means of instruction. Although it may seem counterintuitive that a less experienced expert may be a more effective teacher, research results present many reasons why this may be the case. We'll start by defining what exactly a peer is. According to Falchikov (2001, p. 1) a peer is someone of "the same social standing," and peer level tutoring involves "helping each other to learn and learning themselves by teaching" (Topping, 1996; Falchikov, 2001, p. 3) Damon and Phelps provide a more specific definition of this process: "Peer tutoring is an approach in which one child instructs another child in material on which the first is an expert and the second is a novice" (1989, p. 11) Two important points may be derived from this definition, specifically highlighting why peer level tutoring may be more a more effective method of learning than traditional instructor based learning. First, because peer tutoring involves teachers and learners of the same social standing, there may exist a unique social and intellectual reciprocity between the two. Since the teacher and learner are on the same peer level, they may be more likely to share a bond not experienced by the traditional student professor dynamic. Given that both roles share a similar social status, they may be more likely to identify with the troubles and difficulties of the material in a unique perspective not shared by a more proficient expert. Drawing along the lines of Piaget's learning theory, this shared bond may help the student and learner work together to develop more similar schemata, or building blocks, towards understanding concepts (Piaget Cook, 1952) Second, because peer level tutoring allows students to work together in the teacher learner dynamic, some people have proposed that a more appropriate term, mutual instruction, be used to describe the process (Swengel, 1991) This term helps emphasize the second potential advantage of peer level tutoring that by teaching the Applying Matched Sampling| 101 material to their classmates, students are able to learn and master the material from a different perspective. By both teaching and learning from one another, students are allowed to engage in a form of cooperative learning (Hermann, 2013; Machemer Crawford, 2007) a form of learning connected with many positive outcomes, including retaining information longer (Lujan DiCarlo, 2006) and increased academic confidence (Cherney, 2008) There are two major characteristics that should differentiate the peer tutor from the "client" student. Tutors must have highquality training (Sheets, 1994) and have clearly defined roles as tutors instead of course teaching assistants (Carsrud, 1979) to be most effective. Proper training gives the tutor confidence in their abilities, skills in communication, and a background in learning theory that allows them to be most effective in working with peers. Unlike teaching assistants, tutors don't have control over students' grades or the construction of course materials, so clients view them as a more neutral resource for discussing course challenges. Barbara Millis, in Cooperative Learning in Higher Education (2010) summarizes the usefulness of cooperative learning, even apart from any peer tutoring constructs, in effectively encouraging deep learning, critical thinking, and academic skill building. Properly structured group learning opportunities serve the purpose of increasing topical understanding and academic skills, building communities to connect students to the institution, and increasing a sense of belonging leading to increased retention (Kuh, Kinzie, Buckley, Bridges, Hayek, 2007) Our Action Tutoring Program This paper investigates a voluntary tutoring program at a large, public, mid western university. Created in 2007, it is a campuswide tutoring program designed to increase students' academic achievement, critical thinking skills, and positive study habits with the ultimate goal of helping to boost retention and graduation rates. Tutoring sessions are staffed by undergraduate Peer Learning Assistants (PLAs) who have previously completed the course that they are tutoring and attend College Reading and Learning Association certified training for quality assurance (College Reading Learning Association, 2015) Alternatively, sessions may be staffed 102 TLAR, Volume 21, Number 1 by course graduate teaching assistants and/or by course instructors. Called U.C. Action, to promote the idea that students must be proactive in improving their educational experience, the program was originally designed to offer assistance in introductory courses with the highest rates of D, F, or W grades. Specific opportunities offered by the U.C. Action program include group tutoring sessions to encourage peer collaboration and learning communities, faculty lead activities to give the students greater exposure to their professors, and the use of learning enhancement tools such as SmartBoards, iPads, worksheets, and visual aids to integrate active learning. Faculty participation is encouraged through $500 grant opportunities, increased interactions with students outside a large lecture setup, efficiency of using their office hours in this way, and the hope of increased student learning in their courses. Approximately 30 faculty, 20 GTAs, and 40 Peer Learning Assistants (PLAs) per semester work with U.C. Action to provide weekly dropin and by appointment assistance in over 75 courses. The majority of client visits occur at the voluntary, drop in, group learning sessions hosted by faculty, but additional visits occur at those hosted by PLAs and at small group, by appointment sessions that are available faceto face or online. For the 2013 2014 academic year, 4,034 students visited sessions over 19,490 times, averaging 4.6 hours of assistance and 3.9 visits per student. Recent research suggests that attending voluntary tutoring sessions may have a positive effect on student performance and retention, particularly when students perceive a benefit in doing so (Cavanaugh, 2011) In two 2010 studies, both cross level, voluntary, one to one tutoring for at risk students (Rheinheimer, GraceOdeleye, Francois, Kusorgbor, 2010) and drop in, group tutoring (Cooper, 2010) correlated positively with students' retention rates and academic performance at U.S. public institutions. Additional positive effects were found by Arco, Fernandez, Espin, and Castro (2006) at a Spanish public university, suggesting that the effect may not be unique to domestic institutions. Cross level, voluntary, group tutoring is also an effective means of increasing course grades when students used at least 9 hours per semester of tutoring according to Munley, Garvey, and McConnell (2010) and it is an effective means Applying Matched Sampling| 103 to increase overall GPA and retention (Coladarci, Willett, Allen, 2013) Case Control Matching A well known factor of proper experimental design is that the groups being compared be as close as possible on every factor other than the one of interest. Because of this, a component of true experimental design is the notion of randomization (the idea that every participant has an equal probability of being assigned to any group) Having equal probabilities of assignment will, in effect, make the groups equal on every factor other than the one being manipulated. As such, any difference in the dependent variable should be attributed to the independent variable. The notion of case control matching design is presented in Shadish, Cook, and Campbell (2001) who demonstrate the effectiveness of this quasi experimental design across a number of fields, including sociology (Holland, 1986) epidemiology (Ahlbom Norell, 1990) and psychology (Holland Rubin, 1983) Built upon Rubin's Causal Model (Rubin, 1977) case control design seeks to answer the question of what if an alternate event had occurred. According to Rubin, every one unit in an experiment has a potential outcome, depending on the condition to which the unit is assigned. The question then becomes, what if the person had not been assigned to this condition, but rather to another condition. All things being equal, should we observe a different outcome, then we can assume the cause of this outcome to be the different condition. In light of this logic, sometimes called counterfactual conditioning, the current situation provide