An independent samples t-test for unequal variances was calculated comparing the mean scores of
tutored (n=152) versus nontutored students (n=671) on Academic Success in Developmental English courses (total As, Bs, and Cs) for Spring 2012 (see Table 1).
McMaster University has had experience with both
tutored and tutorless PBL small groups (Woods, Hall, Eyles, Hrymak, & Duncan-Hewitt, 1996).
* As students are
tutored in preparation for becoming tutors, their ambivalence about receiving help decreases and their motivation to learn increases.
Finally, this study confirms Allen's (1976) finding that cross-age tutors who exhibit a high degree of competency in the
tutored task fail to benefit academically from acting as tutors.
I was like Donald Trump in The Apprentice without the bad hair, creating an implied dominant role that made the students I
tutored feel as though I could say "You're fired" at a moment's notice.
The results showed that the gains for the
tutored group were substantially higher than for the control group.
Both groups were most often
tutored by faculty tutors (32 sessions out of 41).
Ray Wallace argues that tutors should "understand what the discipline professor expects as an end-product from the student being
tutored" (404).
Despite what they were reading, practicing, and writing in the tutoring course, when they
tutored, they tended to fix problems for the students, explaining to me that such fixing was what their students seemed to want.
I had previously
tutored in a writing center and worked in a managerial capacity as chair of an English department.
If he were in a situation where he was being
tutored and he began to cry, he would want the tutor to "ask me why I was crying, and listen and care." If he were tutoring a student, he would ask the student what was wrong and if there was anything he could do, regardless of what the problem was.
Leslie had taught for a year in our composition program and had
tutored at another institution.
"I was able to see more of a progression with the students that I
tutored because I saw them in class as well as seeing them one-on-one for tutoring."
Questionnaires went to twenty-one students from elementary schools, high schools, and colleges in New Jersey, North Carolina, and California; to both traditional and nontraditional students; to people who have never been
tutored and to people who have been
tutored; to both ESL writers and to writers for whom English is the first language; and to younger tutors.
The writing center tutors at Xavier indicated on the administered questionnaires that, on occasion, they were attracted to the students they
tutored. One male tutor commented that "Every so often I find myself attracted to a tutee, but usually I am not aware of physical attractiveness." The female tutors tended to have comparable responses; one female tutor wrote that she did "not generally notice tutees, unless they are so attractive." While, on average, Xavier's tutors did not frequently find themselves attracted to students whom they tutor, they did express that such an event was likely to pique their attention.
