The document summarizes a dissertation proposal that investigates the effectiveness of Title I tutoring programs in elementary schools. It provides background on the achievement gap and federal mandates for supplemental tutoring. A literature review discusses shortcomings of tutoring programs and the need for evaluation. The study aims to examine relationships between tutoring program quality and student achievement, and compare administrator and teacher perceptions of programs. A survey will be used to rate programs based on characteristics of effective tutoring. A pilot study will evaluate the survey instrument.

1. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF TITLE I
TUTORING PROGRAMS IN
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS
Eunetra Ellison-Simpson
Dr. William Allan Kritsonis – Dissertation Chair
PVAMU
JULY 2008

2. Proposal Committee Members
• Dr. William Kritsonis – Dissertation
Chair
• Dr. Camille Gibson – Member
• Dr. David Herrington – Member
• Dr. Tyrone Tanner - Member

3. Chapter I
INTRODUCTION

4. Introduction
• Federally mandated public after-school tutoring
is not always reaching the children it's intended
to help, and when it does, it does not always
help as much as it could (Toppo, 2008).
• Questions are being raised about the
effectiveness of tutoring for underachieving
students, the accountability of tutors, and
academic return on this investment (Buczynski,
2008).

5. Introduction (con.)
• There's still a dearth of research evidence to
show whether one of the federal measure's
least-tested innovations--a provision that calls
for underperforming schools to provide after-
school tutoring--has an impact on student
achievement (Evidence Thin on Student Gains,
2007).

6. Background of the Problem
• Not surprisingly, 40% of all urban districts are required
to offer supplemental services (Ascher, 2006).
• Gewertz (2005) says that states must evaluate the
effectiveness of free tutoring under the federal No
Child Left Behind Act, but a lack of resources might
force them to compromise on the rigor of those
evaluations.
• By anecdotal accounts, most states are not far along in
designing evaluations and many experts question their
capacity to design and implement high-quality
evaluations (Gewertz, 2005).

7. Statement of the Problem
• Saulny (2006) asserts that even for those
students who are getting tutored, there has yet
to be a scientific national study judging
whether students in failing schools are receiving
any academic benefit, and there is no
consensus on how that progress should be
judged.

8. Research Question # 1
What is the relationship between
tutoring effectiveness and student
achievement based on an
elementary school’s rating on the
Characteristics of Effective
Tutoring Scale and its TAKS
Cumulative Met Standard in
reading?

9. Research Question #2
What do administrators report
about the effectiveness of
implementing Title I tutoring
programs in elementary schools
as indicated by their rating on
the Characteristics of Effective
Tutoring Scale?

10. Research Question #3
What do elementary school
teachers report about the
effectiveness of implementing
Title I tutoring programs in
elementary schools as indicated
by their rating on the
Characteristics of Effective
Tutoring Scale?

11. Research Question #4
Is there a difference in the
ratings of administrators and
teachers on the Characteristics
of Effective Tutoring Scale?

12. Null Hypotheses
• H1 - There is no relationship between tutoring
effectiveness and student achievement based
on an elementary school’s rating on the
Characteristics of Effective Tutoring Scale and
its TAKS Cumulative Met Standard in reading.
• H2- There is no difference in the ratings of
administrators and teachers in their overall
scores on the Characteristics of Effective
Tutoring Scale.

13. Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study will be to investigate the
structure of tutoring programs currently employed by
public schools. Faculty members will rate the
effectiveness of the campus tutoring programs by
completing the Characteristics of Effective Tutoring
Scale. Descriptive data will be included in the study to
indicate factors that may be associated with the
implementation and evaluation of Title I tutoring and
further analysis will determine if any significant
relationship exists between the quality of a Title I
campus tutoring program and its TAKS Cumulative Met
Standard. The study will also investigate whether
administrators and teachers differ in rating their
campus tutoring program.

14. Significance of the Study
• Results of the study will provide an overview of the
effectiveness of the tutoring methods that are utilized.
• Implications for school administrators extracted
through the study may substantiate the current
practices that are in place.
• On the other hand, the study may serve as an apparatus
of transformational change in streamlining the content
and structure of tutoring programs.
• Ensuring that compensatory education programs are
effective will enable educators to advance a step
further in the quest to ameliorate the achievement gap
between at-risk students and students of mainstream
America.

15. Conceptual Framework
What is “tutoring effectiveness?”
According to Gordon, Morgan, Ponticell, and O’Malley (2004):
• From what researchers now know, there seems to be at least 10
components that support high-quality tutoring:
• 1. More professionally prepared tutors consistently produce
significantly higher levels of student achievement than tutors with
little or no special preparation.
• 2. Tutors need to use a diagnostic/developmental template to
organize and implement each student's tutoring program.
• 3. The tutors must be able to track the session-to-session progress
of each student in order to modify tutoring content and use
student academic strengths to overcome weaknesses.
• 4. Principles of learning drawn from both cognitive and
constructivist thinking seem to offer the strongest contemporary
tutoring methods.
• 5. Tutors need to use continuous feedback to help students
develop positive self-images as learners.

16. Conceptual Framework
What is “tutoring effectiveness?”
• 6. Formal/informal assessment needs to be used throughout the
tutoring process.
• 7. Mentoring/coaching students on learning how to learn through
providing guidance on study habits, test taking, attention to
school, and learning in general is a significant informal part of
effective tutoring.
• 8. Mentoring/coaching each student's parents on sustaining the
day-to-day learning process in the home after the tutoring ceases
is an important role for effective tutors.
• 9. To facilitate the coaching of parents, it is desirable to conduct
the tutoring in the student's own home outside of school hours. If
this is not possible, a community center or library can be used, but
an effort to provide mentoring to the parents should still be made.
• 10. Throughout the tutoring, tutors must collaborate closely with
each student's classroom teacher. The final measure of the
effectiveness of the tutoring is the short-term and long-term
improvement of the student's day-to-day classroom achievement.
Close tutor-teacher collaboration will help maximize effective
tutoring.

17. Review of theReview of the
LiteratureLiterature

18. The Evolution of Tutoring
• The tutor-student model is patterned after the
relationship that existed between the student
and sage during the age of Socrates (McDonald,
2004).
• Gordon (1990) contends that tutorial philosophy
and methods were forgotten or quietly
absorbed by tax-supported public schools.

19. The Achievement Gap
• While Americans are mixed on the urgent need to
address the racial achievement gap, the school's
responsibility for the gap, and the practice of
disaggregation, the Bush administration and NCLB
proponents have aggressively wielded the law's
emphasis on achievement gaps as a political tool (Hess,
2006).
• English (2003) asserts that current methods in
education have not solved the major sociopolitical and
instructional problems of race or class, and they have
not reduced the gap between the socioeconomic haves
and have-nots.

20. Compensatory Education: Title I
• Title I, the best known of the Act’s six titles
was included for the purpose of meeting the
special educational needs of children of low-
income families (Kritsonis, 2002).
• For decades, people have argued about
whether Title I in itself can be praised for
raising test scores among broad groups in
society, or whether it should be condemned for
not closing the gap between poor and rich
children (Borman, Stringfield, & Slavin, 2001).

21. 21st Century Educational Reform: No Child
Left Behind
• As a result of No Child Left Behind (NCLB),
substantial new federal spending is allocated
for supplemental education services, which
most often mean tutoring (Buczynski, 2008).
• Underlying supplemental services is the
assumption that academic instruction provided
outside the regular school day by public and
private organizations will be able to do what
schools cannot - raise the achievement of
students in consistently poorly performing
schools (Sunderman, 2006).

22. Shortcomings of Tutoring Programs
• In the 299 districts surveyed by the Center on
Education Policy (CEP) in 2005-06, 20% of
eligible students took advantage of
supplemental services; however, extremely low
percentages of eligible students enrolling in
supplemental services have been reported in
Houston (3%) and Philadelphia (5%) (Ascher,
2006).

23. Shortcomings of Tutoring Programs
Students could get better access to federally
funded tutoring programs if lawmakers
streamlined the sign-up process, gave states
and districts money to monitor and evaluate
those services, and took steps to make sure
districts actually spent money for tutoring on
tutoring (Borja, 2007).

24. Shortcomings of Tutoring Programs
In a study conducted by the U.S. Department of
Education from 2003-2005, Anderson and LaGuarda
(2005) found impediments regarding the state of free
tutoring programs:
• Some providers were unable to describe any strategy
for aligning their services with state standards.
• Student attendance at after school tutoring was a
challenge.
• Provider communication with parents and teachers was
seldom very effective.

25. Shortcomings of Tutoring Programs
• Similar findings were observed by Ascher (2006):
Although NCLB mandates "highly qualified" teachers for
every classroom during the school day, the law is silent
about qualifications for tutors. Most tutors are
certified teachers, but some are college graduates
without teaching experience, and 7% are high school
students. Some, but not all, providers prepare their
tutors to work with their instructional programs -
preparation ranges from four to 20 hours. Some, but
not all, providers evaluate their tutors.

26. The Need for Title I Tutoring Program
Evaluation
• The lack of tutorial program supervision by public or
private regulatory agencies resulted in some tutors
making unfair claims regarding academic improvement
that unduly raised student and parent expectations
(Gordon, 1990).
• As tutoring programs of various types receive attention
as possible solutions to modern educational problems, it
becomes necessary to evaluate them in terms of their
benefits to the students involved (Von Harrison &
Guymon, 1980).
• Few research studies, for example, include a control
group of students, prohibiting clear conclusions on the
effects of the tutoring; therefore, the long-term effects
of reading interventions need to be investigated
(Senesac & Silberglitt, 2008).

27. Investigating Tutoring Effectiveness
• The demand for proven results, extensive evaluations, and
data-driven decision-making has moved the role of the
superintendent from the sideline to the frontline of
supporting student achievement (Peterson & Young, 2004).
• As great as the need is for similar quantitative studies from
other districts, including those that follow students over
more than one year, there is also need for program
observations that facilitate an understanding of how
supplemental services classrooms are over time and how
children experience tutoring (Ascher, 2006).
• It is imperative that resources be allocated to design and
implement sophisticated evaluations of tutoring efforts
(Pearson, 2000).
• Tutoring programs must be evaluated rigorously and
systematically in order to determine: which produce the
strongest and most reliable effects on student learning,
which produce negligible effects, and which produce no or
even negative effects (Slavin & Calderaon, 2000).

28. Characteristics of Effective Tutoring
Programs
• Effective programs require adequate training
for tutors, whether these are college students,
community volunteers, or other children;
second, supervision of tutors is essential
(Pearson, 2000).

29. Garner et al. (2002) provides a framework for effective
tutoring:
• Organizational support is one of the most important
aspects to a successful after-school tutoring program.
• Providing adequate space to conduct the tutoring
program and appropriate materials such as books and
writing supplies to implement the program, and
providing a designated person or people to be in charge
of implementing the program are key to program
success.
• In all of the effective after-school programs reviewed,
training of the tutors was a consistent factor.
• An after-school tutoring program needs to have
appropriate materials to implement a high-quality
program.
• Incentives are important to keep tutors and tutees
involved in the program.

30. Summary of the Literature
• In conclusion, the literature suggests that tutors
must be equipped with ample training,
resources, and evaluative feedback in order to
produce an effective impact on student
achievement.
• Education reform measures promoting research-
based programs should encompass tutoring so
that this important form of education can
become a more potent resource in improving
student performance (Gordon et al., 2004).

31. MethodsMethods

32. Research Methods
• Current conditions of tutoring programs will be
described and analyzed for relationships between
tutoring effectiveness and academic achievement.
• For the purposes of establishing a relationship between
variables, no logical causal ordering can be implied;
student achievement is the criterion variable while
level of tutoring effectiveness is the predictor variable.
• In addition, two independent variables, the rating
scores indicating the perceptions of administrators and
staff members will also be compared through a t-test.

33. Subjects of the Study
• Houston, Texas has a low enrollment of eligible
students in Title I tutoring (3%) according to
Ascher (2006).
• For this reason, it is the interest of the study to
discover how teachers and administrators in the
Houston area regard Title I tutoring programs
based upon the Characteristics of Effective
Tutoring.

34. Subjects of the Study
• The study will be conducted in Harris County,
the most populous county in the state of Texas.
• Harris County includes 23 school districts;
nonrandom, purposive and convenience
sampling methods will be used to invite 2
school districts to participate.
• The two districts invited to participate in the
study will be purposely selected based on the
fact that a large number of their schools are
considered Title I.

35. Subjects of the Study
• Schools will be invited through cluster
sampling.
• Approximately 45 elementary schools reside in
Districts I and II combined.
• Ten schools will be selected from the school
districts (n=10) by placing all 45 elementary
campus names in a hat to retrieve the desired
sample size.

36. Subjects of the Study
• Once ten schools have been selected, teachers
and administrators will be invited to participate
in the study via email.
• Convenience sampling will be used in selecting
administrators and teachers.
• At least two administrators and 20 teachers per
campus is the desired sample size (n=220).

37. Instrumentation
• Thirty statements regarding program administration,
program design, family involvement, and tutoring
sessions are included in the survey.
• Together, these four components of the survey will be
combined to elicit an overall score that will determine
whether a school’s tutoring program is deemed as
highly effective, efficient, emergent, or in need of
improvement.
• Information about the reliability and validity of the
Characteristics of Effective Tutoring Scale as a web
survey will be addressed in a pilot study.

38. Instrumentation
• Cooperation in completing the survey is likely due to its
brevity, readability of responses and the use of Likert-
responses; furthermore, “if a survey request is
perceived as interesting and easy, the likelihood of
obtaining cooperation will increase” (Biemer & Lyberg,
2003, p. 107).
• Confidentiality of respondent’s identity and letters sent
to participants to explain the significance of
participating in the study may increase the response
rate.
• In completing electronic surveys, “confidentiality
must be assured and guarantees must be provided that
installment of the communication package will not lead
to virus attacks” (Biemer & Lyberg, 2003, p.201).

39. Instrumentation
• Additional benefits of web survey designs such
as Survey Monkey include “controlled routing
and embedded edits” that may “decrease
measurement error and item nonresponse”
(Biemer & Lyberg, 2003, p.201).

40. Pilot Study
• In its original form, Characteristics of Effective Tutoring
is a checklist of 30 standards that effective tutoring
programs may have (see Appendix C).
• Likert-type responses will be added to the checklist and
will be converted into a web survey on a secure site
using Survey Monkey in order to elicit responses from
administrators and staff members regarding the
tutoring practices of each campus.
• A pilot study will be conducted to ensure that
converting the checklist by adding Likert-type
responses yields a reliable and valid survey.

41. Pilot Study
• Through convenience sampling, five teachers
and one administrator will be invited to
complete the survey.
• Respondents’ answers as well as any comments
regarding the flow, readability, and relevancy
of the questions will be analyzed in the pilot
study.
• Appropriateness of the scale will be evaluated
for the purposes of the study.
• Attention to the layout of the questionnaire will
also be addressed to ensure that the instrument
is clear to respondents.

42. Procedures
• Respondents will be introduced to the Characteristics of
Effective Tutoring Scale through a link provided in an
email.
• All submissions will be completed online via the World
Wide Web.
• Respondents will choose the location in which to
complete the web survey.
• Identifying information will not be obtained.
• Staff members and administrators will respond to each
item on the survey by indicating the extent to which
each statement is representative of the campus.

43. Research Question
#1
Hypothesis Criterion Variable Predictor Variable Statistical
Measurement
What is the
relationship
between
tutoring
effectiveness
and student
achievement
based on an
elementary
school’s rating
on the
Characteristics
of Effective
Tutoring Scale
and its TAKS
Cumulative Met
Standard in
reading?
H1 - There is no
relationship
between
tutoring
effectiveness
and student
achievement
based on an
elementary
school’s rating
on the
Characteristics
of Effective
Tutoring Scale
and its TAKS
Cumulative Met
Standard in
reading.
Student
achievement
Level of
tutoring
effectiveness
Pearson’s r
coefficient of
correlation

44. CORRELATIONAL STATISTICS
• The first hypothesis, H1, involves correlational research. For
each of the 10 campuses included in the study, the first variable,
TAKS Cumulative Met Standard value, will be collected via AEIS
reports.
• TAKS Cumulative Met Standard values for will be listed in a SPSS
spreadsheet.
• Using the values emanated from the descriptive research portion
of the study, the arithmetic mean of each school’s rating scale will
be listed in an adjacent column in SPSS.
• The Pearson r correlation coefficient will be calculated to
determine whether a significant relationship exists between a
campus average score on the Characteristics of Effective Tutoring
scale and its TAKS Cumulative Met Standard for TAKS reading.

45. Research Question
#2
Statistical
Measurement
What do administrators report
about the effectiveness of
implementing Title I tutoring
programs in elementary schools as
indicated by their rating on the
Characteristics of Effective
Tutoring Scale?
Descriptive statistical measures
including a frequency polygon and
grouped frequency distribution will
be used to summarize the results of
the survey.

46. Research Question
#3
Statistical
Measurement
What do elementary school
teachers report about the
effectiveness of implementing
Title I tutoring programs in
elementary schools as indicated
by their rating on the
Characteristics of Effective
Tutoring Scale?
Descriptive statistical measures
including a frequency polygon and
grouped frequency distribution
will be used to summarize the
results of the survey.

47. DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
• To determine any emerging trends, a grouped frequency distribution will
be prepared for each of the 10 schools involved in the study.
• Participants’ scale scores will be placed in rank order from high to low.
Visual representation of the data will be graphed in a frequency polygon
in which the shape of the distribution of scores demonstrates the
skewness of the data.
• Descriptive data will be useful in reporting whether respondents rate their
schools on the higher end (effective) or the lower end (in need of
improvement).
• Measures of central tendency will also be tabulated to summarize the data
presented in the frequency distribution. The arithmetic mean will be
calculated by adding up each of the respondent’s scores and dividing by
the number of scores (n=220).
• For each school, the mean of all respondents’ scores will be calculated
in order to determine the overall level of effectiveness of each school
(highly effective, efficient, emergent, needs improvement).
• In addition, the mean of the scores from all 10 campuses will be
calculated to ascertain the average level of effectiveness for Title I
tutoring programs.

48. Research Question
#4
Hypothesis Independent
Variable
Independent
Variable
Statistical
Measurement
Is there a
difference in
the ratings of
administrators
and teachers on
the
Characteristics
of Effective
Tutoring Scale?
There is no
difference in
the ratings of
administrators
and teachers in
their overall
scores on the
Characteristics
of Effective
Tutoring Scale.
Administrators’
scores on the
Characteristics
of Effective
Tutoring Scale
Teachers’
scores on the
Characteristics
of Effective
Tutoring Scale
T-test of
Independent
Means

49. INFERENTIAL STATISTICS
• The second hypothesis, H2, involves inferential research.
Statistical procedures used in the data analysis of the research will
enable one to draw conclusions regarding the impact of free
tutoring.
• A t-test of independent means will be applied to determine
whether there is a significant difference in the responses of
administrators and staff member on the Characteristics of
Effective Tutoring Scale.
• Rating scale scores of administrators and faculty members will be
listed into two separate columns for analysis in SPSS.
• Using SPSS 15.0, a t-test will be calculated for the two sets of
scores.
• To determine the statistical significance, the null hypothesis will
be restated.
• An independent-means t-test will be applied at the standard alpha
level of .05.

50. In Conclusion…
• Research has provided little evidence to guide policy
makers and educators on the benefits of supplemental
educational services, particularly in improving the
education of low-income and some minority students
(Sunderman, 2006).
• The study will fulfill the gap in the research to date by
investigating whether administrators and teachers rate
the tutoring programs implemented on their campuses
as effective or in need of improvement.
• Whether the level of effectiveness of tutoring programs
is related to student achievement will also be
investigated.