Effectiveness of the Tutoring Services in Algebra at the College Level

Abstract

Tutoring Centers are designed to assist students in becoming independent learners with study skills and strategies that will help them succeed in classes across the curriculum. Those are not intended to replace direct instructions classroom, but to enhance studying and learning habits. In addition, tutoring helps students who work off campus and those who may have difficulty asking instructors questions during the class sessions by providing unstructured learning environment. In this study, we evaluated the effectiveness of the tutoring services at two college centers and one university center. We collected data on their ability to provide students with improvement of their learning skills and achievement of their academic goals. We created a survey to get an accurate evaluation for specific tutoring services given in algebra. The survey included anonymous questions and we expected the students to rate the algebra tutoring services honestly, as well as share their thoughts about the centers. The survey included questions about learning and the influences that affect the students' experience at the tutoring center. Also, we evaluated the students' background and attitudes towards alggebra. For the statistical analysis of data we used Excel software. This study has provided interesting results and we made conclusions from our data analysis. We included some recommendations as well as the students' comments about how to improve the tutoring services at the end of this paper.