recommendation report

Recommendation Report to Improve the Indiana

University Athletic Tutors

Prepared for: IU Athletic Department

Prepared by: Ryan Downey, Patrick Manaher, Haley Mclean, Brianna Sykes

Submitted: April 30, 2011

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Table of Contents Executive Summary……………………………………………………………………Page 3 Introduction………………………………………………………………………….......Page 4 Method and Scope…………………………………………………………………......Page 5 Findings and Solutions……………………………………………………………….Page 7 Hire Graduate Students……………………………………………………..Page 9 Implement Training System……………………………………………Page 10 Tutor Reviews After Every Session………………………………….Page 11 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………Page 13 Recommendation…………………………………………………………………….Page 15 Appendix A……………………………………………………………………………...Page 16 Appendix B……………………………………………………………………..……….Page 17 Appendix C……………………………………………………………………………...Page 18 Appendix D……………………………………………………………………………..Page 19

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Overview

This recommendation report that the Indiana University athletic department permitted us to conduct research on explores the tutoring service that they offer to their student athletes and the problems that they have run into with the tutors themselves.

By surveying and conducting interviews with student athletes, and by analyzing the end-‐of-‐semester tutor evaluation forms that students fill out, we came to the conclusion that the overall quality of tutors is very low, and that students do not like or trust the athlete tutoring system as a whole. We created three solutions that we believe could help the athletic department create a more helpful system for their student athletes. The three solutions are,

• Hire graduate student for more detailed tutoring

• Install a training system for all new tutors

• Tutor reviews after every session

While creating a training system and conducting tutor reviews are feasible ideas, we have decided that the solution that would most help the athletes is to hire more graduate students as tutors. It is very inexpensive and will be the most effective solution. We have also included steps necessary to take if you chose to take our advice. These steps include,

• Create brochures and posters for marketing

• Decide on good locations for the posters

• Market the job to the graduate students

• Hold interviews for the graduate students

• Hire the graduate students

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Introduction Three months ago our group was granted permission to research the effectiveness of the tutors within the athletic department at Indiana University. As a group of Indiana University students, and having an athlete in our group, we understand the importance of having good quality tutors for our athletes, and we have found that in many cases the tutors are not qualified enough to help the student athletes. In many cases the athletes told us, through surveys and interviews, that the tutors they were given through the athletic department were not effective, and were not qualified to teach in certain subjects. From the prior experiences of one of our group members, along with other athletes, we found that tutors routinely show up late and not prepared for sessions, and they are unable to teach the subjects that they are supposed to be experts in. In order to gain statistical evidence and a firmer grasp of the problem we created surveys for student athletes at Indiana University to take which were about their prior experience with the tutoring system through the athletic department. With this information we were able to create report including possible solutions and our groups recommendation to you. We will now go through the problem in greater detail, and then explain our method and scope, and then we will give you our solution ideas, we will then discuss them, and explain to you which one we think will work best for you.

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Evidence Gathered from Student Athletes The major problem we are looking to conquer is the low quality of a great number of Indiana University student athlete tutors. One of our group members is a student athlete, and had told us about a few poor experiences he had with tutors here on campus. These stories sparked our interest, and we craved to know more about the tutoring system and the tutors themselves. First, we talked to students in our classes. We heard several reports of student athletes agreeing with our hypothesis that the quality of student athletes was not up to par. Therefore, we decided to do some research. The first thing we did was hand out surveys and conduct interviews with student athletes. We asked the students how they personally felt about the tutoring system. An astounding 75% reported that they feel indifferent towards the system as a whole (as shown in Figure 1). This shows that students do not fully trust or utilize tutoring system as fully as they could or should. They have had bad experiences with the system or have heard bad reports on it from peers and teammates, and therefore do not believe it is worth their time to attend tutoring sessions. If the quality of the tutors were better, and students knew that they could trust and depend on those tutors to instruct them, make them feel comfortable with their classwork, and give them the confidence they need to succeed, the tutoring system would be substantially more beneficial to the student athletes.

FIGURE 1

How Much Do You Like Or Dislike the IU Tutoring System?

Feel Indifferent Love it

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The surveys of student athletes offered us additional insight as well. We learned that 63% of students feel that the tutoring system is only somewhat effective, as demonstrated by Figure 2. In addition, a mere 25% of student athletes responded that the tutoring system was extremely effective. Student athletes depend on their tutors and the tutoring system to help them be well rounded students and athletes. Athletes should feel that they are getting the very best help available to them and that the system is truly helping them perform well in their classes. Why should any of us in support of Indiana University allow student athletes that represent us to the nation get only ‘somewhat effective’ assistance? The quality of the tutors and tutoring system needs to increase dramatically, for the good of our student athletes and for the good of Indiana University as a whole.

FIGURE 2

How Effective Do You Feel the IU Tutoring System Is?

Not at all Effective Somewhat Effective Extremely Effective

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Research Methods Surveys: The initial research we conducted consisted of handing out surveys and interviewing student athletes. The surveys asked questions aimed to find out generally how student athletes felt about the Indiana University tutoring system as a whole. It first asked how often they attend tutoring sessions and for how long each session lasts. These questions were to find out how involved with the system each student is and how frequently he or she took part in it. Once those questions had been answered, the student athlete was asked on the survey to rate how qualified tutors seem, how helpful they have been, how much they like or dislike the tutoring system as a whole, and how effective they feel the system is on a scale of one to ten. Lastly, the survey provided space to give thoughts, reflections, or recommendations the student athletes had. See Appendix A for the exact survey. Once the student had completed the survey, we asked them several direct questions. Those questions were:

• What kind of mood(s) do your tutor(s) typically seem to be in? • How do tutors present themselves in terms of appearance and

clothing? • How do tutors address their students? • Do you, the student athlete, have a particular story or example you

would like to share?

These questions were asked out of the survey because they were more open-‐ended and we expected a variety of different answers. The purpose of the surveys and interviews were to give us the opinions of student athletes and to know what they felt were the true issues with tutors and within the tutoring system. In addition, we wanted to know particular stories or incidences and did not expect student athletes to want to write entire stories on the survey. It was easier for them to respond and for us to gather information to these questions by directly asking rather than adding them to the survey. The surveys and interviews were very helpful and essential to further research and the production of solutions to our problem.

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Analysis of Tutor Evaluation Forms: The next step in our research process was to obtain tutor evaluation forms. Student athletes fill out these forms at the end of each semester to demonstrate how they feel the sessions went. At first, we were not sure that we were going to be able to obtain these forms, because we knew they included names on them. While this was a concern, there was no reason not to try to get the forms. We contacted Kelly Noonan, the Assistant Athletic Director for Academic and Student Development Service, who agreed to give us access to the forms under the condition that we would not release names or take any names into account during our project. We agreed, and were allowed to review the forms. The forms request the names of the students, as well as the semester and time the sessions took place. Next, it prompts the student to choose whether the tutoring sessions were ‘Very Productive,’ ‘Productive,’ ‘Fairly Productive,’ or ‘Not Productive.’ The forms then ask for what subject or assignments were typically addressed, and then how the helpful the tutor was in completing those assignments on a scale of ‘Excellent,’ ‘Adequate,’ ‘Inadequate,’ or ‘N/A.’ Lastly, the tutor evaluation form provides space for feedback from the student. See Appendix B for an example for the tutor evaluation form that students currently use. The purpose of reviewing these forms was to further establish how student athletes feel about their tutors and the tutoring system as a whole. We had already asked students directly and outside the tutoring room, but the tutor evaluation forms were a look at the immediate reactions of students at the end of their semester of tutoring. The forms we reviewed were from different semesters throughout the past few school years, so we were able to see cumulatively how students reviewed their tutors. These forms were beneficial to our research and helped us establish the suggestions we are presenting.

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Solutions After conclusion of our research, we came up with three feasible solutions to improve the quality of the tutoring system. These solutions will allow the tutoring system to become more effective in educating our student athletes. We have laid the solutions out detailing the time, money and effectiveness of each one. We feel the following solutions are all viable and will enhance the tutoring program to help student athletes in the classroom. Solution 1: Hire graduate student for more detailed tutoring One of the main problems with the tutoring system is that the quality of some tutors is not up to par. We believe that a good solution to this problem is to recruit more graduate students to become tutors. To determine what subject student athletes struggle with the most, we contacted Assistant Athletic Director for Academic and Student Development Service Kelly Noonan. From correspondence with Ms. Noonan, we decided it would be a good idea to place advertisements for the tutor system in the Business School, English Department, Math Department, English Department, and Economics Department so that qualified graduate student will be aware of the opportunity. These five focuses are the most heavily demanded for tutors. We believe graduate students are more qualified for the position than undergraduate students because of the experience they already have or plan to have. Many of them are currently or have previously been associate instructors for subjects that need tutoring, which would give them the necessary experience needed to be an effective tutor. Currently, there is a minimal amount of graduate students in the academic tutoring system. The advertisements would be in the form of a flyer or poster and would be displayed in high-‐traffic areas and the specific academic departments that we are targeting. The flyer would highlight the fact that the position is not only paid, but would look good on a resume as well. The opportunity to be a tutor is not well known, and these flyers will catch the attention of graduate students looking for work in their field of expertise or extra cash. See Appendix D for an example. Time:

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The specific time needed for this solution would not only be to make the advertisements and distribute them around campus, but also allot for the extra amount of interviews, calls and emails that will flow into the academic center. The creation of flyers will take no longer than a week. Once they are created and obtained, we expect the distribution to take no longer than two or three days based on man-‐power and where we hang them up. They should also be aware that the daily office schedule will change slightly because of a possible increase in the amount of phone calls and emails wanting to know about a possible position. In addition, more time may be needed to schedule and conduct interviews for the position. Cost: The cost of the solution would depend on the rate of getting it professionally done. Depending on the amount of flyers and posters needed, the cost may vary at the hands of the company chosen for production. Any discounts given by the company based on the amount of flyers needed should also be kept in mind. There is no extra cost to distribute the flyers because the academic department staff is already compensated and this will be included in their duties. Effectiveness: We believe this solution will grab the attention of graduate students and therefore increase the quality of tutors in the system. Not every tutor currently in the system is as effective as they should be, and we feel that by hiring more graduate students this problem will be minimized. Solution 2: Install a training system for all new tutors As reported by 75% of student athletes who took our survey, tutors have a hard time relaying their knowledge to the person being tutored, or in other words, teaching. When tutors are first hired, they are sent right into their first sessions without any guidance on how to teach. We believe that in order to solve this problem, there needs to be a tutor training course that every new tutor is required to attend. The session would be led by two to three well-‐regarded tutors and would last an hour once a week for a month. This session would include topics like effective teaching methods, mock tutor sessions, and strategies to best help convey the topic to students. It would be held in one of the many classrooms in the north end zone of the football stadium.

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Time: The time needed would first be used to determine who would lead the sessions. This would require that someone analyze the end of the year evaluation forms and come to a conclusion on leaders. Those chosen would need to be willing take on a new role within the department and be willing to teach others how to tutor. Cost: The cost associated with this solution would be to pay those in attendance and those leading the session. As with any job orientation, the employer would pay the standard amount to the tutors during orientation. Those leading the session would be paid a flat rate for their preparation for class and their time in the classroom. The amount paid to these ‘leaders’ would be the normal tutoring wage plus about 10 percent. Effectiveness: By properly training tutors before they start, we believe it will give them the experience and strategies to use during the training session. The training sessions will include teaching methods for subjects that student athletes struggle with, such as Finite Math, English Composition, and Business Computing classes. This will give the new tutors confidence to teach the students and allow them to better convey their knowledge on the subject. A tutor training course will further improve the quality of tutors that enter the system and will create a cycle of better tutors in the future. Solution 3: Tutor reviews after every session A big reason why we believe the tutors are not as effective as they should be is because not all of them have the motivation to be good teachers and fully educate their students. Many tutors teach just for some extra money and to put the experience on a resume. Unlike graduate students, undergraduate tutors have no incentive to try and actually teach their peers because not all of them want to become teachers in the future. Tutors can come and go as they please without any real measuring stick for how their student is improving.

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To overcome this obstacle, we suggest a tutor be reviewed after each session. Once the session is done, the tutor will be required to leave the academic center while the student fills out a quick evaluation form. The form, as seen in Appendix C, is a slight variation on the evaluation forms athletes already fill out. However, they will require the name of the tutor for accountability purposes, and instead of reflecting on an entire semester of tutoring, students will fill these remodeled evaluations out after every session. These will question the overall effectiveness of the day’s tutoring session. The tutor will either pass or fail for the day. The tutor review will be a three-‐strike system. If a tutor receives a failing grade for the first time, their sessions will be monitored the next time they come in. If they get two failing grades, they will be required to come in for a meeting with the department head to discuss any struggles they are having and how to overcome them. If a third strike is received, they will be required to have a final meeting with the department head to determine if they are still eligible to be a tutor. Tutors are currently evaluated at the end of each semester, but not for every session. By evaluating each session, tutors will be more motivated to make sure they are relaying their message well. Time: In order to make sure each tutor is being properly evaluated, students must take five minutes at the end of their session to fill out the evaluation form. This will allow the students to give their tutor high remarks or to notify the staff of a potential problem. Cost: No extra monetary cost is associated with this solution. The only costly thing would be the time associated with dealing with a tutor who receives bad reviews. Time would be needed to overlook potential problematic tutors as well as to hold meetings with them if things escalate. Effectiveness:

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This method will lead to tutors being more motivated for each session. If they know they are being evaluated after each session, then they will have no choice but to make their best effort to teach the material. This solution will also eliminate the problem of tutors coming into the session unprepared or not in the right mental state to teach because they will know that doing so will potentially cost them their jobs. Conclusions After researching our three suggested solutions to improve and benefit the Indiana University athletic tutoring system, we have decided that hiring graduate students for more detailed tutoring is the best option in terms of time, money, and effectiveness. Below we will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of all three solutions we have developed (Tutor reviews after every session, Training system for new tutors, and hiring more graduate students). We believe that our choice of solutions is the best fit to achieve our initiative to create a more helpful tutoring system for the student athletes of Indiana University. One of our proposed solutions is to require all student athletes to fill out a tutor evaluation form after every tutoring session they attend. Although having up-to-date tutor evaluation forms would be helpful information for the athletic system to have, there are several disadvantages and obstacles this solution would bring upon the athletic system. In regards to time, this would bring upon slight time constraints because it forces every student to set aside additional time after their tutoring session to fill out a form. An advantage of this solution is that it is very low cost. The only cost for this solution would be the price of paper. Frequent tutor evaluation forms could either be an effective or an ineffective solution. If a majority of the student athletes took the evaluations seriously and filled them out honestly, then this solution could be efficient and beneficial to the athletic system. However, we suspect that many students find the forms tedious and would not take these evaluations seriously if they were required to fill one out every time they had a session. This solution has good intentions to help the tutoring system, but the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Creating a training program for the newly hired tutors would solve the issue of tutors not having any prior teaching experience; however, a program like this raises several concerns in respect to time, money, and effectiveness. Developing a training course would take extra time to decide who is going to teach the classes, how is the presentation going to be created, where the training program will take place, and several other aspects would need to be decided upon and implemented. The time-related complications of this solution are a main determinant of why our group decided this solution was not feasible for the athletic tutoring system. As far as cost is concerned, the athletic system would be

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required to pay all participants an hourly rate for attending or for teaching the training. This extra cost may not be affordable for the tutoring program. The solution that met the three criteria of time, cost, and effectiveness is hiring a greater number of graduate students to be tutors for student athletes. The only additional time the tutoring coordinators would have to set aside is time for marketing the tutoring program to graduate students. After it is advertised for one or two semesters, word of mouth will allow more and more graduate students to apply to become an athletic tutor. The only costs that apply to this solution are any costs relating to creating advertisements, such as posters or flyers. We strongly believe this solution is the most effective choice for the IU athletic tutoring system because graduate students have greater knowledge and better teaching techniques than a majority of undergraduate students. Since many graduate students are assistant instructors or instructors of courses, they obtain the knowledge to properly teach students. With better teaching overall, student athletes will be able to absorb more information from their tutoring sessions and apply what they have learned to assignments, projects, tests, and papers. While all three solutions are beneficial to the IU athletic tutoring system, the third solution of hiring more graduate students is the most valuable choice in terms of time, cost, and effectiveness. Since many student athletes voiced a concern that their tutors were not great at relaying information, this solution would solve this problem by hiring graduate students who have the experience of teaching undergraduate students. With this solution implemented into the program, the overall quality of the tutoring system will increase, and the students will benefit as well.

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Recommendation

Below are the steps we recommend to begin the hiring of graduate students with the end result being more focused and experienced tutors:

1) Make the opportunity to tutor more well-‐known to graduate students.

2) Create advertisement that details tutor program. Include notes that it is a paid position and that graduate students can tutor in the field they are studying.

3) Place advertisements around graduate center and give to department heads

4) Create email to be sent out to all graduate students. Include same details as

advertisements and include link for application

5) Sort through email responses and any contact information that has been made through advertisements

6) Select graduate tutors based on current needs and availability

7) Assign tutors a start date and determine compensation We believe that if these steps are followed, then the IU athletics tutoring program will be far better off. The more graduate students that become tutors, the greater quality of assistance can be provided for student athletes. We believe that graduate student tutors provide dual benefits. The student gets help from a tutor who has more experience in the academic field and the tutor gets more experience teaching in their specific field.

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Appendix A

IU STUDENT ATHLETE SURVEY This survey is for a W231 Professional Writing Skills class. We are doing research into the IU Student Athlete tutoring system in order to find out how the majority of student athletes feel about the system as a whole. We would appreciate you filling out this survey honestly and completely. Your name will be kept confidential.

1.) How many times a week do you meet with a tutor? a. Once a week b. Twice a week c. Three times a week d. Four or more times a week

2.) How long does your normal tutoring session last? a. Half an hour b. One hour c. An hour and a half or more d. It depends on ______________________________________.

3.) Do you have the same tutor for the same subject each session? a. Yes b. No c. Sometimes

4.) How qualified do your tutors seem? Not at all Qualified Somewhat Qualified Extremely Qualified

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 5.) To what degree do you feel your tutors have been helpful?

Not at all Helpful Somewhat Helpful Extremely Helpful 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6.) How much do you like or dislike the IU student athlete tutoring system? Dislike Completely Kind of Like Love It 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

7.) How effective do you feel the tutoring system is? Not at all Effective Somewhat Effective Extremely Effective 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

8.) Thoughts, recommendations, or other reflections you may have for us: ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

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Appendix B Student Athlete Tutor Evaluation Form

Student First Name: ________________________ Last: _____________________________ Semester of Session (Semester/YYYY): ____________

Time of Session (hh:mm): ___:___ AM: PM: Overall the session was:

Very Productive Productive Fairly Productive Not Productive Check Areas in Which You Received Tutorial Assistance:

Reviewed reading/voc. Words Discussed/Clarified Notes

Outline/Essay Organization Essay Proof Reading/Test Prep

Math Concepts; Homework Project Planning/Lab Work

Other _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. How Helpful Was the Tutor is Completing Assignment:

Excellent Adequate Inadequate N/A Student Feedback: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

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Appendix C

Student Athlete Sessionly Tutor Evaluation Form Sample Student First Name: ________________________ Last: _____________________________ Tutor First Name: _______________________ Last: _____________________________ Date of Session (MM/DD/YYYY): ____________

Time of Session (hh:mm): _____:_____ AM: PM: Overall the session was:

Very Productive Productive Fairly Productive Not Productive Check Areas in Which You Received Tutorial Assistance:

Reviewed reading/voc. Words Discussed/Clarified Notes

Outline/Essay Organization Essay Proof Reading/Test Prep

Math Concepts; Homework Project Planning/Lab Work

Other ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________. How Helpful Was the Tutor in Completing Assignment:

Excellent Adequate Inadequate N/A Student Feedback: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

ATTENTION GRADUATE STUDENTS:

Become a tutor for IU Student Athletes!*Applications for the Fall 2011 Semester accepted until August 1, 2011.*All tutor positions are paid.*Strongly in need of tutoring for MATH-M118, MATH-M119, ENG-W131, BUS-A200, and BUS-K201; however, other subjects are considered as well.*Send applications and further questions to [email protected]

Appendix D

recommendation report

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