Research in Progress to Better Understand High-Impact Tutoring

This report lists ongoing and planned research studies related to high-impact tutoring, collected from researchers invited to the annual National Student Support Accelerator Conference in May 2023. Research studies are divided into three broad categories of work: Program effects, effects of program characteristics, and implementation.

Program Effects

 

Study Topic Research Questions Methodology Location Submitting Researcher(s) Expected Results
A Scalable Approach to High-Impact Tutoring for Young Readers: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial What is the effect of Chapter One's 1:1 tutoring on early literacy? RCT  Broward County Public Schools, Florida Kalena Cortes; Texas A&M University Karen Kortecamp; George Washington University Susanna Loeb; Stanford University Carly D. Robinson; Brown University Preliminary results available
Closing the income-achievement gap? Experimental evidence from high-dosage tutoring in Dutch primary education We wanted to know if a Saga Education-consulted high dosage tutoring program could be successfully built from the ground up and exported to a different national/institutional setting while maintaining substantial effect sizes, and whether existing income-achievement gaps could be substantially reduced by targeting low-income communities with scalable interventions like HDT. RCT Netherlands Joppe de Ree, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Mario A. Maggioni, DISEIS & CSCC Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy; Bowen Paulle, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Domenico Rossignoli, DISEIS & CSCC Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy; Dawid Walentek, University of Warsaw, Poland Results are Published
High dosage tutoring in pre-vocational secondary education: Experimental evidence from Amsterdam We set out to examine whether The Bridge's HDT program could appreciably reduce the gap between, on one hand, what low-achieving students attending stigmatised high-poverty secondary schools need to thrive and, on the other, the educational opportunities that are typically afforded to them. RCT New West (Amsterdam, NL) Joppe de Ree, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Mario A. Maggioni, DISEIS & CSCC Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy; Bowen Paulle, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Domenico Rossignoli, DISEIS & CSCC Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano, Italy; Dawid Walentek, University of Warsaw, Poland  Working Paper available
Road to Recovery We examine participation, dosage, and impacts of academic recovery interventions in 12 mid- to large-sized school districts across 10 states during the 2021–22 school year. We also examine overall school year 2021-22 recovery rates in these districts and discuss implementation challenges that emerged from interviews with district leaders. Value-added modeling Alexandria City Public Schools, Dallas Independent School District, Guilford County Schools, Pinellas County Schools, Portland Public Schools, Richardson Independent School District, Santa Ana Unified School District, Suffern Central School District, Syracuse City School District, Tulsa Public Schools Dan Goldhaber, AIR Thomas J. Kane, Harvard University Andrew McEachin, NWEA Emily Morton, NWEA Maria V. Carbonari, Harvard Miles Davison, NWEA Michael DeArmond, AIR Daniel Dewey, Harvard Elise Dizon-Ross, AIR Ayesha Hashim, NWEA Tyler Patterson, Harvard Douglas O. Staiger, Dartmouth Working Paper available
Breakthrough Collaborative’s Tutoring Program: Math Knowledge Gains and Participant Math Perceptions 1. Among students who participate in the tutoring program, what is the average attendance rate during tutoring sessions? 2. Do students who participate in the tutoring program report having a high-quality relationship with their tutor after receiving tutoring? 3. Do students who participate in the tutoring program report high levels of sense of belonging after receiving tutoring? 4. Do students who participate in the tutoring program report higher levels of math confidence after receiving tutoring than before the tutoring began? 5. Do students who participate in the tutoring program demonstrate gains on the district administered i-Ready assessment (Breakthrough Central Texas) or Renaissance Star Math assessment (Breakthrough Greater Boston)? Descriptive Central Texas and Greater Boston Breyon Williams, Connor Rooney, and Greg Chojnacki - Mathematica Results are Published
Blueprint Math Fellows Tutoring Program: Math Knowledge Impacts and Participant Math Perceptions 1. Among students identified to receive the tutoring program, what is the average attendance rate? Does attendance vary by size of the homebase tutoring group? 2. Do students who participate in the tutoring program report having a high-quality relationship with their tutors? Does the reported quality of students’ relationships vary by size of the homebase tutoring group? 3. Do students who participate in the tutoring program score higher on district assessments than students who do not participate in the tutoring program? Does this difference vary by student characteristics or size of the homebase tutoring group? 4. Do students who participate in the tutoring program report higher levels of math confidence and sense of belonging after receiving tutoring than before? Does this vary by size of the homebase tutoring group? Quasi-experimental design + Descriptive N/A Andrew Gothro and Greg Chojnacki - Mathematica Results are Published
Impacts of UPchieve On-Demand Tutoring on Students’ Math Knowledge and Perceptions 1. To what extent do incentives and encouragement raise students’ use of UPchieve tutoring? 2. Does increased use of UPchieve lead to math knowledge gains? If so, how do gains vary across specific student groups, such as students who are Black or Latino, or those who face more barriers to math engagement? 3. Does increased use of UPchieve lead to students reporting higher levels of math confidence and engagement? Stratified randomized controlled trial  N/A Grady Deacon and Greg Chojnacki - Mathematica Results are Published
Math Corps’ Tutoring Program: Math Knowledge Impacts and Participant Math Perceptions 1. Among students identified to participate in Math Corps, what is the average attendance rate? Does attendance vary based on student characteristics? 2. Do students who participate in Math Corps score higher on the Star math knowledge assessment than similar students who do not participate in Math Corps? 3. Do students who participate in Math Corps report having a high-quality relationship with their tutors? 4. Do students who participate in Math Corps report high levels of sense of belonging? Among students participating in Math Corps, are sense of belonging levels correlated with reported quality of their relationships with their tutors? 5. Do students who participate in Math Corps report high levels of math confidence? Among students participating in the program, are math confidence levels correlated with reported quality of their relationships with their tutors? Quasi-experimental, mixed methods Three majority-Black traditional public and charter schools across Georgia and Minnesota. Silvia Robles, Krista O’Connell, Andrew Gothro, and Kate Place - Mathematica Results are Published
Cignition Group Tutoring: Impacts on Students’ Math Knowledge and Perceptions 1. Do students who participate in group tutoring score higher on a fractions math assessment than students who do not participate in group tutoring? 2. Do students who participate in group tutoring report higher levels of math confidence and enjoyment than students who do not participate in group tutoring? 3. How do students receiving group tutoring rate the quality of the relationship with their tutors? Does the reported quality of students’ relationships vary by student characteristics, or by tutor? RCT + Survey analysis N/A Catherine Pratt, Greg Chojnacki, and Kara Conroy - Mathematica Results are Published
Air Tutors’ Online Tutoring: Math Knowledge Impacts and Participant Math Perceptions 1. What effects does Air Tutors have on participating students’ math knowledge, as measured by performance on standardized math tests? 2. Do Air Tutors students report higher levels of math confidence after receiving tutoring than before? 3. Do Air Tutors students report a high sense of belonging in their tutoring sessions? 4. Do Air Tutors students report positive student–tutor relationships? 5. What is the average attendance rate for participating Air Tutors students? RCT Three schools, including a K-12 online school and an elementary school and middle school in a school district in Texas. Lily Fesler, Anna Gu, and Greg Chojnacki - Mathematica Results are Published
When the counterfactual is as important as the factual: Emerging lessons from a virtual tutoring field experiment What is the effect of being assigned to receive synchronous, small-group virtual math or reading tutoring on the end-of-year math and reading test scores of students grades 3 through 8? RCT Suburban school district in Texas Emanuele Bardelli, Santa Rosa City Schools; Sara White, Brown University; Carly Robinson, Stanford University; Leiah Groom-Thomas, Stanford University; Susanna Loeb, Stanford University Preliminary results available
Scale-up Experiments By how much do the impacts of high-dosage tutoring programs change with the scale of the program because of heterogenous tutor quality?  RCT Chicago, New York City Jon Guryan (Northwestern) Kelly Hallberg (University of Chicago) Jens Ludwig (University of Chicago)  Summer 2023
Tutoring Online Project - TOP Is tutoring online effective? - group vs individual tutoring - can tutors help encode positive academic memories to remedial education children? - how can we improve the effectiveness of the match? RCT  Italy, Dominican Republic Michela Carlana, Harvard University; Eliana La Ferrara, Harvard University Summer 2023
Effects of Synchronous Virtual Early Literacy Tutoring: The Role of Group Size What is the effect of synchronous, virtual early literacy tutoring on end-of-year reading test scores? What is the effect of 1:1 virtual early literacy tutoring on end-of-year reading test scores? What is the effect of 2:1 virtual early literacy tutoring on students' end-of-year reading test scores? Do students assigned to 1:1 early literacy tutoring perform better, the same, or worse compared to students assigned to 1:2 early literacy tutoring? RCT  Elementary schools, Texas Susanna Loeb, Stanford University; Carly Robinson, Stanford University; Cynthia Pollard, Stanford University Summer 2023
Khoaching with Khan Academy Teach teachers to use Computer Assisted Learning more effectively. RCT  Arlington Independent School District Chloe Gibbs, University of Notre Dame Michael Jensen, University of Notre Dame Philip Oreopoulos, University of Toronto Joseph Price, Brigham Young University Summer 2023
National Student Support Accelerator: Effects of Tutoring Early Literacy Tutoring with School-Based Paraprofessionals 1. Does a high-impact, early literacy tutoring program result in better student outcomes? 2. Does the effectiveness of the program vary by the underlying student characteristics? (For instance, we might explore differences in impact based on: student gender, race/ethnicity, grade level, socioeconomic disadvantage, English Learner status, prior reading level, student engagement) 3. What drives effective tutoring? How do student-tutor interactions in tutoring sessions predict student learning? Does the use of paraprofessionals in tutoring improve literacy outcomes at early grade levels?  RCT District of Columbia Public Schools Monica Lee, Stanford University; Susanna Loeb, Stanford University; Carly Robinson, Stanford University; Nancy Waymack, Brown University Summer/Fall 2023
Khan Academy as Tutor (KAT) Low cost way of scaling personalized learning, combining computer assisted learning in the classroom with free complementary virtual tutoring at home RCT  Toronto District School Board Philip Oreopoulos, University of Toronto 2025
Improving the Academic Performance of First-Grade Students with Reading and Math Difficulty Does coordinated tutoring (Galaxy Star) improve learning with efficiency?  RCT Nashville, TN Lynn Fuchs, Douglas Fuchs, Marcia Barnes, Sonya Sterba, and Caitlyn Craddock, Vanderbilt University Summer 2025
Evaluation of the ASSISTments Tutoring Program What’s the effect of receiving high dosage, human tutoring via the ASSISTments program on the mathematics learning outcome of 5th and 6th grade students, compared to students in the business-as-usual condition? (note final grade levels are still being determined) RCT TBD Mingyu Feng, WestEd TBD

Program Characteristics

 

Study Topic Research Questions Methodology Location Submitting Researcher(s) Expected Results
The inequity of opt-in educational resources and an intervention to increase equitable access 1) To what extent do students take advantage of a free, on-demand tutoring resource provided by their school?
2) Can we increase take-up of on-demand tutoring with personalized communications to students and/or parents?
3) Does take-up of on-demand tutoring lead to student learning gains?
4) What moderates the effect of personalized communications on take-up of on-demand tutoring and student learning gains?
RCT Charter management organization in California Carly D. Robinson, Stanford University; Biraj Bisht, University of California, Irvine; Susanna Loeb, Stanford University Working Paper available
What motivates college students to serve as tutors? An RCT of a recruitment campaign 1) Are students receiving a recruitment message with a targeted subject line more likely to open the email?
2) Are students receiving a targeted recruitment message more likely to click through to the application?
3) Are students receiving a targeted recruitment message more likely to apply to become a tutor?
4) Are students receiving a targeted recruitment message more likely to be hired as tutors?
RCT Grand Valley State University, Michigan Carly D. Robinson, Stanford University; Katharine Meyer, Brookings Institute; Xiaoyang Ye, Amazon; Chasity Bailey-Fakhoury, Grand Valley State University; Susanna Loeb, Stanford University Summer 2023
Tips4Tutors: An Text Messaging Curriculum
For Tutors
Our primary research questions are: (1) How does sending tutors facts and tips about cultivating social-emotional learning skills, differentiated by grade-level, affect tutors’ reported behaviors, self-efficacy, and expectations for their students? (2) How does sending tutors these facts and tips affect student social-emotional skills, academic, and behavioral outcomes? (3) How do the effects of the program differ across tutors (high schoolers, college students, graduate students) and students (grade level, race/ethnicity, gender, and prior academic behaviors)? RCT Guilford County, North Carolina, Washington DC Susanna Loeb, Carly Robinson, Kristine Gaffaney, Cynthia Pollard Summer 2023
Helping Tutors Working with High-Need Students: The Impact of Providing Tutors with a Community of Practice 1. Does having access to a professional community of practice (CoP) increase tutors' sense of support and social belonging? 2. Does having access to a professional CoP increase tutors' self-efficacy? 3. Does having access to a professional CoP increase tutors' interest in the teaching profession? RCT Gwinnett County Public Schools, Georgia Carly Robinson, Stanford University (Principal Investigator); Susanna Loeb, Stanford University (Co-Principal Investigator); Cynthia Pollard, Stanford University; Evan Bennett, Stanford University Summer 2023
Effect of Tutor-Student Demographic Matching in High School Math Tutoring Do students who have a same-gender math tutor have more positive math-related beliefs, better 
attendance, and better academic outcomes than those who do not have a same-gender tutor?
RCT Providence Public School District Josh Bleiberg, University of PIttsburgh; Carly Robinson, Stanford University; Evan Bennett, Stanford University; Susanna Loeb; Stanford University Summer 2023
Embedding optional resources into the classroom: Testing a teacher-focused intervention to promote student usage of on-demand tutoring Research Questions:
1) To what extent do students engage with virtual, on-demand, opt-in tutoring services when teachers do not receive direct reminders about the resource?
2) Do students whose teachers have been assigned to receive emails promoting on-demand, virtual tutoring take-up the service more than students assigned to the control condition?
RCT Multisite Carly Robinson, Stanford University; Evan Bennett, Stanford University; Susanna Loeb; Stanford University Summer 2023
Testing an intervention to increase student engagement in virtual tutoring sessions 1) Do tutors assigned to the Treatment group award more participation points than tutors assigned to the Control group? 2) Do students working with tutors assigned to the Treatment group score higher on the end-of-year MAP test in the subject in which they are receiving tutoring? RCT Large southern school district Erin Devers, JoinIn Ventures; Chris Devers, JoinIn Ventures; Carly Robinson, Stanford Universit Fall 2023
Do Student-Tutor Demographic Matches Affect Student Engagement and Learning? Research Questions:
Does same-race or same-gender matching of tutors to students improve the effectiveness of high impact tutoring on students’ achievement, attendance and views of themselves as learners?
Are tutors with different demographic characteristics (gender, race/ethnicity) or different experiences more effective at improving students’ achievement, attendance and views of themselves as learners?
RCT Multiple districts and non-public schools across two US states Cynthia Pollard, Stanford University; Carly Robinson, Stanford University; Susanna Loeb, Stanford University Fall 2023
Predicting Maintenance of Tier 2 Reading Intervention Effects RQ1: To what extent are students‚Äô pre-intervention literacy skills and student engagement during reading instruction associated with growth in reading fluency during tutoring? RQ2: To what extent do students‚Äô literacy skills and engagement during Tier 1 instruction predict the maintenance of tutoring effects on reading fluency over time? Correlational design  Minnesota  David Klingbeil, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Peter Nelson and David Parker, ServeMinnesota
Ethan Van Norman, Lehigh University
Fall 2023
Are Certified Teachers Differentially Effective Tutors for Early Literacy?  To what extent does having a certified teacher as a tutor make an effective tutoring program more effective? RCT  Broward County Public Schools, Florida Kalena Cortes; Texas A&M University Karen Kortecamp; George Washington University Susanna Loeb; Stanford University Carly D. Robinson; Stanford University Winter 2023
Randomized controlled trial evaluation of the amount of coaching necessary to ensure high fidelity 1. What differences (if any) exist in the fidelity scores collected at mid-year and end-of-year as a function of treatment assignment?
2. What differences (if any) exist in student literacy scores collected at mid-year and end-of-year as a function of treatment assignment?
RCT North Dakota Peter Nelson and David Parker, ServeMinnesota Summer 2024
Are Humans Necessary? Does pairing a human tutor with an AI tutor increase effectiveness? 1) What is the effectiveness of AI-driven early literacy tutoring, with and without human tutors, for participating students in grades 1 - 5? 2) What is the impact of acting as a tutor for high school and college tutors? 3) Can novice young adult tutors add value without providing the core reading instruction to students? 4) What is the impact of a human tutor for specific sub-populations (e.g., ELL students, students who are furthest behind)? 5) Does the addition of a human tutor increase student fidelity in using Amira? RCT California (Central Valley) Susanna Loeb, Stanford University, Carly Robinson, Stanford University, Nancy Waymack, Brown University Summer 2024
Project SPARK 1) Are we able to train paraeducators to implement reading/math interventions with fidelity? 2) Do we see increases in paraeducators' knowledge, skill, and fidelity of implementation? 3) Do we see related improvements in students' academic skills? RCT Tennesse, Texas, Kentucky, Alabama Chris Lemons, Stanford Summer 2024
Using New Methods to Understand Tutoring Relationships and Student Engagement Over Time 1) What percent of time do tutors vs. students spend talking during sessions?
2) How can we categorize the tone/sentiment of tutor-student interactions?
3) How much time during tutoring sessions are spent on (a) content/direct instruction, (b) content/self-paced work, (c) behavior management, and (d) relationship-building.
4) How can we use these results to develop proximal measures of engagement and relationships in tutor-student interactions? How do these measures correlate with other student outcomes?
5) What are promising points of intervention for encouraging positive educator-student relationships as a means for enhancing student outcomes?
RCT Multisite Dora Demszky, Stanford University; Carly Robinson, Stanford University; Susanna Loeb, Stanford University Summer 2024

Program Implementation

 

Study Topic Research Questions Methodology Location Submitting Researcher(s) Expected Results
AI-Generated Feedback for the Virtual Tutoring Community: Lessons Learned through Design Research What motivates Cignition tutors and the program management team, and what are their needs? How might TeachFX be useful to them?  What information about tutoring sessions is useful for parents and math teachers? How would they like to receive information on tutoring sessions? How useful do Cignition tutors find TeachFX for their tutoring? How can math tutors create an environment where students feel comfortable participating and feel supported and successful in tutoring sessions?  How useful do Cignition program managers find TeachFX as an addition to their tutoring program? How easy is it to navigate the TeachFX Administrator Dashboard? How challenging was it to incorporate TeachFX into an existing tutoring system? Are there changes over time in tutor instructional practices and student talk time when Cignition tutors use TeachFX?  What is the association between select high-leverage instructional practices and the student–tutor talk ratio? Mixed methods Southeastern US Alyssa Van Camp, TeachFX; Catherine Pratt, Mathematica Working paper available
Scaling Promising Practices: A framework from the expansion of high-impact tutoring What factors influenced districts' decisions to initiate and/or expand tutoring for their students? How do districts plan to initiate and/or expand tutoring for their students? What factors influenced districts' strategies for initiating/expanding tutoring? What are the designs of tutoring programs that districts are aiming or planning to implement? What are the characteristics of the tutoring program selected by districts and how do they align with what research suggests would be most effective? Qualitative (Interview and document analysis) Across the US Leah Groom-Thomas, Stanford University; Chung Leung, Stanford University; Susanna Loeb, Stanford University; Cynthia Pollard, Stanford University; Sara White, Brown University Summer 2023
High-Impact Tutoring at Scale: Implementation of District Tutoring Initiatives across the U.S. (1) What process did districts go through to choose tutoring? Who and what have been the key decision makers when selecting tutoring programs and designing roll-out? (2) What are the characteristics of tutoring programs that districts are providing and how do they align with what research suggests is most effective? And (3) What have been the key facilitators and barriers to successfully implementing tutoring?  Mixed methods Various Districts Nationally Leiah Groom-Thomas, Stanford University; Sara White, Brown University; Nancy Waymack, Brown University; Susanna Loeb,  Stanford University Summer 2023
Creating Possibilities: Online learning through Minecraft To what extent can co-designed MineCraft spaces afford diverse learners an interactive play space in which learners with widely varying approaches to sustained learning can engage in reflexive play? To what extent are these play groups sustained over time? How effective are peers at designing play spaces that work for all levels of learners? How do these space afford reflexive play? What is the variance in reflexive play moves? Observation, field notes, design labs, video recording  Virtual, Minecraft Elizabeth Kozleski, Stanford University; Tamara Handy, Stanford University; Nick Haber, Stanford University; Kathryn Ringland, UC Santa Cruz Summer 2023
School-Level Perspectives on Scaling up High Impact Tutoring: Goals, Challenges and Strategic Priorities 1. What are school level perspectives on challenges to scaling up high impact tutoring within school day? What strategies are being used at school level to address challenges? 2. Do school level perspectives on scaling up look different in context of a CMO (in theory less regulated policy context) as compared to a traditional school district (in theory more regulated policy context)? Descriptive survey data analysis Guilford County and Uplift Dallas Patricia Burch, University of Southern California; Susanna Loeb, Stanford University; Alvin Makori, Arizona State University Summer 2023
Implementation of High-Impact Tutoring through Grants to Tutoring Providers What are the key features of the tutoring programs and the OSSE HIT initiative? To what extent do the Initiative and the programs reflect research-based features of HIT? What happened during the program? Was the model implemented with fidelity? What are the characteristics of the students who received tutoring? Did they differ from students overall? Did characteristics differ by provider? How much tutoring did students receive? Did dosage differ for different groups of students? What is the relationship of between core tutoring features (attendance, dosage, group size, schedule) and student achievement scores (2023 PARCC scores, and EOY Math and Reading Scores)? Mixed-methods, descriptive and correlational  DC Susanna Loeb, Stanford University; Cynthia Pollard, Stanford University; Nancy Waymack, Brown University Fall 2023
From Policy to Implementation: Texas HB4545 as an Example of Education Reform Many, including: What was the process for conceptualizing, designing, and authoring the bill? How was high impact tutoring implemented and how did the bill influence this process? What revisions or addenda to the current law would districts or TEA like to see as a result of experiences from current implementation? Qualitative (Interview and document analysis) Virtual, Dallas Nancy Waymack, Brown University; Sharla Horton-Williams, Ed.D., The Commit Partnership Fall 2023
Wittenberg Community High-Dosage Tutoring Project  What are tutors' feelings of efficacy and how do these feelings change throughout the year? What are classroom teachers' perceptions of tutoring and do these perceptions change throughout the year? What are students' attitudes towards tutoring and do these attitudes change throughout the year? Mixed methods; descriptive Ohio: Northwestern Local and Springfield City School Districts Kristin Farley, Wittenberg University; Leiah Groom-Thomas, Stanford University Fall 2023
Literacy Liberators: Educational Impacts and Conditions for Success How does becoming a Liberator influence participants' beliefs, expectations and sense of efficacy around K-12 education? To what extent does becoming a Liberator activate greater levels of engagement, advocacy or interest in joining the educator workforce? What conditions limit or support productive collaboration between school staff and Liberators? How can partnerships between Liberators and school staff be strengthened to support better learning conditions for students?
What early evidence exists of the impact of tutoring by Liberators on student achievement?  What conditions in The Oakland REACH, Fluent Seeds, and OUSD enable and constrain partnership? How do these conditions shape the effectiveness of the program and the impacts on students and Liberators?"
Mixed methods Oakland, CA Ashley Jochim, CRPE & Arizona State University; Travis Pillow, CRPE & Arizona State University; Eupha Jeanne Daramola, University of California Santa Barbara; Heather Casimere, CRPE & Arizona State University Winter 2024
Outcomes and Cost Evaluation of Early Elementary School Literacy Tutoring (2022-23) (1) Can we observe differences in outcomes among literacy tutoring participants, when compared to matched non-participants? (2) Can we observe differences in literacy outcomes participants of one tutoring service, when compared to participants of another service? (3) What is the cost of each tutoring program? Multi-level regression analysis Not available Norma Ming, SFUSD; Carolina Ramirez, SFUSD TBD