THE EFFECT OF ONLINE TUTOR CENTER VISITS ON STUDENT PERFORMANCE IN UNDERGRADUATE ACCOUNTING COURSES.

• Author: Felder-Strauss, Jaclyn

INTRODUCTION

Tutoring centers on campus have become a benefit for a number of college students. It has historically been a service for those in writing and math disciplines. Tutoring services specifically designed for accounting, finance, economics and other business courses are scarce. A common requirement in all institutions, regardless of whether they are brick and mortar, or virtual learning institutions is to have faculty office hours. Recently, virtual learning institutions have lightened this requirement and left it up to the faculty member. Virtual learning does present a different environment, when it comes to a student accessing a faculty member for one-on-one assistance (Felder-Strauss et al, 2015).

Because there are nuisances that come along with access to faculty in the virtual learning environment, expanded access to a broad-spectrum of tutoring services has become a natural extension of the institution's ability to provide access to faculty. The institution does and has always had an established writing and math tutoring center, but the need was there to go beyond these subjects. The Business Tutoring Center was developed to meet the varying needs of the students beyond the basic services that the tutors for writing and math were able to provide.

According to Felder-Strauss et al (2015), initially, instructors in the accounting, finance and economics disciplines were recruited to work in the already existing Math Tutoring Center under the direction of the Math center's management. However, the end goals were to develop a business focused tutoring center separate from the Math center, but that would take time. There was an immediate need and meeting that need, in the timeliest way possible, was the first goal. It quickly became overwhelming to service the students requesting the services of the business tutoring center. Word of mouth and broadcast announcements, in the business school's classrooms, generated significant student interest and demand.

The inability, of the Math Center, to support the ever-increasing demand brought forth a new set of challenges and an obvious need for a different solution; as there were no funds available in the Math center budget to hire another tutor. Leadership within the business school responded to the demand and successfully found funds to bring two additional faculty on board to tutor the students. This worked well for several academic terms with time came more demand. The students' demand was screaming for more attention. The Dean of the School of Business was brought into the discussion (Felder-Strauss et al., 2015).

The chairs and student facing leadership proposed a new and separate tutoring center dedicated to just the business students. The Dean was hesitant, but he agreed to modify the operating budget to include a short-term business tutoring center pilot program. The initial 10week pilot program included five volunteers and limited Adobe[R] Connect meeting room access. A preliminary schedule was established, to meet the expected demand of students seeking to visit the center and utilize the services being offered (Felder-Strauss et al, 2015).

Although the pilot tutoring service availability was widely publicized, students continued to seek assistance from the math center. Therefore, an alternative plan was developed for presentation to the Dean. It was then decided that a formal business center was needed, with expanded staffing, to include not only accounting assistance, but assistance in finance and economics as well. The Dean requested that the department chairpersons develop a formal budget proposal and structured business plan. Over a period of several weeks, the business department chairs developed a practical plan designed to meet the needs of business students. The plan included undergraduate and graduate program support. After careful consideration, the Dean accepted the proposal (Felder-Strauss et al., 2015).

This study focuses on the potential effect that the business tutoring center has on student success and whether there is a direct relationship the student's persistence and his/her performance, based on a number of factors including frequency visited and section averages for specific courses at Purdue University Global. The tutoring center has been operational since July 2012 and was developed at Kaplan University, a for-profit university. The tutoring center has since transitioned under Purdue University Global, a not-for-profit university established in 2018. The new organization transitioned existing faculty from the old Kaplan University organization into Purdue.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Based on the literature review, online tutoring has grown recently while the service has not been utilized to its potential by students. In one of the articles researched, only a small percentage of the students who were polled used online tutoring (Ramirez-Wrease, 2016). Students still prefer the face to face interaction with tutors as opposed to the online format. However, in an online environment meeting face to face is not always possible. There are different ways in which effective tutoring can improve student involvement and their return for additional guidance. Frequent tutoring sessions and monitoring of student progress are just a couple of examples of effectiveness of student success (Ramirez-Wrease, 2016).

The tutoring center, for the School of Business, has tutors who are primarily experienced providing services to students in math and writing courses. The need for tutors experienced in business related classes is essential. Ramirez-Wrease (2016) stated that the tutor must have subject expertise and provide clear parameters as to what the student can expect from the tutoring session. Students can have the satisfaction of knowing that the person helping them has the knowledge and experience to help them understand the material.

Peer Tutoring

Peer tutoring is an option that should be considered by the Business Tutoring Center. Some students might be more comfortable talking to another student. Pariser (2012) stated that peer tutoring helps students by providing academic, personal, social, and psychological support. Munley, Garvey, and McConnell (2010) stated in his research that peer tutoring does indeed produce a positive effect on student outcomes. Although this might be the case, Munley, Garvey and McConnell (2010) also noted that there must be continuous tutoring throughout the semester. Although peer tutoring is effective, only 20% of the students use this approach (Muise, 2016).

Another key emphasis of peer tutoring is that students return to tutoring centers when students have opportunity to use the same tutor at each visit (Masters, 2002). Peer tutoring provides experience in relationship building and developing interpersonal skills along with building friendships and reference points for the students (Pariser, 2012).

Although peer tutoring can be advantageous for both the tutor and the student, there are also drawbacks and limitations. Research has shown that tutors must be well trained in the subjects with whom they are helping students in order to be effective (Walker, Wallace & West, 2015). Research has also shown that peer tutoring can create a system in which learners help each other, as well as learning by teaching (Mynard & Almarzouqi, 2006).

Marketing the Tutor Center

Implementing a tutoring program, for the School of Business, must be communicated consistently to the students. One of the most...