Conditions for Successful Tutoring: A Reanalysis of LAU and KESS Data
General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
Final Report Abstract
About half of the German student population attends private tutoring at some time point of their school careers. Proportions are similar in other western European countries and are constantly rising. However, the current state of research is inconclusive about whether tutoring reaches its main goal: to improve students' achievement. In this project, we investigated the conditions on the part of the students, the teachers, and the lessons, under which private tutoring is successful in terms of improving students' achievement and motivation. For this purpose, we analysed data from two longitudinal studies conducted in Hamburg, LAU (Aspects of learning background and learning development) and KESS (Competencies and attitudes of students). Both studies surveyed a complete student cohort. Students and parents filled in questionnaires on the students’ tutoring experience during secondary schooling. All forms of private tutoring were covered: short- and long-term tutoring, very intensive as well as occasional forms, tutoring in commercial tutoring centres, and tutoring in the more informal sector, for example, by older high school students. We controlled for systematic differences between tutored and nontutored students concerning school achievement and motivation before the onset of tutoring, as well as family background, with sophisticated statistical methods. However, we did not find a positive effect of private tutoring on school achievement. Our analyses did not reveal a clear pattern in favour of a certain duration of tutoring, a certain weekly number of tutoring lessons, a minimum formal education of the tutors, or a specific focus of the tutoring content (such as a focus on homework completion, test preparation, or study behaviour). There were some indications of positive motivational and affective effects of private tutoring when the tutored students were more motivated themselves to attend private tutoring in mathematics and were not only forced by their parents and when the tutors focused more on tutees’ individual progress when giving feedback. Our analyses did not provide enough evidence to support a recommendation for private tutoring as a generally effective strategy to improve academic achievement. If the aim of private tutoring is for students to improve at school (and not only to reduce a tense atmosphere at home), students and parents should closely monitor whether the expected improvement really occurs. The granting of public subsidies for private tutoring with voucher programs and similar measures – a measure also discussed to support students after the school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic – cannot be supported by our findings. Such measures should be weighed up carefully against structured, free-of-charge tutoring programs that take place within school as these have been shown to be an effective measure to improve reading and mathematics achievement independent of the parents’ willingness and ability to pay for private tutoring lessons. This message was picked up by the German weekly newspaper DIE ZEIT (08/09/2021 by T. Kerstan; https://www.zeit.de/2021/37/nachhilfe-programm-schule-corona-foerderungforschung).
Publications
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(2020). Effectiveness of private tutoring during secondary schooling in Germany: Do the duration of private tutoring and tutor qualification affect school achievement? Learning and Instruction, 66
Ömeroğulları, M., Guill, K., & Köller, O.
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(2020). Qualität der Hausaufgabenunterstützung in Elternhaus und Nachhilfeunterricht. Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht, 67(4), 313
Guill, K., Bahr, I. A., & Ömeroğulları, M.
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(2021). Intensity and content of private tutoring lessons during German secondary schooling: effects on students’ grades and test achievement. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 36
Guill, K., Ömeroğulları, M., & Köller, O.
