General Information
Project description
Challenge
At West Kentucky Community & Technical College (WKCTC), many students were failing or withdrawing from courses, but few used the free tutoring services available on campus. Additionally, faculty had the potential to play a large role in helping facilitate student engagement in tutoring services through referrals, but they weren’t involved enough to have an impact.
Design
To better connect students to campus tutoring services, a series of nine behaviorally designed emails were sent to WKCTC students receiving financial aid. The emails included a list of reasons for attending a tutoring session, simple instructions for scheduling an appointment, and a deadline to help students seek tutoring promptly. Additionally, the emails highlighted use of tutoring by other students, including peer testimonials and success stories, and reinforced the message that good academic standing was required to maintain financial aid eligibility. The emails were sent early in the semester to prompt students to use tutoring before receiving feedback on graded assignment or exams, when it might be too late to benefit from tutoring services.
Another set of emails were sent to faculty members to encourage them to refer students to tutoring. These emails included peer testimonials around the benefits of tutoring for students, a direct link to a communications tool they could use to send referrals, and a suggested time when referrals should be sent.
Impact
A randomized evaluation found that among students who were eligible to use the Tutoring Center, the redesigned emails sent to students increased their likelihood of attending tutoring by almost 2 percentage points, from 5.0% to 6.7%, and increased the overall number of tutoring sessions that were attended from 171 to 263. Additionally, in an online survey, students who received the emails reported more positive perceptions of the tutoring center and were more likely to know how to access its services. Students are considered eligible to utilize the Tutoring Center if they were taking at least one class for which tutoring was offered.
The emails sent to faculty increased the number of tutoring referrals sent by faculty by over 12 percentage points, from 6.4% to 18.9% and helped increased awareness of on-campus tutoring services among faculty members.
Source: B-Hub
Detailed information
Final report: Is there a final report presenting the results and conclusions of this project?
Final report
Pre-analysis plan: Is there a pre-analysis plan associated with this registration?
How hypothesis was tested
To connect more students with tutoring, we implemented three randomized controlled trials over the 2014-2015 school year. In the fall of 2014, we ran a quick pilot, dividing 4,624 WKCTC students into three groups. The treatment group received a personalized email with information about tutoring and clear instructions on scheduling an appointment, along with three reminder emails sent at critical academic times during the semester. A second group received a standard email about tutoring automatically generated from the Starfish student success platform, and a control group received no additional communication about tutoring as part of the experiment. Among those students who had not attended tutoring prior to the intervention, students in the treatment group attended more total tutoring sessions (80 sessions) compared to either the standard email group
(56 sessions) and the no-email control group (33 sessions).*
A second experiment took place in the spring of 2015. This time, 3,004 students receiving financial aid were divided into two groups. A treatment group received a series of nine behaviorally-designed emails over the course of the semester. A control group did not receive any messages about tutoring. The emails highlighted use of tutoring by many students, including many who were academically successful, as well as peer testimonials and success stories. They also emphasized that good academic standing was
required for financial aid eligibility.
Additional information
United States
West Kentucky
Who is behind the project?
Project status:
Completed
Methods
What is the project about?
Date published:
25 June 2021