Dive Brief:
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Substituting some high-dosage tutoring time with high-quality educational technology can cut costs by one-third and scale back on the number of tutors needed by half without compromising tutoring’s impact on student learning, according to a working paper released Monday by University of Chicago Education Lab.
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Alternating between in-person tutoring and computer-assisted learning still provided students with an equivalent of one to two years of math learning when compared to a traditional in-person tutoring program, according to the randomized trial of over 4,000 students in Chicago Public Schools and New York City Public Schools between 2018 and 2020.
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Authors of the study, which was also published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, suggested that this finding might address some of the primary challenges school districts face in implementing high-dosage tutoring on a large scale — including cost and staffing — to address COVID-19 learning loss.
Dive Insight:
While models for high-dosage tutoring vary, it usually involves tutoring in 1:1 or small group settings for at least 30-minute sessions at least two or three times per week, according to NWEA. The assessment organization called the results "especially impressive compared to most education interventions."
The approach emerged as one of the most prominent solutions to address pandemic-induced lags in academic performance — so much so that the Biden administration has stressed it repeatedly as a strategy for districts to implement.
A study released in March showed high-dosage tutoring implemented during the school day had a "large and positive" impact on student learning. That study, conducted by University of Chicago Education Lab and nonprofit research organization MDRC, showed that students from Chicago Public Schools and Georgia's Fulton County Schools who participated in personalized, consistent tutoring gained two-thirds of a school year worth of learning in math in 2022-23.
However, as school and district administrators have sought to scale up tutoring programs, space, cost, technology and staffing have been top of mind — especially as pandemic-era federal funding winds down.
"Improving student learning in America is not so much a problem of pedagogy as a problem of scale," researchers wrote in the paper released Monday.
Among 9th grade students, it found that a 4-to-1 tutoring model in which two students worked with one in-person tutor and the remaining two worked with high-quality education technology for 50 minutes on alternating days had nearly the same outcome as a 2-to-1 tutoring model that had students spend 50 minutes per day with a tutor on a daily basis.
"In other words, relative to every-day tutoring, incorporating technology reduces costs by 30%, reduces the number of tutors required to serve a given number of students by 50%, and yet has effects on student learning almost as large," researchers found.
The alternating tutoring model also preserves hallmarks of high-dosage tutoring that make it effective, the authors say, including:
- A personal and long-term relationship between the tutor and students.
- Sessions during the school day to ensure attendance.
- Daily sessions to guarantee engagement while alternating between an in-person tutor and computer-assisted learning software.
“Very rarely do you see such a large reduction in cost and no loss in program effectiveness,” said Monica Bhatt, senior research director at the University of Chicago Education Lab, in a statement on Monday. “These findings are exciting because they provide us a pathway to scale and a potential recipe for districts to follow for implementing high-quality differentiated instruction.”
The research team behind the study told K-12 Dive that ed tech platforms that are able to better engage students and support students in using the platform effectively are likely to be more successful.
Some criteria districts should consider when choosing high-quality ed tech includes evaluating whether the platform is:
- Engaging for students.
- Something students want to use.
- In line with high-quality curriculum.
- Suitable for differentiated instruction.
- Adaptive to students' progress.
- Set up to have a logical sequence that moves students forward in their learning.
- Able to provide individualized support for students when they come across a problem.
- User-friendly in data extraction, so teachers and parents can monitor students' use and progress.
As COVID funds come to an end, schools are considering scaling back on many programs and investments once bolstered by the historic dollars flowing into the K-12 system.
However, researchers have warned that students who don't make up ground soon are at risk of falling further behind in future years and having reduced lifetime earnings as a result.
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