Originally Posted: Oct 8, 2019
Last Updated: Oct 8, 2019
It’s National Tutoring Week, so the experts at Varsity Tutors compiled some research to show the impact of private tutoring on high school and college students. They found that tutoring has been reported to increase grades and scores for eight out of 10 students while raising test scores by up to 12 percentage points!
For college students, taking advantage of your school’s tutoring services is an easy (and often free!) way to improve academic areas you may be struggling in. For college-bound high schoolers, tutoring could give you just the boost you need to reach your top schools’ admission requirements! Learn more about the effects of tutoring in the infographic below.
Infographic by Varsity Tutors
The Impact of Expert Tutoring on Academic Achievement
A review of 50 years of academic research into the performance gains expert tutoring produces
The demand for private tutoring is on a massive rise. Globally, the market [was] projected to pass $102.8 billion by 2018, and it’s no surprise why. Study after study shows that private tutoring works with enormous impact.
Studies have shown that tutoring can lift average students to the top 2%. For high achievers, tutoring has proven to improve scores across all grade levels.
Untutored vs. tutored
For students at risk for reading failure, the average tutoring gain was equivalent to moving from the 50th percentile to the 65th percentile.
Human tutoring can result in classroom scores that are 35% higher than software-driven tutoring. Math tutoring [has improved] final scores by four to six percentage points. Tutoring has been reported to boost test scores by 12 percentage points. Tutoring has been reported to increase [the] grades and [test] scores for eight out of 10 students. Tutored students outperform non-tutored students in 45 out of 52 studies, a rate of nearly 90%.
Tutored students had higher pass rates on average than non-tutored students in every class examined—15.5% in anatomy, 15.4% in biology, 16.3% in business, 16.9% in chemistry, 31.9% in communications, 13.7% in English, and 9.3% in English as a Second Language.
Tutoring has been found to improve high school exit examination scores by 11–12 percentage points. A study shows 82% of tutored college students re-enroll from the fall to spring semesters versus an institutional average of only 70%—a difference of nearly one-fifth!
What makes tutoring work?
Three major factors
Tutoring program structure. For example: initial diagnostics, creating a detailed learning plan, ongoing two-way feedback
Subject matter expertise. This may include professional education and degrees, special credentials, prior professional experience, [and] training and experience as a tutor.
Amount of tutoring. The US Department of Education said, “Tutoring programs in which tutors met with tutees at least three times a week were more likely to generate positive achievement for tutees than programs in which tutors and tutees met twice a week.”
Find more ways to help you study in our Majors and Academics section, and research college testing requirements using our College Search tool.
