Relationship between Peer-Tutoring Usage among Student-Athletes and Grade Point Average

Introduction

For most NCAA Division I institutions, intercollegiate athletics serves to benefit the institution financially and promote the institution to prospective students (Meggyesy, 2000). With the importance placed on intercollegiate athletics within these institutions of higher education, student-athletes must balance their academic responsibilities off the field with the athletic responsibilities on the field. As institutions compete to put winning sport teams on the field, there is the potential that student-athletes may not be provided with the resources necessary to help them achieve their academic responsibilities, such as peer-tutoring programs. This lack of academic resources could lead to potential issues such as decreased grade point average (GPA), reduced critical thinking skills, and lower graduation and retention rates among student-athletes at NCAA Division I institutions (Benbel & Chen, 2014).

A large amount of past research has focused on the relationship between the use of tutoring and academic achievement in terms of GPA for traditional students at higher education institutions (Grillo & Leist, 2013; Kostecki & Bers, 2008). Certain studies also have looked at the relationship between the use of tutoring and retention/graduation rates (Grillo & Leist, 2013; Reinheimer & McKenzie, 2011). The overall consensus is that traditional students who use peer-tutoring services usually perform better academically in terms of GPA and have a greater chance to be retained by the institution. In other research that has been conducted on specific groups of college students, such as freshmen and undeclared students, the findings are not as conclusive in regards to the relationship between peer-tutoring and academic performance measured by GPA (Arco-Tirado, Fernández-Martín, & Fernández-Balboa, 2011; REACH, 2018; Reinheimer & McKenzie, 2011).

Most of the research conducted on the impact of peer-tutoring for student-athletes has been performed across both revenue generating sports (men’s basketball and football) and non-revenue generating sports (Olympic-style sports) (Benbel & Chen, 2014; Gill & Farrington, 2014; Johnson, Harris & Peters, 2013). One study by Johnson et al. (2013) focused on a Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institution while a study by Benbel & Chen (2014) focused on a smaller Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) institution. The study by Gill & Farrington (2014) focused on a specific sport-football-rather than all intercollegiate sports offered by the institution.

This study attempts to answer the question, “Is there a relationship between the average time in hours that an NCAA Division I student-athlete spends in organized peer-tutoring services related to the specific courses they are taking and their cumulative GPA for that semester?” Since previous literature shows a positive correlation between the use of peer-tutoring services by students at higher education institutions and academic benefits, such as improved GPA, this study examines this topic with the hypothesis that a positive correlation will exist between the average time in hours that an NCAA Division I student-athlete spends on organized tutoring services related to the specific courses they are taking and their term GPA for that semester. The goal of this research study is to reduce the gap that was found when investigating previous literature. The findings of this research study could potentially inform individuals who work in academic learning centers across higher education administration and athletics with successful and practical methods that best serve the educational needs of student-athletes as they attempt to be successful both on and off the field.

In regards to this proposed research study, it is necessary to define specific terms found in the research question. Organized peer-tutoring services for this study are defined as “An instructional strategy in which two students work together on an academic activity, with one student providing assistance, instruction and feedback to the other” (DuPaul, Ervin, Hook, & McGoey, 1998, p. 580). A student-athlete for this study is defined as an individual that plays in NCAA sanctioned intercollegiate sports (National Colleigate Athletic Association [NCAA], n.d.).

Literature Review

Student-Athletes

Johnson et al. (2013) explored and described the tutoring patterns used by student-athletes at an NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) institution. Johnson et al. (2013) selected student-athletes in both revenue-generating sports and non-revenue generating sports that had received tutoring services at least one time for an individual course during three consecutive academic years. These samples come from a learning center of a large Midwestern university that has around 20,000 students, and there was a total of 1,297 individual course tutoring experiences made by student-athletes that were gathered (Johnson et al., 2013). Johnson et al. (2013) wanted to discover if there were any significant patterns in the use of tutoring by student-athletes based on socio-economic differences, significant differences in the amount of tutor use by a student-athlete based on demographic categories, and significant relationships between student-athlete tutor usage and overall grade point average (GPA) for the semester.

The study performed by Johnson et al. (2013) confirmed previous literature regarding academic outcomes related to how tutoring positively impacts grade point average (Grillo & Leist, 2013; Kostecki & Bers, 2008). Student-athletes in non-revenue sports made more tutoring visits and earned a higher semester GPA than student-athletes in revenue-generating sports. More specifically, this study reinforced their hypothesis that female student-athletes and Caucasian student-athletes earned significantly higher GPA’s than male student-athletes and minority student-athletes because they made a higher frequency of visits for tutoring services (Johnson et al., 2013).

While the study by Johnson et al. (2013) is relevant in sample size and substance, it does contain some flaws. One flaw is that only one institution is used throughout the research study. Another flaw is that the sample includes student-athletes who have only used tutoring services at least one time for an individual course during three consecutive academic years. It is unlikely that only one tutoring appointment for a class made a significant impact on an individual student-athlete’s overall GPA for that semester (Cooper, 2010). Also, the research study does not clearly define the phrase tutoring session. The lack of a definition creates some ambiguity for the reader as the criteria that the research study by Johnson et al. (2013) uses to define a tutoring session might not potentially meet the minimum requirements that the reader has for what they believe makes up a tutoring session. However, despite these flaws, this study indicated a clear, positive relationship between the number of tutoring visits made by student-athletes and their overall GPA’s for the semester.

Benbel & Chen (2014) looked at a population of student-athletes from a Football Championship Series (FCS) institution, typically containing a smaller population of both undergraduate students and student-athletes than a FBS institution as studied in Johnson et al. (2013). The researchers wanted to determine if the creation of a peer-tutoring program specifically for student-athletes at Eastern Kentucky University (EKU) would help improve the cumulative GPA for student-athletes (Benbel & Chen, 2014). To test their hypothesis, the Bratzke Academic Center was created (Benbel & Chen, 2014). To maintain the high academic standards of other learning centers on campus, students who wished to work as a peer-tutor had to meet the following criteria: 1) A minimum 3.0 cumulative GPA 2) Earn at least a letter grade of B in any course that they wish to tutor 3) Have earned a minimum of 30 college credit hours 4) Acquire a recommendation letter from a professor on campus and 5) Possess adequate interpersonal and communication skills (Benbel & Chen, 2014). Also, tutors were required to complete ten hours of training from the College of Learning and Reading Association (CRLA) to earn level I peer-tutoring certification (Benbel & Chen, 2014).

The results of the study by Benbel & Chen (2014), shows that the creation of the Bratzke Academic Center provided positive academic benefits for EKU’s student-athletes. Since the Bratzke Academic Center started its service in the fall semester of 2010, the overall GPA of both spring-sport and fall-sport athletes has improved (Benbel & Chen, 2014). In the 2011-12 academic year, the average student-athlete GPA increased seven-hundredths of a point, and in the 2012-13 academic year, the average student-athlete GPA increased eight-hundredths of a point and was above a 3.00 (Benbel and Chen, 2014). It is important to note in Benbel & Chen (2014) that overall tutoring appointments attended by student-athletes increased each academic year. Peer-tutoring appointments attended by student-athletes increased from 238 appointments in 2010-11 to 1,149 appointments in 2011-12 and to 1,497 appointments in 2012-13 (Benbel & Chen, 2014). The data collected shows a positive correlation between the number of peer-tutoring appointments attended by student-athletes and their overall cumulative GPA per academic year.

For the purposes of this proposed research study, it is difficult to determine from Benbel & Chen (2014) if student-athletes who utilized more hours of peer-tutoring service from the Bratzke Academic Center had a higher cumulative GPA for that academic year than student-athletes who did not use the peer-tutoring services as often. This uncertainty shows a gap in the literature where more targeted research is needed to determine if there is a relationship between the number of hours spent in organized peer-tutoring services and student-athletes cumulative GPA for that semester.

Gill & Farrington (2014) looked at a more specific group of student-athletes in their research study than the study performed by Johnson et al. (2013) and Benbel & Chen (2014). Gill & Farrington (2014) specifically examined the impact of tutoring and other educational factors in Intensive Learning Programs (ILP’s) on Black football student-athletes’ GPA’s. The samples from this study came from a football team of a major Division I university in the Eastern part of the United States that included scholarship and non-scholarship student-athletes. There was a total population of 60 Black Male football student-athletes at this institution and a sample of 22 of those Black Male football student-athletes enrolled in the ILP that were included in this study (Gill & Farrington, 2014).

The 22 Black Male student-athletes enrolled in the research study received four different components of academic support from the ILP. First, the student-athletes received tutoring in their most challenging subjects. Student-Athletes in the consultation group received 8.5 hours of tutoring per week, where student-athletes in the comprehensive group received 11 hours of tutoring per week (Gill & Farrington, 2014). Second, the student-athletes completed independent study hall where specialists helped with organizational skills and study strategies for student-athletes with learning disabilities (Gill & Farrington, 2014). Third, freshmen football student-athletes enrolled in the ILP that were part in the research study were also required to enroll in EDUC 101, a no-credit course that addresses academic processes three times a week for 50 minutes (Gill & Farrington, 2014). Last, formal and informal meetings between student-athletes and academic counselors took place. During these meetings, topics such as class attendance, relationships with professors, time management and adapting to a university environment were usually discussed (Gill & Farrington, 2014).

The results of the research study by Gill & Farrington (2014) indicated that weekly tutoring through the use of ILP’s could benefit athletic departments and universities academically. This study showed that the use of scheduled weekly tutoring within ILP’s helped increase the overall grade point average of Black male student-athletes who played football, which helped improve the overall graduation and retention rates of these Black Male student-athletes (Gill & Farrington, 2014).

Even though the research study by Gill & Farrington (2014), provided support for the use of ILP to help increase the overall grade point average of Black Male student-athletes who played football, it is difficult to determine which program within the ILP had the most substantial impact on the improvement of GPA. While tutoring could have been the only factor that increased their GPA, it also could have been the use of study hall, the EDUC 101 class, meeting with academic advisors, or a combination of these different strategies. More research is needed to fill the gap to determine if tutoring was the sole or most significant program in the ILP to help increase the overall grade point average of Black Male student-athletes who played football, or if it was one of the other academic support factors contained within the ILP.

College Freshmen

With the limited amount of literature available on the relationship between the number of hours spent and/or appointments attended using tutoring services and overall GPA for that semester in regards to NCAA Division I student-athletes, it is necessary to review literature that studies comparable populations. Research studies by Resources for Academic Achievement (REACH) (2018) and Arco-Tirado et al. (2011) attempt to determine if college freshmen students who utilize peer-tutoring throughout the semester have a higher cumulative semester GPA compared to college freshmen students who do not use peer-tutoring.

REACH (2018) focused on all freshmen level students from the University of Louisville that were in the fall 2017 cohort, whether or not they had used the peer-tutoring services provided to them by REACH on campus. Their study aimed to examine the academic support usage (in hours) for the fall 2017 cohort (N=2,640) during their first academic year (REACH, 2018). REACH (2018) then proceeded to divide the fall 2017 freshmen cohort into three bodies; students who did not use peer-tutoring services provided by REACH, students who used between zero to six hours of peer-tutoring services provided by REACH, and students who used more than six hours of peer-tutoring services provided by REACH. Cumulative GPA scores for this cohort were then collected and analyzed after the 2018 spring semester to examine if there was a significant relationship between the number of support hours utilized by students and their cumulative GPA’s for the 2017-18 academic year (REACH, 2018).

Using the Games-Howell post-hoc test to compare means between the different groups, the study performed by REACH (2018) showed that the first-year cumulative GPA of students who utilized REACH for six or more hours was significantly higher than students who did not utilize REACH at the p<.05 level. In addition to these findings, REACH (2018) reported that the difference between students who utilized REACH less than six hours and students who did not utilize REACH was also significant at the p<.01 level. Finally, the difference between students who utilized REACH for more than six hours and students who utilized REACH between zero to six hours was also significant (REACH, 2018). Overall, freshmen students who did not use the peer-tutoring services provided by REACH during the 2017-18 academic year had a mean GPA of 2.591 (REACH, 2018). Students who used REACH’s services for zero to six hours during the 2017-18 academic year had a mean GPA of 2.894 and students who used REACH’s services for more than six hours had a mean GPA of 3.005 (REACH, 2018).

The research study performed by Arco-Tirado et al. (2011) looked at a similar topic to REACH (2018) when they investigated if there was a positive relationship between college freshmen spending 90 minutes once a week in a peer-tutoring program and educational benefits such as improved GPA. The study consisted of a sample size of 100 college students at the University of Grenada in Spain in which half of the college freshmen students were randomly assigned to the treatment group who received peer-tutoring once a week for 90 minutes, while the other half made up the control group that received no peer-tutoring (Arco-Tirado et al., 2011).

The results of the research study by Arco-Tirado et al. (2011) presented findings that differed from previous literature in regards to how tutoring positively impacts grade point average. The research study found that while a peer-tutoring group can improve upon important academic skills such as critical thinking, time management, and organization, these benefits sometimes cannot be measured in terms of cumulative grade point average for the semester (Arco-Tirado et al., 2011). College freshmen students in the study who received peer-tutoring once a week for 90 minutes had no significant difference in the semester GPA in comparison to the college freshmen students in the control group that did not receive any peer-tutoring (Arco-Tirado et al., 2011).

The results from Arco-Triado et al. (2011) differ from the research studies in this literature review that studied the population of student-athletes. The studies that used samples comprised of student-athletes found that there was a positive relationship between the number of visits made or hours spent in tutoring and cumulative GPA’s (Johnson et al., 2011; Gill & Farrington, 2014; Benbel & Chen, 2014). It is important to note that the design of a peer-tutoring program can have a significant impact on the type of benefits that students who are actively participating in the program are receiving (Grubbs & Boes, 2009). A different design in the study by Arco-Tirado et al. (2011) could have provided different benefits received by the students, such as an improved cumulative semester GPA.

Undeclared Students

A final study to discuss was conducted by Reinheimer & McKenzie (2011) that observed the population of undeclared students (Students who have not decided what field of study they wish to major in). The research study by Reinheimer & McKenzie (2011) examined if undeclared students who had received peer-tutoring had a higher GPA than undeclared students who had not received peer tutoring. The study also looked to see if undeclared students who had received peer-tutoring were more likely to be retained by the institution and declare a major by the end of their second year than undeclared students who did not receive peer-tutoring (Reinheimer & McKenzie, 2011). The sample for this study consisted of undeclared students enrolled at a mid-sized public university in Pennsylvania. A total of 207 students, made up of 117 females and 90 males, were tracked for four cohort years from 2004-2008 (Reinheimer & McKenzie, 2011). Out of the 207 students who participated in this study, around 37 percent (77 students) received peer-tutoring services (Reinheimer & McKenzie, 2011).

The findings from the study performed by Reinheimer & McKenzie (2011) showed no significant difference in the final cumulative grade point average between undeclared students who had received peer-tutoring and undeclared students who had not received peer-tutoring. The average final GPA of undeclared students who had received peer-tutoring was 2.94, while the average final GPA of undeclared students who had not received peer-tutoring was only one-

hundredth of a point lower at 2.93 (Reinheimer & McKenzie, 2011). While there was no significant difference in the final GPA’s of students who received peer-tutoring and those who did not, undeclared students who received peer-tutoring had lower than expected frequencies for the withdrawn cell, and higher than expected frequencies for the graduated and retained cells (Reinheimer & McKenzie, 2011). These results show that even though undeclared students who received peer-tutoring did not have a higher final GPA than undeclared students who did not receive peer-tutoring, they still acquired certain academic benefits, such as higher retention and graduation rates.

A key limitation of the research study performed by Reinheimer & McKenzie (2011) in regards to this proposed research study is that it only breaks the sample of undeclared students in two sets, students who received peer-tutoring and students who did not receive peer-tutoring. In order to qualify for the set of undeclared students who received peer-tutoring, they only had to attend one session throughout their time as an undeclared student. This possibility weakens the findings of Reinheimer & McKenzie (2011), as it is unlikely that only one peer-tutoring appointment during their time at the institution made a significant impact on their final GPA (Cooper, 2010). Rather, the requirement of multiple peer-tutoring sessions across multiple academic semesters for undeclared students placed into the set that received peer-tutoring would have strengthened the validity of these findings (Cooper, 2010). Also, by breaking the sample into only two sets of students, it is not possible to determine if undeclared students who utilized peer-tutoring sessions more frequently had a higher final GPA in comparison to undeclared students who did not use peer-tutoring sessions as often or did not utilize peer-tutoring sessions at all.

Conclusion

The overall consensus is that student-athletes who use peer-tutoring services typicially perform better academically in terms of GPA than student-athletes who do not use peer-tutoring services (Benbel & Chen, 2014; Gill & Farrington, 2014; Johnson, Harris & Peters, 2013). However, when looking at freshmen and undeclared students, multiple studies showed that there was not a significant relationship between the use of peer-tutoring and overall GPA (Arco-Tirado, 2011; Reinheimer & McKenzie, 2011). While researchers have conducted studies in regards to the relationship of peer-tutoring and the cumulative GPA’s of NCAA Division I student-athletes and other comparable populations such as college freshmen and undeclared students, there is a significant gap of research in investigating this topic. More specifically, the proposed research study aims to examine the relationship between the average time in hours that an NCAA Division I student-athlete spends in organized peer-tutoring services and their cumulative GPA for that semester, therefore filling this gap in research. The findings of this research study could potentially inform individuals who work in academic learning centers across higher education administration and athletics with successful and practical methods that best serve the educational needs of student-athletes as they attempt to be successful both on and off the field.

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References

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