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The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a tutorial program on the academic performance, attendance rates, and grade-point averages of at-risk high school students in an urban setting. Many sources of remediation are being refined and reviewed to aid the goal mandated by the State Education Agency for the year 1997-1998, which is a 95% graduation rate. This study was focused on the value of a specific tutorial program. Twenty hypotheses were formulated to determine if the tutorial program had a significant effect with respect to areas aforementioned.
The subjects of this study included 200 (110 males and 90 females) high school students enrolled in two urban high schools in southeast Texas. At-risk students were identified from the two urban high schools. Identification was based on state-recommended criteria. Identified at-risk students who were required to take the state-mandated test for eleventh-grade students, Texas Assessment of Minimum Skills Test (TEAMS), were randomly assigned to one of two groups: experimental group A or control group B. The experimental group was enrolled in tutorial sessions for math and English. The control group did not receive the extra tutoring. Additionally, the students' attendance records and grade-point averages were determined. The hypotheses of the study were treated by the application of a One-way Analysis of Covariance and the Independent t-Test and were tested at the.05 level or better.
The findings of this study concluded that this particular type of tutoring did not significantly affect students' academic performance, as reflected by the results of the TEAMS scores when taken after tutoring. However, the students' attendance rates and their grade-point averages improved significantly.