Making a Difference: Getting Inside the Tutors Mind Concerning

Dr.
Jane
Finn,
Dr.
Vicki-Lynn
Holmes,
Jillian
Sommerville,
Rachel
Lundstrom
the CASA Program
Education and Mathematics Departments, Hope College

About CASA
Childrens After School Achievement (CASA) was
formed in 1987 to assist at-risk school kids to be
successful in school by providing free after-school
tutoring and individualized summer school in addition
to other educational and cultural-enrichment
programs. In its first twenty years, hundreds of West
Michigan elementary students have benefited
tremendously through CASA.

INTRODUCTION

DESCRIPTION OF
SUBJECTS: Longitudinal
Study

(DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS)
Data was collected on the Hope College student
tutors (n=214) pertaining to the tutors anticipated
graduation date, gender, whether or not the tutor
received credit for CASA, and if the tutor was an
education major or not.

Aims of the Study

To know how CASA tutors interacted with at-risk
students participating in the CASA program. CASA
tutors completed
a CASA Survey containing 14 assessment
questions using a
Likert scale of 1-5 (with 5 indicating Very Much, I
Totally
Agree, and 1, meaning No at all, I Totally
Disagree). This research looks at the second year of
We surveyed
Hope
College CASA
tutors
infirst
the Fall
data
and also the
notes
comparisons
between
the
2013second
semester
to determine their opinions on the
and
year.
following questions:

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. Did participation in the CASA Program meet your

expectations?
2. Did you enjoy your participation in the CASA
program?
3. Have you built a positive relationship with your
student?
4. Did you find the Life Skills component to be
worthwhile?
5. Did your student benefit academically from CASA?
6. Did your student benefit in other ways from CASA?
7. Would you encourage a friend to be a CASA tutor?
8. Did your student need the allotted time to finish
homework?
9. Did your student enjoy being at CASA?
10. Did your student work hard at CASA?
11.Did your student want to spend time on
homework?
12.Did your student want to spend time reading?
13.Did your student benefit from the required reading
time?
14.Did your student react positively to the Life Skills
activities?
A survey was created with input from CASA
supervisors. A pilot was conducted with two outside
experts on surveys and knowledge about the CASA
program. After the pilots, the survey was revised.
This revised survey was used in the research project.

PROCEDURES

After tutoring, the Hope College CASA tutors were

asked to voluntarily complete a survey concerning
their perception of the CASA after school program.
Over a two semester period (Spring 2014 and Fall
2014), a total of 214 tutors participated in the survey.
The survey had 14 questions with a Likert scale of 15 (with 5 indicating Very Much, I Totally Agree, and
1 meaning No at at all, I Totally Disagree).
Results of all the surveys were placed into a statistical
DATA
ANALYSIS
software program.
These results are noted and
1reported.
Descriptive
statistics were
completedMethod
on the)
METHODS
( Quantitative
following: (1) Gender, (2) Graduation Date, (3)
CASA for Credit, (4) Major.
2. One-Sample T-Tests were completed on all survey
questions.
3. Two Way Contingency Table Analysis using
Crosstabs was completed on all survey questions
with the four independent variables. To compute
these statistics for the crosstabs, the Likert Scale
(see above explanation of 1-5 scores in the above
Procedures) was put into three variables:
4 and 5= agree very much
3=neutral
2 and 1=disagree

201
20173
11% 6%2014
14%
2016
46%

2015
22%

Year

Frequency

Percent

2013

13

6.1

2014

30

14.0

2015

48

22.4

2016

98

45.8

2017

24

11.2

TOTAL

214

100.0

Gender

Female
80%

Gender Frequency

Percent

Male

19.6

42

Female 172

80.4

TOTAL

100.0

CASA for Credit

214

More tutors participated in CASA that were not

education majors (82%) than those tutors that were
education majors (18%), and this was similar to last
years results of non-education major participants
(80%) and education major participants (20%). This is
an interesting finding as majors from differing
disciplines and areas are interested in giving back to
the community in this way.

CASA for Credit

No
79%
Yes
21%

Respon
se

Frequency

Percent

Yes

45

21.0

No

169

79.0

TOTAL

214

100.0

Education Major Distribution

Yes
18%
No
82%

Education Major
Respon
se

Frequency

Percent

Yes

39

18.2

No

175

81.8

TOTAL

214

100.0

RESULTS OF A ONE-SAMPLE TTEST

Question
Did participation in
the CASA program
meet your
expectations?
Did you enjoy your
participation in the
CASA program?
Have you built a
positive relationship
with your student?
Did you find the Life
Skills component to
be worthwhile?
Did your student
benefit academically
from CASA?
Did your student
benefit in other ways
from CASA?
Would you
encourage a friend
to be a CASA tutor?
Did your student
need the allotted
time to finish
homework?
Did your student
enjoy being at
CASA?
Did your student
work hard at CASA?
Did your student
want to spend time
on homework?
Did your student
want to spend time
reading?
Did your student
benefit from the
required reading
time?
Did your student
react positively to
the Life Skills
activities?

This study showed that more sophomores (22%) and

juniors (46%) volunteered at CASA than freshmen
(6%) and seniors (11%), and this was quite different
than the results found in the previous years study for
the majority of tutors were freshmen and sophomores.

More tutors participated in CASA for a volunteer

opportunity (79%) than did tutors participating for
class credit (21%). This is similar to the findings from
the first year, where 77% of tutors participated for a
volunteer opportunity and 23% of tutors participated
for class credit. The researchers think this shows
initiative in regards to the Hope College community
volunteering extra time and energy to at-risk children.

Gender Representation

Male
20%

DISCUSSION

More females (80%) than males (20%) were tutors for

CASA, as found in the previous year (females 77%,
males 23%).

The findings are as follows:

Date of Graduation
Date of Graduation

DESCRIPTION OF SUBJECTS:
First Year
(DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS)

SD

214

4.47

0.59

109.93

0.00

214

4.54

.63

104.95

0.00

213

4.67

.57

119.51

0.00

213

3.12

1.04

43.87

0.00

211

4.22

.72

84.67

0.00

209

4.24

.72

85.72

0.00

212

4.64

.60

112.05

0.00

213

3.97

1.13

51.23

0.00

213

4.44

.69

94.14

0.00

213

4.15

.78

77.47

0.00

213 OF
3.55THE
1.14
45.41
0.00
RESULTS
ONEWAY
ANOVA
213
3.27
1.14
41.66
0.00

213

4.12

.90

66.63

0.00

212

3.17

1.15

40.21

0.00

In this longitudinal study when a one sample t-test

was completed, the mean for 14 out of 14 questions
was higher, as they were all significant.
This demonstrates that tutors enjoyed the CASA
program, felt they built positive relationships with the
elementary students, would encourage a friend to be a
CASA tutor, and reported the elementary CASA
student benefited from the program academically and
emotionally
by
improving
reading,
finishing
homework, and developing a relationship with the
tutor.
In the first year study when a one sample t-test was
completed, the mean for 12 out of the 14 questions
was higher. The two questions that were not
significant were Question 4 (Did you find the Life
Skills component worthwhile?) and Question 14 (In
your opinion, most days your student reacted
positively to the Life Skills activities.); therefore, the
tutors felt that the other academic areas comprising
CASA were more beneficial than the Life Skills.
The different findings from year one to year two reveal
that as time passed there was an increasing
appreciation for the Life Skills component of the
program. There could be several reasons why these
results changed, including: tutors were better
prepared to teach the Life Skills curriculum, CASA
improved the Life Skills curriculum,
students
connected better with the Life Skills curriculum, or
CASA improved the training of the CASA tutors to
better teach the Life Skills curriculum. This research
project did not study this qualitative component of the
Life Skills curriculum results, but future research
could expose these attitudes.

LIMITATIONS

1.Findings the
are tutors
limitedreported
becausethat
of the
nature
In conclusion,
CASA
metoftheir
the subjectthey
sample.
expectations,
enjoyed participating in CASA, and
they would recommend volunteering for CASA to their
2. Social desirability is a concern when using a
friends. They felt they developed a positive
type of assessment.
relationship
with their elementary CASA student, and
that the elementary student benefited academically
from CASA. These overall results were found in both
years of this longitudinal study.