Abstract
Background: Qualified teaching staffs are neither available nor affordable to provide large numbers of children with individual
attention. One solution to providing individual tuition has been the development of tutoring programs that are delivered by nonprofessional
tutors, such as classmates, older children and community volunteers.
Objectives: We have conducted a systematic review of cross-age tutoring interventions delivered by non-professional tutors
to children between 5 and 11 years old. Only randomized controlled trials with reliable measures of academic outcomes, and
continuing for at least 12 weeks, compared to instruction as usual, were included.
Results: Searches of electronic databases and previous reviews, and contacts with researchers yielded 11,564 titles; after
screening, 15 studies were included in the analysis. Cross-age tutoring showed small significant effects for tutees on the
composite measure of reading (g=0.18, 95% CI: 0.08, 0.27, N=8251), decoding skills (g=0.29, 95% CI: 0.13, 0.44, N=7081), and
reading comprehension (g=0.11, 95% CI: 0.01, 0.21, N=6945). No significant effects were detected for other reading sub-skills or
for mathematics. The quality of evidence is decreased by study limitations and high heterogeneity of effects.
Conclusions: The benefits for tutees of non-professional peer and cross-age tutoring can be given a positive but weak
recommendation, considering the low quality of evidence and lack of cost information. Subgroup analyses suggested that
highly-structured reading programs may be more useful than loosely-structured programs. Large-scale replication trials using
factorial design, process evaluations, reliable outcome measures and logic models are needed to better understand under what
conditions, and for whom, cross-age non-professional tutoring may be effective.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 16 Jun 2014 |
Event | Campbell Collaboration Colloquium 2014 - Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom Duration: 16 Jun 2014 → 19 Jun 2014 |
Conference
Conference | Campbell Collaboration Colloquium 2014 |
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Country/Territory | United Kingdom |
City | Belfast |
Period | 16/06/2014 → 19/06/2014 |