Facilitated Study Groups

Facilitated Study Groups (also known as Supplemental Instruction, Academic Excellence Workshops, or Peer-Led Tutoring as slight variations of the basic model) are workshops that are designed to help students perform better in a difficult class. It is widely acknowledged that these workshops can be very successful, but not all workshops are equally successful.

In 2009, we submitted a research proposal to answer this question (the response to which is still pending). Our proposal was to examine around 150 different workshops across twelve college campuses and several courses to see how the different aspects of each workshop influenced student outcomes. The variations between workshops that we proposed to examine included:

Institutional infrastructure

• Whether or not the workshops are offered for credit or not
• What students are recruited to participate
• What the expectations are for attendance

Workshop facilitators

• Educational level
• Experience with material
• Training
• Past experience as a facilitator

Workshop features

• Location and time
• Activities within the workshop and the frequency of these activities

Makeup of the students participating in the workshop compared to those not doing so

• Demographic makeup (race, gender, age, majors, etc.)
• Performance in previous courses
• Standardized test scores (SAT I, ACT, etc.)
• Motivation to succeed in the class

Features of the supported course

• Content covered
• Ways of teaching that content
• How learning is assessed
• Extent to which the course instructor is connected to the supporting workshop

For the analysis, we intend to construct a statistical model using linear regression to see which factors are most associated with changes in the impact of the workshops and what these impacts are. Data will be collected from students, facilitators, and course instructors using surveys and interviews, as well as from institutional records.