We used to have a Byrd Math Lab Manager position. This position provided a full-time presence in the on-level math tutoring area, but we lost that full-time position due to some budgetary issues.  We now only have a variety of part-time tutors; the part-time staffing of this lab causes it to operate with more limited hours.  

The on-site tutoring centers (Writing Center and Byrd Math Lab and Developmental Math Assessment Center) provide tutoring to the students who seek face-to-face assistance, and the coordinator role for these centers has transferred from one individual on campus to another since our last review. In addition, our 24-hour tutoring service to off-site or distance learning students has also changed since the last review; it used to be Smart Thinking but is now Brainfuse.  

We have also obtained re-certification by CRLA (College Reading and Learning Association) in 2017.  CRLA is an International Tutor Training Program. The current certification lasts until October 2022.  

Students may "drop in" to the tutoring centers for assistance with English, history, math, and other subjects involving writing assignments. The Writing Center and the Byrd Math Lab are located in the Learning Resources Center, and the hours of operation for tutoring in these areas are posted on the PHCC website.  Students may also contact (preferably by email) the tutor coordinator to set up appointments with tutors in specific subject areas such as chemistry or anatomy.  The DMAC is located in the basement of West Hall. 

Most of the tutors are current or former students of PHCC who have been recommended by their professors for their current tutoring positions. Sometimes, however, the tutor coordinator has to locate qualified tutors for requested subjects outside the realms of the student pool.  For example, currently one tutor is a retired high school teacher, and another is an adjunct instructor.

In the past, the tutoring centers conducted workshops to assist students, but with the loss of the full-time math tutor, workshops ceased since we do not have the personnel to provide these workshops.  (Interest in and attendance for the workshops had dwindled to only a few students so this seemed a decrease in services that would not be as harmful as other decreases.) 

Representatives from the tutoring centers generally attend SEED events or other outreach efforts whenever we are invited to do so. As a marketing/outreach/engagement ploy, pencils and pens with the tutor coordinator’s phone number are located in the Testing Center and are given out by Student Support Services or tutoring center representatives. In addition, we have a bulletin board in Walker and in the LRC providing information about tutoring.  In the LRC, we have a tutoring turnstile of resources for commonly requested topics such as brief style guides (APA, MLA, Chicago).  On the turnstile resources, we also include library information and guides. We work closely with the library staff, the Testing Center staff, Student Support Services, and the Career Coaches (and any instructors or departments who request our help) to deliver information to students whenever possible. Instructors may check on which students have visited the tutoring centers by accessing Tutor Trak, a program which assists in logging students into the centers, record-keeping, and data delivery for tutoring on a day-to-day and ongoing basis.  (Mark Nelson developed the program, and we have used it since the last review.)  In addition, instructors may request tutors to assist with specific assignments, presentations, or activities by contacting the tutor coordinator.

Tutor visits per month for each academic year

Subject Frequencies 2011-2019

See explanations below.

The loss of f/t and p/t now teaching adjunct (reduction in hours to tutor), coupled with the enrollment decline, explains the reduction in tutor visits.  The data show an average of 7 visits a day by students given by 4 math tutors, 3 English tutors, 1 chemistry, and 1 biology tutor.  While 142 is the monthly average per month for the year, six out of twelve months have individual averages above 300 visits.  In addition, tutor schedules are not everyday; normally 1-2 math tutors are available in the lab at any given time during the week.  During busy times, tutors take on as many ten students at a time for multiple classes in the math lab.  

The overall distribution of subjects for which PHCC tutors help students is predominately math and English/writing, comprising about 66% of all tutor visits.  It should be noted that writing and math are interwoven into many other subjects, making up the remaining 34% of all visits.  Provided in the data link are all subjects that equated to 1% or more of the overall tutor visits.  

Tutoring centers do function to help students to succeed and be retained. In an analysis of data supplied by Tutor Trak, I found "for Fall 2008-Spring 2009 retention rates for students receiving tutoring in the writing center were 86.1% (n=115) and 70.5% (n=2,002) for students not receiving tutoring. For Fall 2009-Spring 2010 retention rates were 87.0% (n=184) for students receiving tutoring in the writing center and 71.2% (n=2,487) not receiving tutoring."  Studies conducted since this time (by other institutions) support the findings are true in other colleges as well. 

The surge in visits for the Byrd Math Lab in 2012 was most probably related to the math redesign and implementation.  Future changes to developmental education may create similar surges in the future.  

Utilization of TutorTrak by the tutors must increase.  A goal in the coming years is to decrease the number of tutor visits where tutor ID is not provided.  This will enable better tracking and tutor-to-student per hour ratio.  To accomplish this, training and processes will be implemented to increase proper record keeping.  

The goal is to reduce the overall percentage of tutors who do not login to Tutor Trak by 25%.  

 The number of visits (over 10,000 for math; approximately 6,000 for English; and, approximately 4500 for non-math/English) indicate that students do want face-to-face interaction; therefore,we want to continue serving students effectively and as efficiently as possible. 

Due to the recent analysis of information related to this service review, I have already consulted with Mark Nelson and he has begun to make some changes to Tutor Trak which will help make Tutor Trak easier for tutors to utilize. 

Math Lab Survey Results

Writing Center Survey Results

In the Writing Center, the weakest area according to survey answers by staff/instructors seems to be the area related to contact from the tutors.  Tutors are probably considering the Tutor Trak component as "contact."  Tutors seem to think the staff/instructors are accessing Tutor Trak to see the comments describing the session and questions related to the assignments.  I’m not sure that all staff/instructors are reading the comments related to the visits. (However, some do access the Tutor Trak information and communicate with us to share materials and instructions/prohibitions regularly.) Also, tutors say they don’t want to "bother" staff/instructors by contacting them directly.  I’m not sure how to improve this performance area.  I would appreciate suggestions for improving performance in this area.

The strongest area for staff/instructors seems to be the fifth question related to knowledge and skill of tutors.  This result seems to confirm that recommendations by instructors is an effective way to recruit and staff the Writing Center. 

The weakest area for students seems to be the area related to feedback.  Providing feedback is sometimes problematic in that providing too much often overwhelms the student. Again, I would appreciate suggestions for improving in this area. The strongest area for students seems to be the fourth question which relates to courtesy and professionalism of tutors.  This result again confirms the strength of the recruiting and maybe, to some degree, training.  

In the Byrd Math Lab, the weakest area according to survey answers by staff/instructors was (as in the Writing Center) the area related to feedback.  Again, in this case I feel tutors consider the feedback to be the information they put into Tutor Trak.  However, sometimes the ratio of tutor to students is so high that I fear the tutors are not able to put in detailed information.  The strongest area indicated by staff/instructor responses seemed to also concur with the Writing Center in knowledge and skills of tutors being high.  Again, this seems to confirm the recruiting and staffing method. 

The weakest area according to survey responses by students is professionalism.  Perhaps this weakness occurs because of the ratio of tutor to students.  The tutor may hurry through explanations or neglect polite behaviors in order to try to help all of the students who are waiting for assistance. Hiring more tutors and training them more thoroughly on professionalism are potential avenues for improvement.  (We will probably need more funds in order to hire more tutors, though.)The strongest area according to survey responses by students is knowledge and skill of tutors.  Again, this seems to confirm the recruiting and staffing method.  

Having obtained certification from CRLA (College Reading and Learning Association), I learned a great deal about training tutors.  However, I also learned that the time, effort, and money spent to obtain the certification may not have been investments that best serve the interests and goals of PHCC.  Developing an in-house tutor training plan and program which addresses the weaknesses, strengths, and needs identified by in-house surveys is probably a better use of time, effort, and money.  I feel that working with Human Resources and other departments within PHCC would be an excellent route to creating a plan and program to best train tutors for our institution.  

In addition, in preparing for the service/program review, I learned that the Tutor Trak program highlights some areas we need to work on.  At first, I thought the tutors need to be more consistent in logging themselves and students in,and this is true. However, we originally decided to establish a goal of reducing the overall percentage of tutors who do not log into Tutor Trak by 25% so that the Tutor Trak data can be better utilized.  The strategy to achieve this goal would have been to implement more frequent and intensive training about logging tutors into the program to make tutors pay more attention to the process.  However, I learned from consulting with Mark Nelson, Tutor Trak’s creator, that the program was designed for different uses in the Byrd Math Lab and the Writing Center.  The idea was for students in the Byrd Math Lab to log themselves in using a kiosk and their EMPID number and the tutors would “float” between students as needed.  (In the Writing Center, students would be logged in by tutors since the tutoring sessions are conducted as individual sessions.)

Tutor Trak, therefore, required the location to be input at some point since the types of visits were different.  The notes or comments tutors provide after the visit regarding the visits reflect information that is useful for instructors and management.  When the Byrd Math Lab had a full-time manager, the notes and tutor assignments were input by the manager.  Since the Byrd Math Lab manager left, we have been operating Tutor Trak visits as all individual visits.  This utilization has probably caused some inconsistency in data reporting. 

A more pressing goal then is to change Tutor Trak so that all the visits are logged as individual visits (in the way the Writing Center does); we need to change Tutor Trak so that it can be utilized more effectively to provide the most usable data for our purposes. Mark Nelson has already begun making changes to the program, and we are working on adding a survey question to be emailed to each student after a tutoring visit.  The question will be related to the feedback and professionalism of the tutors as well as an overall evaluation of the visit.  We think the new Tutor Trak changes will be ready to implement in March 2020.

Hiring more tutors, especially a full-time tutor in the Byrd Math Lab, is a need which would require more money in our budget.  Sometimes the ratio of tutor to students in the Byrd Math Lab is as high as 15 students to 1 tutor.  While this ratio is not true every day, tutors performing within this ratio cannot be as effective as students and tutors need for them to be.  A full-time tutor in the Byrd Math Lab would not completely solve the problem, however; we also need more part-time tutors for math. 

In order to make changes to accommodate the needs for tutoring, we would need more funds to pay more tutors and funds to increase the hours tutors work.  When we had a lab manager, the math lab was able to be open more hours; now, the Byrd Math Lab is open fewer hours since no tutor can work more than 29 hours in a week. Having only one tutor in a tutoring center at a time is a less than ideal situation for many reasons.

 In addition, changes to developmental education may increase the need for tutoring services and therefore the need for more tutors or at least more hours the tutoring centers can be operate.