Introduction

Comparing University to High School would be like comparing a gourmet feast to grabbing a burger at a fast food restaurant. Where High School could possibly thought to be hard at times academically, it is nothing compared to the challenges that University classes bring upon students. The amount of work and the difficulty of said work is tenfold from what students experience in High School, and many would not survive without seeking out a little help. This is why on most campuses, there are many tutoring centers offered for students.

A study done by Lynn O’Shaughnessy for CBS News shows that “students, who hope to be science and engineering majors, get discouraged by their grades, which are significantly lower than students in other disciplines.” Consequently, they flee for easier "A's". Male students are more likely to bail because of grades than would-be women STEM majors. Why I focused on tutoring centers centered around the sciences is because science majors have shows to have consistently lower GPA’s, therefore they have the most use for the tutoring centers that are set up around campus to them students in achieving high academic performance.

At ASU we luckily have many places and opportunities for students to get help and each of the centers will be evaluated on the set of criteria below.

The first criteria will be the amount of tutors that are present compared to the amount of students seeking help. Simply put I will be looking at the ratio between the tutors and students. Since these centers are free, they can get fairly busy, and if there are not enough tutors present then the point of going there, as a student is basically moot.

The second criteria will be the subjects that each tutoring centers covers. Not only just the subjects but the broadness that they go in what material they cover, and how specific they can go with the classes that people are taking. The more subjects that the tutors can effectively help students with makes the tutoring center that much more superior.  

Another criteria that will be evaluated will be how much one on one time a student is given. It’s obviously difficult to give each and every student a lot of one on one time, but to effectively help students one on one time is necessary.  Typically if a student has sought out help for their classes, then they are most likely having difficulty with the material and therefore need to perhaps have it explained it a more successful way, and that requires a tutors full attention on that one student for a certain amount of time.     

Additional criteria are the hours the tutoring centers or tutoring opportunities are open. Many students have very busy schedules with strange hours going all through the day, and many work as well, so to fit getting extra help into their schedules can be extremely difficult. That is why if the hours are short then it doesn’t give the students who have busy schedules much of an opportunity to receive the help that many desire.

That last thing that will be evaluated will be the tutors themselves. I will be evaluating them on their enthusiasm, and how they explain things. Whether they are able to get through to the students and create a good atmosphere for learning. If the tutors act as though they don’t care about the subject material, then many times that attitude is passed on to the students and rather than getting help they may just get more frustrated with the material. In short it’s the level of helpfulness from the tutors to the students.

View Kremer, LoriLayne P2 in a larger map