After-School Tutoring and the Distribution of Student Performance

• Published in: Comparative education review Vol. 57; no. 4; pp. 689 - 710
• Main Author: Huang, Min-Hsiung
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Chicago Press 01.11.2013
• Subjects: After School Education; Australia; Comparative Analysis; Educational Benefits; Elementary School Students; Foreign Countries; Grade 4; Grade 8; High Achievement; Hong Kong; Iran; Italy; Japan; Low Achievement; Mathematics Achievement; Mathematics Education; New Zealand; Norway; Ontario; Philippines; Quebec; Questionnaires; Science Achievement; Science Education; Scores; Scotland; Secondary School Students; Singapore; Student Participation; Taiwan; Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study; Tutoring; United States; Singapore; United Kingdom (Scotland); Hong Kong; United States; Japan; Philippines; New Zealand; Canada; Iran; Norway; Taiwan; Italy; Australia
• ISSN: 0010-4086
• DOI: 10.1086/671346

As more primary and secondary students worldwide seek after-school tutoring in academic subjects, concerns are being raised about whether after-school tutoring can raise average test scores without widening the variability in student performance, and whether students of certain ability levels may benefit more than others from after-school tutoring. To address these questions, I compared the distributions of student performance across countries with differing levels of participation in after-school tutoring, while controlling for country-level unobserved heterogeneity using a fixed-effects model. Participating in either mathematics or science tutoring after school is found to raise national average performance without widening the dispersion in student performance. In science, low-performing students benefit more from tutoring than do high-performing students. In mathematics, high-performing students benefit more from tutoring than do low-performing students.