Participation rates, characteristics, and differential effects on reading literacy of extracurricular tutoring in a German large-scale assessment

Abstract

Because large-scale studies repeatedly indicated low reading literacy for many students, a need for interventions fostering reading literacy, such as extracurricular tutoring, has often been emphasized. Several reading promoting programs, suitable for extracurricular tutoring, were developed and shown to be effective in recent years. Moreover, these studies and analyses of extracurricular activities and tutoring yielded findings on learning-supporting characteristics and effects on students’ achievement of such extracurricular offers. Nevertheless, little is known to date about the implementation of extracurricular tutoring in practice in Germany, particularly about its participation rates, characteristics, and effects on students` reading literacy. Thus, the present study investigated participation rates of extracurricular tutoring in reading and in German among students in general and among various subgroups between Grades 5 and 7. Furthermore, the study examined general and subject-specific characteristics and effects of extracurricular tutoring on reading literacy. The analyses used a sample of students (N = 5113) of the National Educational Panel Study in Germany. In addition to descriptive analyses of characteristics and participation rates of extracurricular tutoring, effect sizes were calculated for comparing participation rates of subgroups of students. Furthermore, multi-group structural equation models were implemented to investigate average and differential effects of extracurricular tutoring, while controlling for initial reading literacy and other covariates. The results indicate that mainly students with low reading literacy and therefore a strong need for support participated in extracurricular tutoring, but the general participation rate was low. The descriptive outcomes showed a heterogeneous picture of tutoring offers and rare implementations of reading-promoting methods. Moreover, the results revealed no significant effects of extracurricular tutoring on students’ reading literacy overall but suggested marginal differences for students with a low initial reading literacy. For future studies, more detailed assessments of characteristics and methods of extracurricular tutoring are recommended, particularly, in large-scale investigations on specific tutoring methods for students with support needs which may lead to improved guidelines regarding promising implementations of evidence-based reading promoting programs.