Undergraduates as tutors

I have written several blog posts already which touch on the subject of undergraduate tutors. But as the new term comes round, A-level students are increasingly looking to find tutors to give them a competitive advantage, and university students are trying to make their student loan stretch that little bit further. The two seem naturally to be a match made in heaven.

Go on any tutoring advertisement page and you will soon see an advert starting "I am a medicine/dentistry undergraduate who got A* in A-levels in ...". Their credentials sound good, their reviews are positive and their results seem to speak for themselves. So, with the aim of saving a bit of money, a parent books with them.

Let's start with the gap between what students think they need, and what they actually need. Most students actually know enough chemistry to pass their exams. Apart from the occasional misconception or cognitive block, the student will have received the information they need. They have exam notes and revision guides. All the information is at their fingertips. And in the cases where they do have gaps in their knowledge, fixing that will gain only a few marks in the exam, not lead to a significant grade increase. But because students think they need chemistry explaining, when somebody explains chemistry which they already know, it makes sense, they attribute the understanding to the tutor not to a latent previous understanding, and provide a positive review.

What undergraduate tutors can offer is "how to carry out this calculation". What they can't offer is "this is where students consistently lose marks on this type of question and how to fix it". This is because they haven't seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of questions of this type and the vast spectrum of answers offered by students. This experience is incredibly valuable in converting underachieving students into students who exceed expectations. The skills are learnable, but only if the tutor can identify the barriers. And these barriers are identified through countless hours of assessing students.

If this is the case, why do undergraduate tutors have success stories? If you take enough students, then eventually you will get some through to a competitive degree, which is usually the measure of success used. There is no way of separating the effect of the tutor. It may be that the student would have got into that course without intervention. Of course this applies to all tutors so its use as a measure of success is meaningless. The issue becomes even worse when you consider that students who seek out tutoring are likely to be highly motivated and putting in considerable study outside the classroom, exactly the calibre of student who is more likely to succeed anyway. This is not to say that the tutoring didn't make a difference.

The problem is, the issues don't appear until it's too late. A student thinks they understand, but their mock exam shows no improvement. Do we stick with the same tutor who has a relationship with the student or do we risk going elsewhere? If we go elsewhere, how do we know the situation won't get worse?

At Simon Horsnall Tutoring, we have developed a system to enable parents and students to navigate this complex area. If you contact us about tutoring, we will assess your needs to determine whether you actually need gaps in your knowledge fixing or whether you would benefit greater from exam skills for chemistry. This enables us to provide you with a tailored experience and ensure you exceed your current performance.