Evan Jones

A Quick Background First year economics has a historically high failure rate of approximately 50%. Unlike accounting, statistics, mathematics and INST economics does not have a formal tutorial program. Upon our appointment we sought to initiate a tutorial program, open to all students but in the hope that “At Risk” students would attend. Due to the timing of my appointment I was able to mark a portion of the first years’ test scripts. This experience provided me with an insight into some of the performance constraints.

Distribution of Marks (Test 2)

Revealed Shortcomings Students appear to struggle not only with the concepts of economics but with communicating what understanding they have. The discourse of economics is unfamiliar to them. The concepts in economics The language of the subject The interplay between mathematics, graphical analysis and practical application Communicating in an economic manner

Tutorial Methodology Emphasis placed on students interacting with relevant material in groups. Interaction guided by a discipline “insider”. The discipline insider is able to assist students become familiar with the economic discourse.

Constraints to the Implementation Timetables 1 st year students have busy timetables Suitable venues also tend to be booked during the most desirable times Students generally do not to attend early in the morning, during lunch or in the afternoon. Students attendance drops significantly if there is a test or assignment due, if its raining and towards the end of term.

Tutorial Structure Short tutorial, min depending on the promptness of the students. Group work is emphasised, groups tend to range from 4 -8 members, with 6 being the norm. Students seem more comfortable initially working through a question in pairs before engaging with the rest of the group.

Tutorial Structure cont. The students are encouraged to work through the tutorial at their own pace. No importance is attached to actually finishing the whole tutorial. Debate is encouraged. If students disagree, I ask them not to just give in to another students opinion, they need to convince one another. In their debates, I’ll often ask then to support their argument/belief with a diagram or an equation.

Tutorial Material The tutorial questions have been drawn from past tests and exams. This has several benefits: They serve as a good proxy for future questions. They help develop appropriate problem solving skills. Students have a desire to go through past questions. The questions have been moderated.

The Role of the Tutor Not a lecturer! The tutor is there to facilitate the discussions and to provide assistance with concepts and problem solving techniques. Facilitate discussions: Observing the various groups and their discussions. Intervening if students are glossing over important concepts, lacks the required formality or if they’re going off on the wrong track. Attempts are made not to just give students the answers, rather a tutor should guide the student towards the answer.

The Role of the Tutor cont. Students appear not to enjoy discussing topics within their groups. At least not at first. The tutor can then step into the group and participate in the discussion, to get the ball rolling. At the end of the tutorial the correct answers would be given to the class. This was somewhat of a formality as for the most part I would not all the students to progress with incorrect answers.

Tutorial Group Performance The first semester tutorials only had one group that attended consistently enough to be included in the analysis. By the end of the semester this tutorial group had 60 students on its register with an average attendance of 25 students per session. This group also constituted the majority of tutorial attending students in the second term. This speaks volumes as to the lack of student up take. Attendance has vastly improved

Performance I concerned my analysis on those students that may be described as “At Risk”. For ease of computation I defined a student to be at risk of failing if they failed the second test. The second test was used as the first test has been recognised as being uncharacteristically easy. I then constructed a variable to account for students who attended 3 or more tutorials

Relative Performance

Exam Performance

Conclusion These results suggest that students that attended tutorials regularly experienced greater improvements over the course of the second term than the non- tutorial attending “At Risk” students. The sample is however very small.