What is it? Academic tutoring is an intervention that involves a teacher, trained teaching assistant or a tutor providing academic support to an individual or group of students.

Evidence? There is a high-quality body of evidence suggesting that academic tutoring can improve attainment. However, more evidence is needed in the UK context, particularly focusing on course structure, academic content and pedagogical practices.

Should HEPs adopt it? There is a reasonable evidence base to support the use of tutoring to improve pupils’ behavioural outcomes and attainment. However, gaps in the evidence still remain. Therefore, providers should seek to embed evaluation to understand the extent to which they impact student outcomes – see the TASO evaluation guidance for more information on how to do this.

Academic tutoring is an intervention that involves a teacher, trained teaching assistant or a tutor providing academic support to an individual or group of students.

It helps learners to make progress through the curriculum, by responding to gaps in their knowledge or skills.

This activity allows teaching to focus exclusively on one or a small number of learners, usually taught in a separate classroom or working space. However, over the last few years, tutoring has increasingly been conducted online.

The advice on this page draws on evidence from programmes targeted at school-aged pupils, both primary and secondary. Some programmes focus specifically on low attaining learners or those who are falling behind. Others target pupils from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds.

The existing evidence suggests that academic tutoring has a positive impact on pupils’ aspirations/attitudes, and on attainment.

Evidence from the international literature, particularly from the US and Europe, demonstrates a strong causal relationship between cross-age non-professional peer tutoring, conducted by undergraduate student ambassadors, and attainment. UK studies on the topic have more mixed results (Torgerson and King, 2002).

In the UK context, an evaluation of a targeted intervention aiming to improve the reading ability of under performing pupils, as well as their confidence in and attitudes towards reading, found a positive correlation with improved reading age (OfS, 2022).

The Education Endowment Foundation has reviewed the evidence on tutoring delivered one-to-one and in small groups (EEF, 2021). Having reviewed 123 studies on one-to-one tutoring, they found that it can be highly effective at improving outcomes for pupils who have low prior attainment or those who are struggling in particular areas. Similarly, they reviewed 62 studies on tutoring delivered in small groups, concluding that these programmes can add, on average, four additional months’ progress over the course of a year.

In the US, since the 1980s, several meta-analyses and systematic reviews of tutoring programmes have reported their positive impact on pupil attainment (Sharpley and Sharpley, 1981; Cohen et al., 1982). More recent reviews and meta-analyses have also found similar outcomes when using university-student tutors (Elbaum et al., 2000; Leung et al., 2005; Nickow et al., 2020). Finally, randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and meta-analyses have found that structured reading tutoring delivered by university students has significant positive effects on the attainment of primary school pupils (Lindo et al., 2017; Elbaum et al., 2000; Bloom, 1984).

A recent study conducted in Europe also demonstrates the positive effects of university tutoring on pupil attainment. The RCT, conducted by Carlana and La Ferrara (2021), demonstrated the positive effects of a university tutoring programme on the educational attainment, socio-emotional skills, aspirations and psychological wellbeing of Italian pupils. Importantly, the programme was most effective for raising the attainment of pupils from a low socio-economic background and improving the psychological wellbeing of pupils from an immigrant background.

Multiple studies note that the design and nature of tutoring has a significant bearing on its impact. Aspects like class size, duration, time and frequency of sessions and professional characteristics of tutors are important. Adapting the provision to the specific needs of targeted pupils appears to be highly beneficial. More broadly, the existing evidence suggests that programmes can be most effective when:

  • Targeted at disadvantaged pupils, particularly those who lack family support from adults.
  • Targeted at pupils’ specific needs and linked to classroom content.
  • Delivered by trained staff, well prepared for interacting effectively with pupils, for instance by providing well-planned feedback.
  • Delivered consistently by the same person and multiple times per week.
  • The impact on pupil progress is monitored and the support provided is adjusted accordingly.
  • Done in small groups, as there is a noticeable reduction in effectiveness once group size increases above six or seven.

Although international literature from the US and Europe points towards a strong link between tutoring and attainment, UK evidence is more mixed and limited. Future research should focus specifically on evaluating university-led tutoring programmes and focus on programme design and targeting. More knowledge is also required on the course structure, academic content and pedagogical practices associated with specific programmes.

TASO’s advice is based on evidence from nine causal studies and other relevant papers.

Causal studies

Bloom, B.S., (1984). The 2 sigma problem: The search for methods of group instruction as effective as one-to-one tutoring. Educational researcher, 13(6), pp.4-16. Linked here.

Carlana, Michela and La Ferrara, Eliana, Apart but Connected: Online Tutoring and Student Outcomes during the COVID-19 Pandemic, (2021). HKS Working Paper No. RWP21-001. Linked here.

Cohen, P.A., Kulik, J.A. and Kulik, C.L.C., (1982). Educational outcomes of tutoring: A meta-analysis of findings. American educational research journal, 19(2), pp.237-248. Linked here.

Elbaum, B., Vaughn, S., Tejero Hughes, M. and Watson Moody, S., (2000). How effective are one-to-one tutoring programs in reading for elementary students at risk for reading failure? A meta-analysis of the intervention research. Journal of educational psychology, 92(4), p.605. Linked here.

Leung, K.C., Marsh, H.W. and Craven, R.G., (2005). Are peer tutoring programs effective in promoting academic achievement and self-concept in educational settings: A meta-analytical review. In Annual Conference, Cairns. Linked here.

Lindo, Endia J., Beverly Weiser, Jennifer P. Cheatham & Jill H. Allor (2017): Benefits of Structured After-School Literacy Tutoring by University Students for Struggling Elementary Readers, Reading & Writing Quarterly, DOI: 10.1080/10573569.2017.1357156

Nickow, A., Oreopoulos, P. and Quan, V., 2020. The Impressive Effects of Tutoring on PreK-12 Learning: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of the Experimental Evidence. Working Paper 27476. National Bureau of Economic Research. Linked here.

Resnjanskij, Sven and Ruhose, Jens and Wiederhold, Simon and Woessmann, Ludger, Can Mentoring Alleviate Family Disadvantage in Adolescence? A Field Experiment to Improve Labor-Market Prospects (2021). CESifo Working Paper No. 8870, Linked here.

Sharpley, A.M. and Sharpley, C.F., (1981). Peer tutoring: A review of the literature. Collected Original Resources in Education, 5(3), pp.7-C11.

Other studies

Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (2014). Reading at the Transition. Interim Evidence Brief June 2014, London: EEF. Linked here.

Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (2021). One on one tuition toolkit page. Linked here.

Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) (2021). Small group tuition toolkit page. Linked here.

Gartland, C (2015). Student ambassadors: ‘role-models’, learning practices and identities, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 36(8), pp. 1192-1211. Linked here.