Impacts of UPchieve On-Demand Tutoring on Students’ Math Knowledge and Perceptions

UPchieve is an ed-tech nonprofit that provides students in grades 8 to 12 from low-income backgrounds with access to on-demand, online tutoring. This study used a randomized controlled trial to measure the impact of encouraging and incentivizing additional UPchieve math tutoring on students’ math knowledge and math motivation, confidence, and engagement. We collected several data sources from the treatment and control groups, including the Renaissance Star Math assessment of math knowledge, the Expectancy-Value-Cost Scale (EVC) to measure motivation in math, the Patterns of Adaptive Learning Scale (PALS) to measure confidence in math, and the Math Engagement Scales to measure engagement in math. Eighty-nine students had complete math achievement data, and 91 students had complete survey data measuring math motivation, confidence, and engagement. While the study’s small sample limited the strength of conclusions that can be drawn, we found that students who were encouraged and incentivized to participate in UPchieve tutoring used UPchieve 5.5 more times on average than students who did not receive encouragements or incentives. This additional tutoring resulted in students scoring 9 percentile points higher on the Star Math assessment than control group students, as well as experiencing more growth in math motivation, confidence, and engagement.