Blueprint Math Fellows Tutoring Program: Math Knowledge Impacts and Participant Math Perceptions

The Blueprint Math Fellows program used AmeriCorps volunteers to provide middle school students with in-person and online group tutoring and leveraged a web-based math learning platform for supplemental instruction and practice. The tutoring took place during the school day, five days per week in 45-minute sessions. The study assessed effects on student math knowledge using data from the district-administered Renaissance Star Math assessment, comparing math achievement scores among students participating in tutoring to those of other students in the same schools and grades. We found that Blueprint participants scored 0.12 standard deviations higher than those of their nonparticipant peers, after controlling for differences in baseline scores and characteristics. In addition, most students reported strong relationships with their tutors, and on average, students’ reported math confidence and belonging in tutoring increased modestly during the school year. Finally, in exploratory analyses comparing students in larger and smaller tutoring groups, we found that compared to their peers in smaller groups, students ending the year in larger groups exhibited the largest increase in math test scores but reported tutor relationships that were not as strong. This report is one in a series of six reports on math tutoring programs. The report is based on research funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The findings and conclusions contained within are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect positions or policies of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.