The Effect of Peer Tutoring in Reducing Achievement Gaps: A Success Story

We describe the effects of three semesters of a newly implemented peer tutoring program at Humboldt State University, which is classified as a Hispanic-Serving Institution. The peer tutoring program narrowed the gap between Under-Represented Groups (URGs), Pell Grant recipients, Females and First-Generation students versus the overall student population. Statistical methods were used to test whether tutoring has helped to reduce this gap. Our results suggest that tutoring not only shrunk the achievement gap but it reduced the failure rate over 50%.