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Oxford Review of Education
ISSN: 0305-4985 (Print) 1465-3915 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/core20
Effects of the TutorBright tutoring programme on
the reading and mathematics skills of children in
foster care: a randomised controlled trial
Andrea J. Hickey & Robert J. Flynn
To cite this article: Andrea J. Hickey & Robert J. Flynn (2019) Effects of the TutorBright tutoring
programme on the reading and mathematics skills of children in foster care: a randomised
controlled trial, Oxford Review of Education, 45:4, 519-537, DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2019.1607724
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2019.1607724
Published online: 26 Jul 2019.
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Effects of the TutorBright tutoring programme on the
reading and mathematics skills of children in foster care: a
randomised controlled trial
Andrea J. Hickey and Robert J. Flynn
Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada
ABSTRACT
We evaluated the effects of TutorBright tutoring on the reading and
mathematics skills of children in family foster care, examined several
potential moderators of the impact of tutoring, and explored pos-
sible ‘spill-over’effects on the children’s executive functioning and
behavioural difficulties and on their caregivers’level of involvement
in schoolwork in the home. The sample consisted of 70 children in
care in Ontario, Canada. At the pre-test, the children were aged
5–16 years (M= 10.41, SD = 2.94) and enrolled in school grades 1–11
(M= 5.53, SD = 2.90). Thirty-four children were randomly assigned
to tutoring and 36 to a waiting list control condition. Seven subtests
from the Woodcock-Johnson III (WJ-III) achievement test served as
outcome measures. The tutored children made statistically greater
gains than those in the control group on the WJ-III subtests of
Reading Fluency, Reading Comprehension, and Mathematics
Calculation, but not on Word Reading, Spelling, Math Fluency, or
Applied Math Problems. Age, executive functioning, caregiver con-
trolling involvement in schoolwork, and self-reported post-trau-
matic stress disorder symptoms were found to moderate the
effectiveness of tutoring. There were no spill-over effects of tutor-
ing. The implications of the results for improving foster children’s
reading and mathematics skills were discussed.
KEYWORDS
Children in care; foster care;
tutoring; academic skills;
mathematics; reading
Introduction
Many children in care have higher rates of learning disabilities, grade retention, and
below-average performance in mathematics and reading, compared with children in the
general population (McGuire & Jackson, 2018;O’Higgins, Sebba, & Gardner, 2014; Sebba
et al., 2015; Tessier, O’Higgins, & Flynn, 2018; Trout, Hagaman, Casey, Reid, & Epstein,
2008). They also often have cognitive and language deficits and poor problem-solving or
reasoning skills (Kavanaugh, Dupont-Frechette, Jerskey, & Holler, 2016). Approximately
30–50% of children in care are eligible for special education (Lightfoot, Hill, & LaLiberte,
2011), compared to 10% of children in the general population (Zetlin, Weinberg, & Shea,
2006). Without mastery of reading or mathematics, children in care are at an increased
risk of academic failure or school dropouts (Berlin, Vinnerljung, & Hjern, 2011; Trout
et al., 2008; Viner & Taylor, 2005). Based on national longitudinal register data in Sweden,
CONTACT Andrea J. Hickey ahick059@uottawa.ca
OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION
2019, VOL. 45, NO. 4, 519–537
https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2019.1607724
© 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Forsman, Brännström, Vinnerljung, and Hjern (2016) found that among young adults
who had previously been in care, poor school performance at the end of obligatory
schooling had a causal and severe negative impact, including economic hardship, illicit
drug use, and poor mental health. Brännström, Vinnerljung, Forsman, and Almquist
(2017) recently extended their analyses in Sweden, demonstrating that the serious
negative psychosocial consequences of poor educational performance in childhood
persist until well into middle age (i.e. 39–55 years).
Poor educational achievement is among the strongest risk factors for the future well-
being of children in care. As the Swedish research has shown, the links between poor
academic achievement and unfavourable psychosocial outcomes remain strong, even
after controlling for the socioeconomic status of the family when the child was still very
young, the length of time in care, and age at first placement (Brännström et al., 2017;
Forsman et al., 2016).
Several meta-analyses have been conducted on interventions for at-risk students.
Lauer et al. (2006) found that although out-of-school-time programmes for low-
achieving students had only a small overall effect, one-to-one tutoring to improve
reading skills had a moderately large average effect (Hedges g= .50). Dietrichson,
Bøg, Filges, and Klint Jørgensen (2017), in a meta-analysis of approximately 100 aca-
demic interventions for children of low socioeconomic status, found that, on average,
the most effective academic interventions were, in order, one-to-one or small-group
tutoring (ES = .36), progress monitoring (in which teachers or students received infor-
mation about development; ES = .32), and cooperative or peer-assisted learning
(ES = .22). Slavin, Lake, Davis, and Madden (2009) found that one-to-one tutoring was
more effective than small-group tutoring or computer-assisted instruction programmes
for struggling readers in grades K-5. Finally, Pellegrini, Lake, Inns, and Slavin (2018)
recently completed a best-evidence synthesis of effective programmes in elementary
mathematics. In their review of 78 high-quality evaluations (83% randomised, 17% quasi-
experimental) of 61 programmes in grades K-5, they found that tutoring programmes
were found to have especially positive outcomes. One-to-one and one-to-small group
programmes had equal impacts, as did teachers and paraprofessionals as tutors. Overall,
tutoring (particularly in a one-to-one format) seems a promising means of improving the
academic skills of children who need help in reading or mathematics.
At present, there are relatively few evaluated interventions aimed at remediating the
educational challenges of young people in care. In a scoping review, Forsman and
Vinnerljung (2012) identified 11 studies that were either randomised controlled trials,
quasi-experiments, or pre-test-post-test studies. Overall, nine of the 11 evaluations
reported positive outcomes, with four out of five tutoring evaluations yielding positive
results. Evans, Brown, Rees, and Smith (2017) reviewed the controlled research –12
projects, including 15 randomised controlled trials –on academic interventions for
young people in care under the age of 19 years. Of the 12 projects, nine had demon-
strated some evidence of effectiveness. Three had employed academic tutoring, either
one-on-one (Flynn, Marquis, Paquet, Peeke, & Aubry, 2012; Marquis, 2013) or small
group-based (Harper & Schmidt, 2016). Evans et al. (2017) called for the continued use
of randomised trials but with greater attention to methodological quality, in order to
generate more convincing evidence about which academic interventions work well and
for whom.
520 A. J. HICKEY AND R. J. FLYNN
To our knowledge, only two randomised controlled trials of tutoring have been published
that have had positive results with children in care. Flynn et al. (2012) assessed the effective-
ness of one-to-one, direct-instruction tutoring (Maloney, 1998), delivered by foster carers, on
the reading and mathematics skills of 64 foster children, aged 6 to 13 years and in primary-
school grades 2–7. Thirty were in the tutoring group and 34 in a waiting list control group. The
tutored children made significantly greater gains than those in the control condition on
sentence comprehension (Hedges’g= 0.38, p< .05), reading composite (g= 0.29, p< .10), and
mathematics computation (g= 0.46, p< .01), but not on word reading or spelling. Harper and
Schmidt (2016) also evaluated Maloney’s(1998) version of direct-instruction tutoring, using
a small-group format and university students as tutors. The foster children were 6–13 years
old, in primary grades 1–8, and mainly of Indigenous origin. Forty-five were randomly
assigned to the tutoring group and 46 to a waiting list control group. The tutoring group
made significant gains on word reading (Hedges’g= 0.40, p< .001), spelling (g= 0.25, p< .02),
and mathematics computation (g= 0.34, p< .04), but not on sentence comprehension.
Overall, as Evans et al. (2017) have advocated, more high-quality research is needed.
The primary objective of the present study was to evaluate the impact of an individua-
lised, home-based tutoring programme, known as TutorBright, on the reading and
mathematics skills of children in family foster care. We hypothesised that the children
who had received academic tutoring would improve significantly more on their mathe-
matics and reading skills than those in a waiting list control group. We also examined
whether there was a dose-response relationship between the amount of exposure to
tutoring and gains in reading and mathematics.
The second objective involved exploring whether selected covariates –child age,
gender, executive functioning, behavioural difficulties, post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) symptoms, or caregiver involvement in academic activities in the home –mod-
erated the impact of tutoring on reading and mathematics skills. The third objective
consisted of determining whether tutoring produced positive ‘spillover effects’on the
children’s executive functioning or behavioural difficulties or on their caregivers’invol-
vement in academic activities in the home.
Method
Research context
The present study was a randomised effectiveness trial, conducted under real-world
conditions, rather than an efficacy trial, carried out under near-ideal, laboratory condi-
tions. The first author (AJH) undertook the study as part of her doctoral thesis research in
clinical psychology (Hickey, 2018), of which the second author (RJF) was the research
supervisor. The study was approved by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Ethics Board of the University of Ottawa. This trial was not registered.
Recruitment and participants
Child welfare workers nominated foster children who had met several eligibility
criteria: enrolled in grades 1–11, fluent in English (the language of the TutorBright
materials), currently living in a foster-family setting (including kinship-care and
OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION 521
adoption-probation), and judged likely to remain in care for the duration of the study.
Foster children were excluded if they were living in a group home, were rated by their
child welfare workers as either strong students (and thus not likely to need tutoring),
or else were either intellectually disabled or very behaviourally disturbed (and thus not
likely to complete the programme). Seventy-five children and their caregivers assented
or consented to participate and were enrolled in the study and randomised to either
TutorBright tutoring or a waiting list control condition.
At the pre-test, the 75 foster children were aged 5–16 years (M= 10.59, SD = 2.98;
see Table 1)andingrades1–11 in school (M= 5.68, SD = 2.95). The 70 foster parents
(64 females, 6 males) had been providing care to their respective children in care for
approximately 2 years (M=2.05years,SD = 1.03). Thirty-seven children were
randomly assigned to the TutorBright (experimental) group (20 males, 17
females; Mage = 10.32 years; range = 6–15 years) and 38 to the waiting list control
group (19 males, 19 females; Mage = 10.50 years; range = 5–16 years). Attrition was
low: 3 in the TutorBright group, 2 in the waiting list control group. (See CONSORT
diagram in Figure 1.)
Research design and random assignment
In our pre-test/post-test, waiting list-controlled, two-group design, random assignment to
conditions took place at the pre-test, immediately after the foster parents and foster
children had signed their consent or assent forms and had completed their initial assess-
ments. The children were assessed at two time points: Time 1 (pre-test) and Time 2 (post-
test, approximately 10 months after the pre-test). Unfortunately, given time constraints, no
longer term follow-up was conducted. The assessor was masked to the child’s condition. At
Times 1 and 2, the children in both groups were assessed on their mathematics and reading
skills with selected subtests from the Woodcock-Johnson III (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather,
2001). The foster parents were asked to complete a questionnaire package (which included
all of the measures noted below) while their child in care was being assessed. The ques-
tionnaire package took foster parents approximately 45 minutes to complete.
Experimental and waiting list control conditions
TutorBright tutoring programme
TutorBright was developed in 2007 in Toronto, Canada, by Mr. Sonny Verma. He stated
that the programme is based on Direct Instruction, which uses a well-organised instruc-
tional methodology and clearly structured teaching materials (Adams & Engelmann,
Table 1. Number of participants in each age group
x experimental group.
Age Total Number of Participants
waiting list Experimental
5–7 years 5 7
8–10 years 12 12
11–13 years 13 7
14–16 years 6 8
522 A. J. HICKEY AND R. J. FLYNN
1996). TutorBright had not been evaluated prior to the present research. However, the
effectiveness of Direct Instruction tutoring has been demonstrated both for children in
the general population (Flores & Ganz, 2009) and for children in care (Flynn et al., 2012;
Marquis, 2013). TutorBright aims to accelerate students’learning in reading, language,
and mathematics and to create confidence via mentoring relationships (S. Verma,
personal communication, 7 June 2017).
TutorBright uses one-on-one, in-home tutoring, with detailed instructor’s manuals
and customised student workbooks. The reading and mathematics curricula each have
10 progressive levels, with students moving to the next level after showing mastery of
the previous level. TutorBright also incorporates homework help, in which the tutor
provides aid in any academic subject of need (e.g. mathematics, reading, science,
geography, etc.). Requirements for TutorBright tutors include an undergraduate or
master’s degree (completed or in progress), experience with teaching or mentoring,
strong communication skills, and a positive attitude. Each tutor-child match is based on
the academic needs of the child, geographic location, and mutual interests. Besides
facilitating tutoring, the one-to-one relationship with the tutor is thought to help the
child develop healthy relationships with other adults.
Throughout the current study, the TutorBright programme provided trained TutorBright
tutors, ongoing consultation to the research team, and regular monitoring of student pro-
gress. After being matched with a child, the tutor conducted home visits to assess the child’s
reading, mathematics, and writing and determine the curriculum levels to use with the child.
The tutor then met individually with the child in the child’s home for two one-hour sessions
51 potential participants
declined to participate due to:
behavioural difficulties,
unstable foster home, or not
wanting to be randomised to the
control group
TutorBright tutoring group
Eligible sample (N =126)
Randomisation & pre-test
(N= 75)
Waiting list control group
N= 37
Attrition: n= 3 (1 moved, 1
refused to continue to
participate, 1 withdrew due
to mental health difficulties)
N = 38
Attrition: n= 2 (1 moved; 1
refused to return for the
final assessment)
Data analysis
Analysed (n= 36) Analysed (n= 34)
Figure 1. CONSORT diagram (Schulz, Altman, & Moher, 2010).
OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION 523
per week, on designated days of the week (e.g. every Monday and Wednesday, days available
to the families and tutors), for up to 50 hours of tutoring. The tutoring was aligned with the
school year, from October until the end of June or early July. Except for a two-week break for
Christmas holidays and a one-week break for March break (all of the children took this time off
from tutoring), the children did not miss more than two weeks of tutoring due to illness or
scheduling conflicts. Any missed sessions were added onto the end of the tutoring period to
help ensure each child met the 50-hour goal. On average, the children in the present study
received a total of 47 tutoring sessions (48.66 hours of tutoring; SD = 4.06), over the course of
nine months. More specifically, 32.4% of the sample completed 23–46 sessions, 32.3%
completed 47–49 sessions, and 35.3% completed 50–55 sessions. During the study, they
received an average (M) of 14.10 hours of tutoring in reading (SD = 4.48), 13.97 hours in
mathematics (SD = 8.11), 10.94 hours in homework help (SD = 9.78), and 8.13 hours in ‘other’
tutoring (e.g. relationship-building, managing behaviour; SD = 3.80).
Waiting list control condition
Children in the waiting list control condition were asked to continue their schooling ‘as
usual’and not seek additional tutoring or academic support during the school year. They
were offered the tutoring intervention at the end of the school year. The participants’
academic skills in the TutorBright and waiting list groups were assessed with the WJ-III
on two occasions, before the study started and at the end of the school year. To ensure
an equivalent amount of time between the pre-test and post-test in the two groups,
a waiting list child was randomly selected to be post-tested whenever a participant in
theTutorBright group reached 50 sessions of tutoring or came to the end of the
school year, whichever came first.
Assessment of implementation fidelity and tutoring dosage
The fidelity of implementation by the tutors of each major TutorBright component, in
reading, mathematics, and homework help, was evaluated weekly by the first author and
project coordinator (AJH). Another person, an experienced TutorBright coordinator,
oversaw the selection, training, deployment, and fidelity of implementation of the
TutorBright model, while making no research-related decisions. The assessment of
fidelity was based on the weekly performance data sent by the tutors to both coordi-
nators. These weekly data included the lessons covered and the average number of
minutes spent overall on tutoring, on reading and mathematics tutoring (based on the
TutorBright lessons), on homework help, and on off-task activities (e.g. relationship
building). The children in the tutoring condition completed an average of 47.56 sessions
(SD = 4.23, range = 35–56) over a nine-month period and were judged by the project
and TutorBright coordinators as having received a high level of implementation.
Measures
Woodcock-Johnson III tests of achievement –third edition (WJ-III; Woodcock et al., 2001)
The WJ-III is a norm-referenced, standardised series of tests that assess basic reading and
mathematics skills in individuals who are 2 to 90+ years of age or in grades K though
graduate school. The following subtests were administered in the current study: Letter-
Word Identification, Reading Fluency, Story Recall, Understanding Directions,
524 A. J. HICKEY AND R. J. FLYNN
Calculation, Math Fluency, Spelling, Passage Comprehension, Applied Problems, Story
Recall-Delayed, Picture Vocabulary, and Oral Comprehension. These subtests were
selected because they enable the calculation of an ‘intra-achievement’discrepancy
score. That is, an Oral Language score (i.e. a measure of oral language development,
derived from the Understanding Directions, Picture Vocabulary, and Oral
Comprehension subtests) can be used to predict an individual’s level of reading and
mathematics achievement. According to Wilkinson and Robertson (2001), a significant
discrepancy between a person’s oral language ability and academic performance may
be indicative of a specific reading or mathematics learning disability.
A Reading Composite (‘Broad Reading’) score is obtained by combining the Word
Reading, Reading Fluency, and Sentence Comprehension standard scores.
A Mathematics Composite (‘Broad Mathematics’) score is obtained by combining the
Calculation, Math Fluency, and Applied Problems subtests.
Comprehensive executive function inventory –parent version (CEFI; Naglieri &
Goldstein, 2012)
The CEFI is a norm-referenced, standardised, 100-item measure of executive functioning in
children ages 5 to 18 years. The CEFI was completed by the child or youth’sfosterparent.
We used the CEFI total standardised score (M=100,SD = 15), with a higher score indicating
greater executive functioning (Naglieri & Goldstein, 2012). For the alpha coefficients for this
sample for the CEFI and other instruments except the WJ-III, see Table 1.
Strengths and difficulties questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997)
The SDQ uses parent or caregiver ratings to assess mental health problems in children
and youth aged 4–17 (Goodman & Goodman, 2009) on a 20-item Total Behavioural
Difficulties scale, on which a higher score indicates a greater level of behavioural
problems.
Trauma symptom checklist for children –alternate form (TSCC-A; Briere, 1996)
The TSCC (Briere, 1996) is a self-report, 44-item instrument that assesses a broad range
of traumatic symptoms in children and adolescents, ages 8–17. Because of the reading
level, the TSCC-A was used with children aged 10 and older.
Trauma symptom checklist for young children (TSCYC; Briere, 2001)
The TSCYC is a parent-report, 90-item instrument that assesses traumatic symptoms in
young children, aged 3–12 years. The caregivers of children aged 5–9 years completed
the instrument, with elevated T-scores indicating greater symptoms of posttraumatic
stress (Briere et al., 2001).
Parental support for learning scale (PSLS; Rogers, Markel, Midgett, Ryan, & Tannock,
2014)
The 48-item PSLS assesses the extent of caregiver support for educational activities in
the home. Instrumental parental involvement measures the degree of warmth, patience,
independence (i.e. more effective involvement) regarding the child’s schoolwork, while
controlling parental involvement assesses the use of commands, punishment, nagging,
and disapproval (i.e. less effective involvement).
OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION 525
Child welfare worker background information form
With this questionnaire, created by the research team, the child welfare worker provided
background information on the child (e.g. age of entry into care, maltreatment history, etc.).
Foster parent questionnaire
Also developed by the research team and administered at the pre-test and post-test, this
instrument gathered background information on the caregiver (e.g. number of children
in the home, length of time as a foster parent, etc., and supplementary information on
the child (medication, Individualized Education Plans, etc.).
Data analysis
The data were screened for missing data, univariate outliers, skewness, and kurtosis
(Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007; see Table 2). With a missing-data rate of less than 5% on most
variables, we used the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm in SPSS to address
missing data at the item level (Schafer & Graham, 2002).
To answer our main and exploratory research questions, we used ANCOVA via multiple
regression, the most powerful approach for analysing pre-test/post-test control-group
designs (Gliner, Morgan, & Harmon, 2003). We employed one-tailed tests to evaluate our
main hypothesis because of its clearly directional nature. That is, we expected the tutored
children to have higher adjusted mean scores at the post-test than the control children.
This choice afforded us greater statistical power, given the likelihood at the outset of the
study that we would end up with a relatively small research sample, even with data-
collection over two school years. Our experience in a previous tutoring RCT (Flynn et al.,
2012), in which we had also used one-tailed tests, had taught us to be conservative in
predicting our ultimate sample size. We also used correlational analyses to determine
whether a dose-response relationship existed between the amount of tutoring received
(measured in terms of the number of tutoring sessions completed or the total number of
tutoring hours and minutes received) and gains in WJ-III reading and reading.
We also used ANCOVA via multiple regression to answer our exploratory questions
regarding possible moderators of the impact of tutoring and potential spillover effects
from tutoring on the educationally relevant domains of child executive functioning or
behavioural difficulties and caregiver involvement in schoolwork in the home. Given the
exploratory nature of these questions, we used two-tailed rather than one-tailed statistical
tests.
Effect size index
We used Hedges’gto assess the size of the effect of TutorBright on the foster children’s
reading and mathematics skills, as recommended by the What Works Clearinghouse
(WWC), 2008. We also adopted the WWC criterion according to which an effect size of
0.25 or greater should be considered ‘substantively important’, even if not statistically
significant because of small sample size. A Hedges’g of 0.25 or larger reflects a 10-
percentile or greater difference between the means of the experimental and control
groups in a normal distribution.
526 A. J. HICKEY AND R. J. FLYNN
Table 2. Means (or percentages), standard deviations, Cronbach’s alphas, theoretical range, and skewness for study variables at the pre-test, after attrition, for
the sample as a whole (combined TutorBright and waiting list control groups).
Pre-test (N= 70) Post-test (N= 70)
Variable Mean (or %) SD Cronbach’s alpha
Theoretical
Range Skew Mean (or %) SD Cronbach’s alpha
Theoretical
Range Skew
Outcome
Broad Reading 82.33 19.43 50–150 −1.00 84.43 18.50 50–150 −1.25
Letter-Word Identification 87.66 17.54 50–150 −.91 87.20 17.35 50–150 −1.07
Passage Comprehension 81.63 17.15 50–150 −1.16 84.43 14.20 50–150 −1.89
Reading Fluency 84.22 18.03 50–150 −.25 88.04 17.52 50–150 −.29
Spelling 84.27 19.10 50–150 −.58 84.73 19.61 50–150 −.52
Broad Mathematics 74.01 18.97 50–150 −.59 75.67 16.81 50–150 −1.25
Calculation 73.34 22.10 50–150 −.28 74.24 19.02 50–150 −.43
Applied Problems 83.16 15.28 50–150 −.97 85.20 13.88 50–150 −.53
Math Fluency 74.10 13.15 50–150 −.05 75.67 13.10 50–150 −.19
Covariates
Executive Functioning (CEFI total score) 81.89 13.12 0.92 50–150 −.05 83.63 13.05 50–150 .61
Behaviour (SDQ total behavioural difficulties) 16.19 6.59 0.81 0–40 −.11 15.54 7.20 0–40 −.09
PSLS caregiver involvement
Instrumental involvement
Controlling involvement
32.30
10.77
6.41
18.97
0.88
0.65
0–44
0–32
−.06
-.17
31.86
12.09
5.38
4.90
0–44
0–32
−.44
-.13
Symptoms of PTSD
TSCC (n= 42)
TSCYC (n= 28)
48.45
60.43
11.01
13.42
.97
.93
.72
.63
–– – – –
Age 10.41 2.94 –5–16 .07 11.27 2.89 5–16 .12
Gender (male: female %) 54.3:45.7 –– ––54.3:45.7 –– – –
Skewed variables were reflected and transformed by means of square root transformations. However, the transformed data unexpectedly yielded fewer statistically significant results, such
that the analyses conducted with the untransformed data were retained.
OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION 527
Equivalence of groups at pre-test
Independent-samples t-tests and chi square analyses showed that there were no statis-
tically significant pre-test differences (p< .05) between the tutoring and control groups
on gender, age, school grade, total behavioural difficulties, trauma symptoms, or WJ-III
subtests, indicating that randomisation had been effective (see Table 3). However, there
were significant group differences on the child’s pre-care experience of abandonment,
with a higher rate in the control group (χ
2
[1, N= 70] = 5.90, p< .05), and on controlling
caregiver involvement in the child’s schoolwork, with a higher mean score for caregivers
in the control group (t[68] = 2.46, p< .05).
Attrition
From the pre-test to the post-test a total of five children dropped out of the study, for an
overall attrition rate of 6.67%. More specifically, from the tutoring group, three children
(8.11%) dropped out, dueto mental health problems, a change in caregiver and subsequent
placement move, and a change in school programme that no longer included mathematics
and rendered tutoring less relevant. From the waiting list control group, two children
(5.26%) withdrew due, respectively, to reunification with the biological parents (with non-
return for the post assessment) and to refusal to return for the post-test.
Table 3. Sample means (SDs) or percentages at pre-test, after attrition.
Waiting list control group
(n= 36)
TutorBright tutoring group
(n= 34)
Pre-test Pre-test
Sex (M:F) 19:17 19:15
Age 10.50 (2.91) 10.32 (3.01)
School grade 5.69 (3.03) 5.35 (2.80)
Age of first placement 5.68 (3.91) 5.24 (3.69)
Number of previous placements 1.85 (2.13) 1.94 (1.69)
Number of unplanned school changes 2.70 (2.18) 1.96 (1.62)
Does the child have an IEP at school Yes: 24 (66.7%) Yes: 22 (64.7%)
Long term health conditions:
ADHD
Learning Disability
Developmental Disability
Autism Spectrum Disorder
13 (36.1%)
8 (22.2%)
6 (16.7%)
3 (8.3%)
14 (41.2%)
13 (38.2%)
3(8.8%)
3(8.8%)
Reason for entry into care:
Neglect
Sexual Abuse
Domestic Violence
Emotional Harm
Abandonment*
Problem Behaviour
Other: Parental Mental Illness
30 (42.9%)
4 (5.7%)
15 (21.4%)
21 (30.0%)
10 (14.3%)
7 (10.0%)
0 (0.0%)
22 (25.3%)
6 (8.6%)
10 (14.3%)
22 (31.4%)
2 (2.9%)
3 (4.3%)
2 (2.9%)
Trauma Symptoms (PTSD T score):
TSCYC
TSCC
60.00 (11.75)
46.95 (11.49)
60.86 (15.36)
50.10 (10.49)
SDQ Total Difficulties 15.50 (6.56) 16.91 (6.65)
CEFI Total Standard Score†84.56 (11.47) 79.06 (14.29)
PSLS
Instrumental†
Controlling*
30.94 (5.18)
11.92 (4.11)
33.74 (7.31)
9.56 (3.89)
*significant difference between groups, p< .05
†trend, p< .10
528 A. J. HICKEY AND R. J. FLYNN
Results
Primary research question: effects of tutoring
Table 4 displays the means and SDs of the pre-test scores and the adjusted post-test
scores for the TutorBright (experimental) and waiting list control groups, on the seven
WJ-III subtests and overall Broad Mathematics and Broad Reading composite scores.
Table 4 also displays the t values, significance level, effect size (Hedges g), 95% con-
fidence intervals, and improvement index for each of the ANCOVAs.
Discrepancy analyses
ANCOVA via multiple regression was used to assess whether TutorBright tutoring reduced the
discrepancy between the children’s actual and predicted Broad Mathematics or Broad Reading
score, with a decrease suggesting an increase in skills (Woodcock et al., 2001). A pre-test-post-
test difference score was first calculated by subtracting the predicted Broad Reading and Broad
Mathematics scores (based on each participant’s Oral Language score) from the actual Broad
Reading and Broad Mathematics scores. The difference between the adjusted post-test group
means was non-significant for both Broad Reading (t[68] = .62, p= .54, 1-tailed) and Broad
Mathematics (t[65] = .58, p= .56, 1-tailed).
Results for primary research question 2: dose-response relationship
The calculation of Pearson correlations between the tutoring ‘dosage’measures and the
WJ-III outcome measures in the TutorBright group of 34 children in care revealed
a positive relationship, at the level of a trend, between Letter-Word Identification and
the total number of tutoring sessions received (r[34] = .30, p= .08). There were also
statistically significant and negative relationships, at the level of a trend, between the
number of minutes spent on other activities during the tutoring sessions, namely,
behavioural management or relationship-building, and Broad Reading (r[34] = −.30,
p= .09), Reading Fluency (r[34] = −.32, p= .06), and Math Fluency (r[34] = −.32, p= .07).
Results for exploratory research question 1: moderators of tutoring
Given the exploratory nature of these research questions, two-tailed tests were used in
these regression-based ANCOVAs.
Age
Age negatively moderated the effect of tutoring, at the level of a trend, on Broad
Mathematics (t[68] = −1.80, p= .08, 2-tailed), with the younger children benefitting
relatively more than the older children.
Gender
Gender did not moderate the effect of tutoring (all ps > .20) but did have a significant
main effect, at the level of a trend, on Spelling (t[68] = −1.75, p= .09, 2-tailed). The boys
made relatively greater gains than the girls.
OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION 529
Table 4. Means and standard deviations on the pre-test and adjusted post-test scores and the ANCOVA results for the primary research question (t score, effect
size (Hedges g), 95% confidence interval (C.I.) and improvement index) for the 7 WJ-III subtests and overall broad mathematics and broad reading scores.
Wait-list control group
(n= 36)
TutorBright tutoring group
(n= 34)
WJ-III sub-test Pre-test Adjusted post-test Pre-test Adjusted post-test tHedges g95% C.I. Improvement Index
Letter word identification 87.42 (16.78) 86.80 (15.60) 87.91 (18.57) 87.61 (17.27) t[68] = 0.25 0.05 −0.42, +0.52 2% (i.e. 52.0
th
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
Reading fluency 85.18 (16.08) 86.48 (13.88) 83.29 (19.95) 89.35 (17.21) t[68] = 2.21** 0.16 −0.31, +0.63 6.4% (56.4
th
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
Passage comprehension 80.72 (18.80) 82.11 (13.22) 82.59 (15.44) 86.94 (10.86) t[68] = 2.03** 0.34 −0.13, +0.81 13.3% (63.3
rd
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
Spelling 85.58 (19.92) 86.66 (18.97) 82.88 (18.38) 82.67 (17.50) N.A. −0.20 −0.67-, +0.27−8.0% (42.0
nd
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
Broad Reading 82.19 (19.72) 83.17 (17.71) 82.47 (19.42) 85.77 (17.44) t[68] = 1.95* 0.14 −0.33, +0.61 5.6% (55.6
th
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
Calculation 71.86 (21.63) 70.85 (15.73) 74.91 (22.81) 77.81 (16.58) t[68] = 2.03** 0.39 −0.08, +0.86 15.2% (65.2
th
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
Math fluency 72.58 (12.72) 73.96 (11.07) 75.71 (13.59) 77.46 (11.82) t[68] = .51 0.27 −0.31, +0.85 10.6% (60.6
th
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
Applied problems 81.19 (14.79) 83.84 (10.03) 85.24 (15.74) 86.71 (10.67) t[68] = .06 0.21 −0.26, +0.68 8.4% (58.4
th
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
(Table 4 continued)
Broad Mathematics 72.11 (18.81) 73.09 (15.00) 76.03 (19.20) 78.42 (15.30) t[68] = 1.29 0.32 −0.15, +0.79 12.7% (62.7
th
vs 50.0
th
percentile)
N.A. = Not applicable, as we used only the positive tail in these 1-tailed hypothesis tests.
**p< .05, 1-tailed test. * p< .06, 1-tailed test.
530 A. J. HICKEY AND R. J. FLYNN
Executive functioning
On Letter Word Identification, children with higher CEFI scores performed relatively
worse than their lower-scoring counterparts (t[68] = −2.29, p= .03, 2-tailed).
Total behavioural difficulties
SDQ behavioural difficulties did not have a significant moderating or main effect on any
of the WJ-III subtests (all ps > .20, 2-tailed).
Parental support for learning
Instrumental involvement had no significant moderating or main effects on any of the
WJ-III subtests (all ps > .10, 2-tailed). Controlling involvement, however, did moderate
the impact of tutoring, at the level of a trend, on Reading Fluency (t[68] = −1.70, p= .09,
2-tailed) and on Broad Mathematics (t[68] = −1.68, p= .09, 2-tailed), with higher levels of
caregiver controlling involvement associated with poorer child schoolwork performance.
On the other hand, controlling involvement had significant and positive effects on
Applied Problems (t[68] = 2.38, p= .02, 2-tailed), Passage Comprehension (t[68] = 3.14,
p< .01, 2-tailed), Reading Fluency (t[68] = 2.78, p= .01, 2-tailed), and Broad Reading (t
[68] = 3.02, p< .01, 2-tailed); higher levels of controlling involvement were related to
better academic performance.
PTSD symptoms
For the younger children (aged 5–9 years, n= 28), their total PTSD symptoms score did
not moderate the effect of TutorBright tutoring on any of the WJ-III subtests (all ps > .15,
2-tailed). However, total PTSD symptoms did have a significant main effect on Spelling (t
[26] = −2.08, p= .05, 2-tailed), such that young children with higher total PTSD
symptoms performed more poorly.
For children aged 10 and older (n= 42), total self-reported PTSD symptoms negatively
moderated the impact of tutoring on math fluency (t[40] = −2.15, p= .04, 2-tailed), such
that children with higher total PTSD symptoms performed more poorly than those with
lower total PTSD symptoms. PTSD symptoms also negatively moderated the impact of
tutoring on Mathematics Calculation, at the level of a trend, with children with greater
PTSD symptoms performing more poorly than those with lower PTSD scores (t
[40] = −1.72, p= .09, 2-tailed). A significant main effect of total PTSD symptoms was
also found on Mathematics Calculation (t[40] = −3.32, p< .01, 2-tailed) and, at the level
of a trend, on Broad Mathematics (t[40] = −1.70, p= .09, 2-tailed), with higher levels of
PTSD associated with poorer performance on both measures.
Results for exploratory research question 2: positive ‘spillover effects’of tutoring
A series of ANCOVAs conducted via multiple regression revealed no significant differ-
ences between the adjusted post-test group means on any of the educationally relevant
domains examined, namely, child executive functioning, behavioural difficulties, or
caregiver involvement in academic activities in the home (all ps > .10).
OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION 531
Discussion
Overall, the children in care who participated in the study possessed below-average academic
skills, compared with children from the general population. At the pre-test, the children were
performing approximately 1 SD below the population mean on reading and 2 SDs below the
population mean on mathematics (see Table 4), an observation consistent with previous
findings (Trout et al., 2008). At the post-test, we found that the TutorBright programme had
had statistically significant and positive effects (p< .05) on Reading Fluency (g= .16), Reading
Comprehension (g= .34), and Mathematics Calculation (g= .39), marginally significant effects
on Broad Reading (p< .06) and Applied Problems (p< .06), and statistically non-significant but
‘substantively important’effects (i.e. above the WCC [2008] criterion of a Hedges gof 0.25 or
more)onMathFluency(g= .27) and Broad Mathematics (g= 0.32). At the same time,
TutorBright did not significantly close the children’s‘intra-achievement gap’between their
actual and potential achievement in mathematics and reading. Moreover, despite their gains
in mathematics and reading, the children in the tutoring group continued to perform at the
post-test at below-average levels in reading and mathematics (see Table 4).
The effects of tutoring on children in care seen in the current randomised study are
reasonably consistent with the meta-analysis by Ritter, Barnett, Denny, and Albin (2009)of
randomised evaluations of tutoring with primary-schoolagedchildreninthegeneralpopula-
tion. Ritter et al. found small to moderate effect sizes for one-to-one tutoring provided by
adult volunteers, with Hedge’sgs ranging from 0.18 (Reading Comprehension) to 0.41
(Reading Words and Letters). Our statistically significant effect on Mathematics Calculation
(g= .39) was larger than the non-significant mean effect (g= .26) of Ritter et al. for the same
domain (which, however, was based on a small number of effect sizes).
The primary findings from the current study are also consistent with previous aca-
demic tutoring studies carried out with children in care. With individualised direct-
instruction tutoring by foster parents, Flynn et al. (2012) found that the children in the
tutoring group had made significant gains on sentence comprehension, reading com-
posite, and mathematics computation, but not on word reading or spelling. Similarly,
using a small-group direct-instruction tutoring programme for foster children in care of
mainly Indigenous ethnic background, Harper and Schmidt (2016) found that tutoring
produced significant gains on word reading, spelling, and mathematics, but not on
sentence comprehension. Together, these findings suggest that tutoring does improve
the mathematics and reading skills of children in care.
No significant dose-response relationship was found between reading or mathe-
matics skills and the number of tutoring sessions (i.e. duration) or the number of
tutoring hours and minutes (i.e. intensity) experienced by the children, except for
a trend in the case of the number of tutoring sessions and letter-word identification.
This result is consistent with previous meta-analyses in the general population that have
suggested that the length (duration) of tutoring is seldom a significant predictor of the
size of intervention effects (Elbaum et al., 2000; Suggate, 2010). On the other hand, it is
of potential pedagogical importance that negative relationships were found, at the level
of a trend, between the number of hours and minutes spent on the non-academic
activities of behaviour management or relationship building and the outcomes of
Reading Fluency, Math Fluency, and Broad Reading Composite. ‘Off-task’behaviour
may thus be associated with lesser improvement in reading and mathematics.
532 A. J. HICKEY AND R. J. FLYNN
Regarding potential moderating variables, Marquis (2013), like us, found that gender
moderated the effectiveness of direct-instruction tutoring with foster children, with girls
tending to benefit somewhat more than boys. In addition, we also identified two other
moderators; executive functioning and caregiver involvement. We suggest that the role
of potential moderators be investigated more systematically in future research. At the
same time, our examination of possible moderators involved a total of 72 ANCOVAs,
with a modest yield of only eight statistically significant findings (p< .05, 2-tailed) and 6
results at the level of a trend (i.e. p< .10, 2-tailed), which included both moderators and
main effects.
In other exploratory analyses, we found no evidence that TutorBright has a spillover
effect on child executive functioning or behavioural difficulties or on caregiver involve-
ment in schoolwork in the home. These results are consistent with research by Marquis
(2013), Harper (2012), and Tideman et al. (2011), in which children in care experienced
little or no short-term improvement in mental health from tutoring. In children in the
general population, however, tutoring has been found to positively influence non-
academic outcomes such as disruptive behaviour or social skills (Bowman-Perrott,
Burke, Zhang, & Zaini, 2014). Future tutoring research with children in care should
thus continue to look for positive spillover effects, while also including a qualitative
component in which caregivers and children are interviewed about such effects.
Overall, TutorBright emerged as relatively effective in improving the reading and
mathematics calculation skills of children in care. Also, the programme offers important
logistical advantages to local child welfare organisations in that it recruits, trains,
deploys, and supervises its tutors in the latters’work with children in the home.
Moreover, the emphasis of TutorBright on creating a positive relationship between
tutor and tutee aligns well with the stated preference of children in care for academic
interventions that have a clear relational component (Evans et al., 2017).
The positive results that we found for TutorBright emerged despite several limitations of
our study. First, although we recruited participants for two full years, we were ultimately
able to enroll and retain only 70 children and their caregivers in the research sample, 34 in
the TurotBright and 36 in the waiting list control group. These numbers correspond closely
to the criterion that Coyne and Kwakkenbos’s(2013) consider to be the minimum require-
ment for randomised trials, namely, 35 participants in each of the intervention and control
groups. Larger samples would obviously be desirable in future studies. Second, the con-
siderable geographic distance (412 kilometres, about 5 hours by car) between our uni-
versity research centre and the county in Ontario where the collaborating child welfare
organisation is located, as well as limited project funding, made the task of assessing
implementation fidelity relatively difficult. With greater financial resources, future research
could conduct more frequent and detailed fidelity assessments (e.g. using video recording
with randomly selected tutored foster children). Future studies should also include
a process evaluation to assess fidelity as well as programme implementation and greater
information regarding the caregiver and child experience of the programme. Finally, the
lack of previous evaluations of the effectiveness of TutorBright provided us with little
programme-specific research guidance on how to proceed in the present study.
We believe that the effectiveness of TutorBright could be enhanced, in several ways.
Most important, the programme creators should strengthen the theoretical and empiri-
cal links between TutorBright and the research that has already been conducted on
OXFORD REVIEW OF EDUCATION 533
tutoring in the general population and with children in care. The Best Evidence
Encyclopedia (http://www.bestevidence.org/) contains useful research syntheses on
mathematics and reading tutoring and related interventions that could easily be con-
sulted when the next version of TutorBright is being prepared.
TutorBright could also benefit from placing a more explicit emphasis on direct-
instruction tutoring. Direct instruction has been found to be effective in improving
educational outcomes in low-performance urban schools (Broman, Hewes, Overman, &
Brown, 2003) and, when combined with contingency management, enhances academic
outcomes for children at risk of school failure (Dolezal, Weber, Evavold, Wylie, &
McLaughlin, 2007). Although part of the TutorBright programme, direct instruction is
not its primary component. Instead, TutorBright emphasises ‘homework help’to
improve in-class performance (S. Verma, personal communication, June 2017). Little
research, however, has been conducted on the effectiveness of homework help.
In addition, TutorBright could exploit the finding in the general population that parental
involvement in academics is often an important predictor of educational success (for meta-
analyses, see Hill & Tyson, 2009). Although little research on this specific topic has been
conducted to date with children in care, the latter do have a preference for interventions
delivered by caregivers (Evans et al. 2017), and Jackson (2007) has long been a strong
advocate of a much greater role for foster parents in the academic education of their foster
children. Thus, TutorBright would do well to promote the involvement of caregivers (e.g. by
having them read regularly with their foster children).
Finally, future research on TutorBright could seek to obtain teacher ratings of aca-
demic performance in the classroom, as programme components such as homework
help or relationship-building may improve the child’s in-class behaviour. Future research
could also try to answer two important questions that tutoring research, even in the
general population, has yet to address adequately: are gains in reading or mathematics
maintained, and how much tutoring is needed to bring children up to the ‘average’
range? Unfortunately given that this study was part of a doctoral thesis, a longer term
follow-up to assess the ‘staying power’of the intervention was not possible.
In conclusion, our findings are broadly consistent with the finding of Forsman and
Vinnerljung (2012) that educational interventions for children in care, and especially
tutoring, tend to produce positive results. However, many children in care who have
received tutoring still remain at risk of poor academic functioning. More research is
needed to discover which academic interventions work best for children in care, in both
the short and long term.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the families who participated in the study as well as the
collaborating staffat the participating Children’s Aid Society and TutorBright.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
534 A. J. HICKEY AND R. J. FLYNN
Funding
This research was supported by the secondary author’s (Robert J. Flynn) university research fund.
Notes on contributors
Andrea J. Hickey, PhD, C. Psych is a psychologist in supervised practice in Ottawa, Ontario. She
recently completed her PhD thesis under the supervision of Dr. Robert J. Flynn at the University of
Ottawa. Her thesis assessed the effectiveness of three academic interventions for children in care.
She is interested in the evaluation of interventions that try to improve academic outcomes for
children in care as well as research that examines the factors that predict academic outcomes for
children at risk of academic difficulties.
Robert J. Flynn is an emeritus professor in the School of Psychology and a senior researcher at the
Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services at the University of Ottawa (Ontario,
Canada). Each year, he and his research team evaluate the service needs and psychological, social,
educational, and health outcomes of some 5,000 children, adolescents, and young adults residing
in foster, kinship, customary, or group care in Ontario. Annual feedback is provided to the province
and local Children’s Aid Societies. He and his students have also carried out several randomised
trials of academic tutoring that have shown that tutoring produces gains in reading and mathe-
matics in children in care.
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