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Craig, Nicole

Nicole Craig

Full time student 

Email: ncraig07@qub.ac.uk

Year of Entry: 2010

Thesis Title: The development and evaluation of a volunteer tutoring program to improve numerical outcomes in primary school children

Summary of Research: The aim of the PhD is to design and evaluate a tutoring intervention programme for children aged seven and eight who are struggling with mathematics.  There are various types of tutoring programmes available including parent tutoring, peer tutoring and volunteer tutoring programmes.  A recent systematic review revealed that volunteer tutoring is effective at improving the educational outcomes of children.  A volunteer tutoring programme was designed, called Learn-a-Long Math, in relation to the existing research about how to improve the numerical skills of children with math difficulties.  In addition to the academic literature on math difficulty, data collected from an exploratory study with teachers and pupils in two primary schools in Northern Ireland informed the design of the programme.  The math intervention programme will be evaluated using a randomised controlled trial which took place between January and June 2012.  When the randomised controlled trial has been completed a qualitative process evaluation will take place.  The thoughts of the teachers and pupils on their experiences of the tutoring programme will be evaluated and the fidelity of the implementation of the programme will be assessed.

 

Research Centre: Centre for Effective Education

Supervisors: Dr Sarah Miller, Prof Paul Connolly