Carson Center Tutoring Outreach

Billy van Hoff

Samantha Jose
Matthew Bourland

April 5, 2017
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Letter to Jessica McCarthy, PhD.

April 5, 2017
Page 2

Updating the current system for notifying Carson College of Business students is a necessity that
has not been tackled sufficiently enough.

We recommend that two actions take place: updating the cluttered web page on the Carson
College of Business website and creating flyers advertising tutoring in the Carson Center to be
posted around Todd Hall.

We appreciate your enthusiasm and motivation to complete this project. This has been a long
time in the making and a project of high necessity. We look forward to working with you on any
other follow-up activities. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact Billy van
Hoff, at william.vanhoff@wsu.edu, Samantha Jose, at Samantha.jose@wsu.edu, or Matthew
Bourland, at matthew.bourland@wsu.edu.
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Table of Contents

Executive Summary 4
Introduction 5-6
Research Methods 7
Results 8
Conclusion 9
Recommendations 10
Appendices 11-13
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Executive Summary

This recommendations report details the changes that are being made to further the

outreach to students in need of tutoring. While this is offered as a free service offered by the

Carson Center, many business students do not know about it. We decided that the best way to

reach out to students would be through changes to the Carson College of Business website and

posting physical flyers around Todd Hall. Through these changes, we hope to extend the reach

of tutoring to more students in the college of business as well as increasing the number of

assisted students per semester.

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Introduction

On February 19, Billy van Hoff had begun his research and gather information on current

tutoring systems that are in place here at Washington State University and across the country.

Billys reasoning for his research is because he had discovered a flaw within the Carson Centers

Tutoring system. The Carson Center lacks the ability to reach out to students who need help with

their business courses. Finding a better way to get in contact with students to inform them that

free tutoring is available is a necessity that needs to be solved.

On March 12, we, Billy van Hoff, Samantha Jose, and Matthew Bourland, were placed

into a group together to work on a collaborative repurposed project. Together, we had agreed to

work on finding a solution to the decrease in students getting tutored for their business courses.

We refer to our project as the Tutoring System Upgrade. Currently, the system is lacking some

form of organization when reaching out to students. There are a few methods that we will be

implementing to help increase the number of students coming in for tutoring in the Carson

Center. These include word of mouth, posting fliers in classrooms and around the Carson College

of Business, and updating the Carson Centers website.

The primary research that was conducted was comparing Washington State University's

website to other universities website to see if the website is navigable. The secondary research

that had taken place was talking with students to figure out why the number of people attending

tutoring sessions was declining. The most significant finding is that Washington State

Universitys website is not easy to navigate and is not organized as well as it should be, plus

students seem to be unaware of the free tutoring offered in the Carson Center.

Some recommendations we have come up with is altering the website to be easier to

understand and to use. Also, constantly reminding students that tutoring is an option and is being
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offered for free. As we move forward with our project, we will begin with the website upgrade

and alterations along with making fliers to be posted around the university and in classrooms

specifically. We also would like to reach out the business professors to reiterate throughout the

year that tutoring is offered and where to find the information to their students. With the

information gathered, we will be updating the website to make it easily navigable and creating

fliers to be posted around Todd Hall.

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Research Methods

The primary research that was conducted was going through Washington State

Universitys website which we had found the website is cluttered and not organized very well.

While comparing with other universities websites, some changes we noted were changing the

font, the formatting, and other elements such as more buttons that make websites more user

friendly. Even with subtle changes, they create a different and easy experience for students.

The secondary research that had taken place was talking with students about their view

on the Carson Centers tutoring options and what students need. While conducting the research it

was made clear that most students are unaware that free tutoring is offered for business courses

in the Carson Center.

The tertiary research that was conducted was from the tutors point of view and it was

simple, tutors want to know if there is a better way to talk with students. Simply, make students

more aware that tutors are there and ready to help with no judgement.
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Results

The final repurposed product that we created is an updated website and a flyer advertising

the services and website. Our intended audience is Washington State University students in the

Carson College of Business. Many students in this college are required to take at least one of the

courses that free tutoring is offered in. On the website, students can view courses that have tutors

and what hours the tutors are available. The flyer, which is posted in multiple locations around

Todd Hall, alerts students to the existence of the free tutoring as well provides a link to the

website where they can find more information.

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Conclusions

The Carson College of Business offers free tutoring hours in many popular courses at

WSU. We observed that very few students were utilizing these hours, and decided that people

simply didnt know about them. Our mission was to alert students to the existence of this

resource and provide an easy way for students to find out when tutoring was available to them.

We have accomplished this mission through our updated website and flyers.
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Recommendations

Based on these changes, there are a few steps that must be taken in order to secure

success and gain feedback to find out if the flyers and website worked. The first is a monitoring

and data collection step. This will involve a quick question to new attendees as to whether or not

they saw the flyers around Todd Hall or if they used the new webpage to find a tutor. After a few

weeks of recording these numbers, we can find a relative delta in terms of student tutoring

demand and project it over the course of a month. We will take into account the idea that

tutoring demand may increase around key testing times for the university, so we will adjust for

this false inflation. We are hoping for at least one new student a week, initially, but plan for

helping two to three new students each week. Regardless of the outcome of this experiment, I

will be reporting our findings to Leslee Kimbleton, the tutoring lead in the Carson Center.

Secondly, we need to continue to poll students and find out what their preferences are in

terms of discovering tutoring help. While the flyers and website changes may be the best

solution, we still need to confirm with students that this is the best way to reach out to them. As

this world continues to become more connected and smartphones become even more prevalent

than they already are, a tutoring notification over the internet may be a better option. This had

been originally ruled out due to the over saturation of internet content directed toward students

through emails, social media, and other websites, but may be a way to extend our reach further.

As long as there are no hiccups while posting the flyers and updating the website, we are

very hopeful for this to work. Since we took the necessary steps to prevent failure, this project

should be a success. While there is no current format for reaching students, this improvement

can only help in driving more people to the Carson Center. We hope that this is a change that

will be useful for years to come.

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Appendices
The final products are shown below. The final products include a website displaying the
free tutoring hours in the Carson Center and flyer to advertise the tutoring services and website.
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Need help in your classes?

**FREE TUTORING** in Carson Center!

Tutoring offered for courses in Accounting, Economics,

Finance, Marketing, and more

Follow the link below for more information:

https://business.wsu.edu/undergraduate/tutoring/
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