Encouraging Tutorial Attendance and its Impact on Grades: A Randomised Controlled Trial

Tutorial programs offer academic support to students at the tertiary level. in a randomised trial, the effect of encouragement provision on tutorial uptake was explored on second-year economics students at the University of Cape Town. The experiment used a tutorial group-clustered randomisation design to send informative emails regarding he impact that tutorials can have on grades. This led to a substantial increase in tutorial attendance amongst treated students, particularly for males and previous high academic achievers. The increase in attendance however did not translate into an improvement in final grades. this was partially attributed to the fact that the treatment did not appeal to low academic achievers, for whom tutorials would have proved most beneficial.