Project Report

Project Description

• Intervention: Testing the impact of a peer-led strategy intervention consisting of 8-hour in-person coaching for undergraduate students enrolled in introductory calculus.
  
• Method: Randomized Control Trial
  
• Outcome: The main analysis consisted of estimating the effects of the 8-hour peer strategy coaching treatment relative to the knowledge-only control on three primary student outcomes: final exam grade, same semester GPA, and same semester GPA excluding Calculus I. No significant effects were estimated across the full analytical sample, suggesting that the use of in-person coaching for learning strategies did not lead to differential impacts on student outcomes.

Project Report

This study aimed to understand whether peer-led in-person coaching that provided evidence-based learning strategies would improve academic outcomes compared to online-only access material that described the same strategies for undergraduate students enrolled in introductory calculus. Each student was randomly assigned to one of two groups:

1. Control (n=578) - online access to effective learning strategies ("Knowledge-only")
   
2. Treatment group - peer-led strategy intervention consisting of 8-hour in-person coaching (n=582)

The study was conducted across four cohorts from Fall 2022 through Spring 2024 at Syracuse University. Data collection for the final cohort ended in Spring 2024, creating a complete analytical dataset of 1,160 students. The linked report provides details on the intervention and the key findings from the analysis.