Using a Modified Gower Distance Measure to Assess Supplemental Learning Supporting an Online Social Science Graduate Course

Abstract

Supplemental instruction (SI) is a well-established direct academic support model. SI leaders provide unique success strategies that benefit underserved and underprepared students in difficult courses. In this study, the novel application of SI strategies at the master’s level was explored. The subject university is a Hispanic Serving Institution in the southern United States, and a social science program was examined, focusing on 309 students. Key findings include an improvement in performance on a post-course evaluation compared with the pre-course instrument. This increase was present regardless of the number of SI sessions attended. An instructor effect was also identified. One specific instructor had a letter grade lower average course grade than their peers. For this instructor, pass rate and course grade were significantly improved by SI, and the more SI sessions attended, the greater the effect. For all other instructors, SI had a small improvement on pass rate and course grade, possibly the result of grade compression associated with graduate student evaluation.