TRAINING PEER TUTORS: AN EVALUATION OF BEST PRACTICES IN SPEAKING CENTERS

As an article published in the 2015 issue of the Communication Center Journal points out, "it would be useful to assess the different ways in which those [NACC Tutor Training Certification] guidelines might be implemented, and what variables should be considered in different contexts" (Turner, p. 5). The same article asks the question "how can we determine and improve the effectiveness of our training of tutors" (Turner, p.5). While not required, the National Association of Communication Centers (NACC) has a process in place to certify tutor training programs, but the application form is unclear in its definitions. This study aims to answer these and other questions so that it can be determined (1) if/how these best practices are implemented across the country and (2) evaluate if these best practices create a feeling of preparedness in tutors post-training. Two surveys were sent out, one to current/past tutors and one to directors asking them to reflect upon the training procedures at their respective universities. After data collection, it was found that the use of videos in training was the most strongly correlated to tutors’ feelings of preparedness post training.


LIST OF TABLES
Having operational speaking centers on campuses not only benefits the students by giving them the opportunity to learn tactics to help them to "reduce communication anxiety and experience an increase in self-confidence and marketability in the workplace", but benefit the faculty, departments, and the discipline as a whole as well. The faculty can benefit by being equipped to teach better and teach more satisfying classes, and the departments and the discipline "gain visibility and an appreciation of their valuable contributions, because 'lab programs build bridges and increase awareness on the campus of the discipline and its content'" (Turner & Sheckels, 2015, p. 12).

Peer Tutors and their Training
As it relates to this study, probably the most important aspects of Turner and Sheckels's (2015) definition of a communication center is the emphasis placed on the feedback from trained peer tutors. Students do not just use the services that the center provides, "they are also the tutors (also called peer consultants, coaches, advisors, and mentors)" (Turner & Sheckels, 2015, p. xiv). Butler University believes that "the experience of peer tutoring gives… students the opportunity to not only sharpen their oral skills, but also their problem solving, listening, organizational, and networking skills as well" (Turner & Sheckels, 2015, p. 16). This experience is one that is mutually beneficial, however, Vangelisti et al. (1999) point out that "the lack of training of some volunteer tutors could also create more harm than good. To refer back again to the definition provided by Turner and Sheckels, tutors are not simply peer tutors providing feedback, they are trained in how to do so.
The term peer tutor allows for the possibility for a blurred line between tutor and tutee that must be tread with care. So it is worth noting here what a peer tutor does and does not do before exploring the content of tutor training. While in a session, a tutor should not do the work for the student, as that would violate academic integrity, but instead should assist in identifying problems, make suggestions, and ask questions to "help the client to discover for himself or herself both the problems and the possible solutions" ( However, how we train our tutors can directly impact the impact our centers make.
Therefore, it seemed necessary to explore the answers to this question, as well as others that presented themselves while reviewing literature. Literature has revealed the best practices for training tutors, and the NACC has established a tutor training program certification process that provides guidelines for how tutors might be trained.
But, this certification process is not required, and the form utilized to apply for certification is vague in terms of definition and description.
Taking into consideration these points, as well as the timing and resources available at this time, this study will address the following research questions: Possible modes are listed in Figure 1.  • The ability to analyze an assignment • The ability to help a student identify an appropriate topic • The ability to help a student generate and research material • An understanding of and the ability to help a student use the resources of logos, ethos, and pathos • The ability to help a student organize material effectively and to understand the implications of various organizational patterns • The ability to help a student develop effective introductions, transitions, and conclusions • An understanding of what constitutes effective verbal and nonverbal delivery and the ability to help a student identify and address delivery problems • The ability to help a student use audiovisual resources effectively] • Diagnostic abilities • An understanding of and the ability to help a student address communication apprehension • The ability to help a student handle q and a • An understanding of the differences between individual and group presentations • An understanding of small group dynamics • An understanding of interviewing, debating, and other special or disciplinespecific communication situations • An understanding of ESL students' cultural and language difficulties and the ability to work effectively with these students to overcome the difficulties NACC has laid out these guidelines but doesn't explain how or why they arrived at these modes and topics, or how they decided that these modes and topics would best prepare tutors. Troillett  been discussions on why we use peer tutors, training tutors, and on organizational training in general, but when considering speaking center training specifically, there has yet to be an in-depth exploration of these modes and topics and their implementation. The collection of data in this study will hopefully validate these best practices and determine which modes or topics lead to greater feelings in preparedness in tutors post training.

Methodology
Two surveys, adapted from the NACC certification survey (appendix A), were be administered through Surveymonkey, one to directors of speaking centers (appendix B), the other to be distributed to current and past tutors (appendix C).
Participants were recruited through the NACC listserv and related Facebook groups.
Members of the NACC listserv are directors, administrators, and students from speaking centers across the country, so all those that received the link to access the surveys are considered eligible to participate. The surveys do not ask for personal information, rather we use descriptive data of participants professional training.

Participants:
The participants in this study are current directors of speaking centers and those who currently hold or have held tutoring positions within speaking centers. Their ages range from 18-75. To ensure confidentiality given the small sample size, we chose not to collect data on age, gender, or ethnicity.
After data collection, a total of 45 responses were collected. We received 14 director responses and 31 tutor responses. 14 of the 31 tutor responses were from one institution, and there were five institutions where both tutors and their director responded. For both groups of respondents, their official titles varied, and though there were themes in directors titles, 10 did have the word, director, in their official title even if it was in conjunction with other roles held at their institution. Tutors' titles varied as well, but 23 respondents had the word, consultant, in their title. In terms of experience level, tutors' reported working as a tutor anywhere from half a year to ten years. Two years was the most frequent tenure, with ten tutors responding as such.
Directors did not report their tenure at the institution, but the centers themselves have been established at institutions for as little as three years and as long as 32 years (and counting). The tutoring processes in question for this study also had similar tenure to the age of the center.

Measures:
Data was collected from both directors and tutors. Director responses were used as a baseline for what was intended and planned for training and tutor responses were collected to determine what was received and retained after training.

RQ1
: What training processes are currently in place across the country?
To determine the answer to this question, both tutors and directors are asked what modes are used in training (Tutors survey item 6, Directors Survey item 11).

Research design:
For this study, a cross-sectional survey design was chosen for a convenience sample due to time and funding limitations of the study. It was determined that this was the best way to reach respondents in the time available. Directors were chosen to complete the survey because they are normally the ones who train tutors, and then tutors were asked to complete the survey since they are the ones being trained and we wanted to measure their feelings of preparedness post-training.

RESULTS
Research Question 1: What training processes are currently in place across the country?
After the surveys were administered, 45 total responses were received; 14 from center directors and 31 from tutors. As seen below, the use of a credit-bearing, semester-long course was most frequently reported by directors, followed by an intensive workshop prior to the center's opening and the use of weekly meetings.
Tutors reported the use of observation and shadowing most frequently but also reported high use of weekly meetings and a semester-long, credit-bearing course.
However, it was found that most centers utilize a combination of modes in their training procedures. This follows with Turner and Sheckels's (2015) recommendation. When looking each mode individually, the analysis indicated that videos were still the most statistically significant at .009, followed by the use of weekly meetings at .012 and finally the use of the semester-long credit-bearing course at .03.
Workshops, observation, and shadowing, and readings were found to not be statistically significant in tutors' feelings of preparedness post training.

Topics
After looking at the modes in use, we looked at how the topics covered throughout training impact tutors' feelings of preparedness (or if the coverage of certain topics led to higher feelings of preparedness. Overall, it was found that the more topics covered in training the more prepared tutors would feel (corr. 482, mean 16.67, standard deviation 6.79). Individually, there were some topics that were more highly correlated to feelings of preparedness. Table 2 highlights these topics. As for the training processes in use at universities where tutors felt more prepared, we observed the average feeling of preparedness at each institution and compared that to the practices in use at each university and found once again that those centers that utilize a combination of modes yield greater feelings of preparedness.

Additional Findings
Once tutors go through training, I wanted to know which topics tutors found themselves using the most in their jobs. The top 5 topics tutors found themselves referencing are found in Table 3. The topics tutors found themselves using most are the communication instructional expertise topics that deal with the content of the presentation and delivery. This makes sense since the majority of sessions deal with the content of presentations and their delivery. It is also interesting to note that those topics tutors use most in sessions are topics that also have a statistically significant correlation to tutors feelings of preparedness when the topics are covered in training. This could only be done with the five universities where both tutors and directors responded to their respective surveys. When looking at these comparisons, two things stuck out: first, at one institution even when the director did not note coverage in training tutors responded that the topic was covered but on the flipside, at another institution, there were a couple of topics that tutors did not note coverage of in their training but directors did. This could be for a couple of reasons. First, when filling out the survey tutors might worry about results getting back to directors and wanting to pretend that they learned more than they did or they came across that knowledge outside of training so they know how to respond to certain situations or they know how to handle certain topics even though the director did not directly teach them how to. Additionally, when looking at trends in topics covered in training at different institutions, there was not a single topic included in all training and not a single topic that was consistently left out.

Overall Discussion of Findings
Overall, it was found that most universities heed Turner and Sheckels's (2015) recommendation that a combination of training methods should be used to train tutors.
The combination of modes allows for the accommodation of different learning types.
Addressing multiple learning types within training ensures that each student has the potential to receive the training message in their preferred way of learning…[A student's learning style] represents a cluster of personality and mental characteristics that influence how a pupil perceives remembers, thinks, and solves problems" (Wahlen et al., 2013). Furthermore, "researchers have used learning styles research as a framework for predicting and improving educational achievement as well as improving vocational selection, guidance, and placement. It only makes sense that when designing and facilitating learning experiences, in addition to organizational and environmental contexts, the characteristics of the learner be taken into consideration" (Lum et al., 2011). Approaching training from this perspective can break down learning barriers and help train tutors so that they can successfully do the same. It was also found that those universities that use a combination of training methods and cover more topics lead to greater feelings of preparedness in tutors post-training. The more topics covered through different channels, the more prepared tutors will feel. However, when looking at a composite of all training modes, the use of video has the most impact on tutors' feelings of preparedness. When looking at each mode individually, videos, weekly meetings, and a semester-long, credit-bearing course were all statistically significantly related to greater feelings of preparedness. For videos, this could be explained by tutors' ability to go back and re-watch these videos and learn at their own pace. Video could also potentially be the most statistically significantly related to feelings of preparedness simply because of the age of those going through training; technology is becoming more and more prevalent in our society and in the classroom, so perhaps students prefer to watch a video rather than read 50 pages. However, we do not know how videos are being utilized within training, so further research into this mode would be necessary to provide a complete explanation. Weekly meetings and a semester-long course could help increase feelings of staff cohesion, and the extended amount of time students are spending with the material could help increase feelings of preparedness.
Within whatever modes of training, though, it is important to cover a broad range of topics because, as the data suggests, tutors feel more prepared when more topics are covered in training. Topics that need to be covered fall in the categories of Communication Instructional Expertise and Tutoring Expertise, since those topics cover the content of a session. Overview and Administrative Expertise topics can be adjusted as is appropriate for each center. Essentially, the more topics covered through a combination of different modes leads to greater feelings of preparedness post training.

Recommendations for the University of Rhode Island's Speaking Center
Currently, the University of Rhode Island Speaking Center tutor training process is very unstructured and might not lead to tutors feeling prepared to do their jobs. From the knowledge garnered through this research, I propose the following changes to the University of Rhode Island's Speaking Center training.
In an ideal world, I would suggest a complete overhaul of the Speaking Center to begin with. This would not be a quick fix, but a transformation that would help the center better serve our campus community. To do this, we would have to close down the Speaking Center in its current iteration. From there, a semester-long, creditbearing course would be developed that students who are interested in becoming a tutor would have to take before being hired. Implementing this course would then ensure that training is consistent across all staff members and that the three aspects Turner and Sheckels recommend are met. I also recommend the development of a course due to its statistically significant relation to tutors' feelings of preparedness.
With the generous timeline a semester-long, credit-bearing course brings, the content of the course would be able to be more comprehensive and cover a broader range of topics, while also allowing time to really focus in on the communication instruction expertise topics most significantly related to tutors' feelings of preparedness. When covering these topics, this study suggests that videos are the mode with the most statistically significant relationship to feelings of preparedness post training. So, in an ideal world, video would be utilized in three ways within the course. First, videos would be used to create a flipped classroom where students learn the material which would allow for more hands-on activities addressing different learning styles and would provide more opportunities for the staff to bond as a team.
The second way videos would be used would be to open up discussion of the practices being shown in the video, letting students identify best practices while also allowing them to develop their own tutoring style. Finally, another potential use for videos would be to actually have the students create training videos as a project for the course.
Additionally, despite the fact that this study did not find the use of observation/shadowing/practicum to be statistically significant to tutors' feelings of preparedness, I would still propose that a significant amount of time during the semester in which the student takes the course be spent physically in the center observing its daily operations, bonding with existing staff, and eventually engaging in supervised sessions so that they can apply the knowledge learned in the training course while also having the opportunity to defer to a staff member with more experience if they get stuck. This aligns with Turner and Sheckels's recommendation that there be a significant amount of time spent on task. While this study did not find this practice to be statistically significantly related to feelings of preparedness, this could be due to the fact that the majority of the centers who responded to the survey incorporate some variation of the use of this mode, so this could have led to there not being an adequate level of comparison when attempting to judge if it is related to feelings of preparedness.
Only after successful completion of the course would students be eligible to become tutors. Once a student becomes a tutor, there would be weekly meetings to converse about the happenings around the center, reinforce knowledge of topics learned in training, and provide further opportunity for the staff to bond as a team.
The process described here represents changes to the URI center's training that is consistent with the results of this study and recommendations made by literature, using a combination of modes and covering a wide range of topics. Incorporating this process into URI's center could then ensure that our tutors have the knowledge and support to better serve our students. I mentioned previously that I would propose a complete overhaul, and this would only be one aspect of this overhaul. Additional changes include the structure of how the center is staffed, as well as our physical and structural locations within URI as an organization, but these are conversations for another paper altogether. This study allows for the beginning of this conversation which can lead to more informed decisions moving forward.

Limitations of the Study
It seems necessary to note here the limitations of this study. The first limitation would be that this study did not seek to find out how these modes and topics are implemented. Any training method would lead to feelings of preparation if they are implemented effectively. Expanding upon this study, it would be interesting to review course materials from the different training programs, or even go visit each center and observe their training programs, completing ethnographic research through interviews and observations. That would require more time and funding than was currently at our disposal. Other limitations include our small sample size and the fact that there were some centers we received responses from directors but not tutors and vice versa. This limitation was noted at the start of this study, but the number of respondents and the influx of responses from one institution over others could have had an impact on the results of data analysis.
While on the topic of respondents, another potential limitation of the study could be in the participants themselves. Those centers that did respond have recently contributed to the forward movement of communication center scholarship or may already have these best practices implemented into their training processes so they may not have had any qualms about responding to the surveys. Additionally, those centers that did not respond may not be particularly active on the listserv or may not have a consistent training process to report on. Hopefully, the results of this study will inform them in a way that will help them create the changes they need.

Recommendations for Future Research
Moving forward, we can refer to Turner's article (2015)  and more involved conversation about how we can train our tutors so that they feel prepared to best serve our communities. Without trained tutors, our communities would not be properly serviced and students would no longer receive the benefits speaking centers have to give.

APPENDICES APPENDIX A (NACC Tutor Training Certification Application)
Basic Center Information