Hill, Betty Griswold.

A semester-long study examined the effect of tutoring strategies on nontraditional students' reading comprehension scores. Specifically, the study investigated the interaction among two tutoring strategies--computer-aided and traditional teacher-directed instruction--and three noninstructional variables--gender, age, and computer comfort. One hundred and forty-nine students, 57 percent of the original group, completed the study. The subjects, 25+ years old, represented a cross section of nontraditional students likely to be found in freshmen reading classes at a community college. All the students were enrolled in a college credit reading course designed for those who need assistance in improving their reading comprehension. Data were collected from responses on questionnaires completed by the students and from two reading tests taken by the students. A pretest was administered at the beginning of the study; a posttest was administered at the end of the study. The students received the same classroom instruction. The instructor was the same for all the students in the study. In addition to the regular classroom instruction, each student participated in 15 hours of tutoring. The control group was tutored 15 hours in a teacher-directed setting; the experimental group completed 15 hours using the Quantum Educational Developmental Lab. Analyses of variance were conducted to test six hypotheses related to strategies, age, gender, and computer comfort. The findings suggest the students' scores improved with the application of each tutoring strategy. The noninstructional variables of gender and computer comfort did not appear to have a significant effect on the reading comprehension of individuals in this study. However, a significant difference was noted in relationship to age groups and computer-aided tutoring.