Supplementary academic support : The role of support quality and students’ individual characteristics

After students leave their classrooms in the afternoon, most of them receive supplementary academic support, aiming to enhance their learning outcomes (e.g., achievement, motivation, and learning behavior). The present dissertation addressed the effectiveness supplementary academic support in three contexts (i.e., parental homework assistance, scholastic homework assistance, and private tutoring) on the basis of an adapted offer-use model (e.g., Helmke & Weinert, 1997; Seidel, 2014). Following this model, it investigated the quality of the supplementary support, the role of students’ individual characteristics, and reciprocal associations between support quality and students’ individual characteristics.

Regarding the relationship between support quality and students’ learning outcomes, findings varied across the three support contexts, but two patterns of findings emerged across contexts. First, high-quality support (e.g., responsiveness and structure) can have a positive impact on students’ learning behavior. Second, unfavorable forms of support such as controlling behavior can have a negative impact on different learning outcomes.

With regard to the role of students’ individual characteristics, the results indicated that these can have an influence on the effectiveness of supplementary support. For example, students’ grade level was related to the quality of parental homework assistance, while students’ reasons for using supplementary support influenced its effectiveness in improving certain variables.

Finally, the investigation of reciprocal relationships between the quality of supplementary support and students’ individual characteristics showed that controlling homework assistance and low academic achievement reciprocally influenced each other; however, this result was context-specific because it only occurred in the context of parental homework assistance.

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