Impact of Supplemental Instruction on Business Courses: A Statistical Study

Many students in quantitative business courses are struggling. One technique designed to support such students is Supplemental Instruction (SI), which is most popular in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. In this paper, we show the positive impact of SI on student performance in two bottleneck business courses in a large university. Our evaluation results establish that (i) SI has a statistically significant effect on students’ likelihood of passing both courses (after controlling for background variables), (ii) SI is more helpful for students identified as at risk than for those who are not, and (iii) it is important to consistently attend SI sessions for greater success. We also present models to predict consistent student attendance based on background factors with 90% accuracy and conclude with a brief qualitative study about students’ self-perception of SI and the professional development attained by SI leaders.