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In the fall of 2015, Gannon University implemented a semi-mandatory peer-to-peer tutoring program within a variety of courses that have traditionally been linked to high student attrition. Some of these courses have previously been identified as critical for success in the NSF S-STEM grant in effect at the university, and thus it is of interest to determine whether students in the S-STEM program would benefit from inclusion in the peer-tutoring program. The peer-tutoring program presents a naturally occurring experiment because some sections of these courses have included the peer-to-peer tutoring program, while others have been traditionally taught without this tutoring aspect. As a result, the authors have been able to begin to assess the effectiveness of this tutoring on student performance specifically in Calculus I, Calculus II and the lowest-level Calculus-based Physics course. This study groups students by GPA at the beginning of the semester (less than 1.0, up to 1.5, up to 2.0, up to 2.5, up to 3.0, up to 3.5 and above 3.5) and within those groups gathers data on final course grade and GPA for each student at the conclusion of the semester. Comparison is made between average performance of students enrolled in peer-tutored and in traditionally-taught sections. While the results are quite preliminary, it is possible to begin to estimate (1) whether student performance in the class (as measured by final grade in the course) is affected by the tutoring, and (2) which student group or class is most strongly affected by the tutoring. In as much as there are confounding variables (such as different instructors among sections and differing levels of student motivation) that have not yet been controlled, this study is submitted as a work-in progress. While it is not a new insight to say that tutoring helps struggling but motivated students (previous studies have indicated that this peer-to-peer mentoring program has had a good effect on student success, by reducing the percentage of students receiving a final grade of D or F or withdrawing from the course for students enrolled in peer-tutored sections) the longer-term goal of this study is to determine the effectiveness of tutoring for nominally higher-performing students. 

In 2008, Gannon University was awarded a National Science Foundation S-STEM grant, known as SEECS (Scholars of Excellence in Engineering and Computer Science) which provided scholarship funding for academically talented students having financial need. Since then, the grant has been funded twice more; the current award period started in 2017 and will run until 2021. As a requirement for the SEECS program, all students must participate in a community-based design project, undertaken for a non-profit entity in the local region. This project is nominally a two-year effort, though some projects have taken longer to complete. Recently, a project has experienced several significant setbacks: 1) the original project sponsor decommitted at the end of the first year due to funding concerns; 2) the project location changed four times due to uncertain sponsor requirement and city regulations; 3) the design itself has required substantial alteration several times due to unexpected circumstances (largely due to sponsor issues.) After two and a half years, the project remains only about 50% complete, still requiring additional system level design, installation and testing. This team of SEECS students has been coping with each “sharp turn” of the project as well as may be expected. They have produced design sketches, prototypes, and conference presentations. Yet signs of confusion, frustration, and low motivation level have been observed among students and have been evidenced through student satisfaction surveys, which are administered to all SEECS students each semester. This work-in progress paper details the evolution of student perceptions of the validity of the project, compares that evolution to historic data obtained from previous design groups, and speculates about the cause/effect relationship between externally-imposed design changes and student perceptions. In particular, the effect of design changes on student enthusiasm and sense of purpose is to be examined. Preliminary conclusions and trends will be drawn from the study. The periodic evaluation, adjustment and intervention of advising will be suggested to guide students to fully benefit from such real-life project experience.