© Please note: Mark Thogmartin owns the copyright for the dissertation below. You may download and print one copy for educational purposes only. These pages may not be duplicated, distributed, redistributed or republished in any manner without express permission from the author.

Summary
The purpose of this study was to document the training and resulting efforts of the initial cohort of trainees in the Seventh-day Adventist North American Division Tutoring and Mentoring initiative during the first year of implementation. It is a descriptive, qualitative study that also serves as a formative evaluation instrument for project coordinators. I used tools typical of qualitative research work to gather pertinent data, tools such as observation, interviews, questionnaires, audio and video recording, and written correspondence. Results were presented in various forms which included descriptive writing, tables, case study reports, and narrative stories.

A Discussion of the Findings and Conclusions of the Study
Based on the Original Research Questions

In this final chapter, I summarize initial findings that have already been reported in the previous chapters. Returning to the original research questions provides a framework for this summary.

Question 1

Question 1asked: How were these volunteers recruited and trained for this project? The volunteers in this study heard about the Tutoring and Mentoring initiative through several related ways. Those participants who work as full-time or volunteer community service personnel and/or educators were informed about the initiative through mailings send out by the North American Division (NAD) of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, or by others (such as their pastors) who had received these mailings (Data File, pp. 1-8). Others heard about it directly from individuals close to the initiative. This is true with both Arnold and Nydia whose stories appear in chapters 5 and 6. Arnold said that Pastor Jose Rojas, one of the project coordinators, "twisted my arm" and convinced him to attend the training (Data File, p. 83). Nydia was told about the opportunity by Dr. Shirley Freed, the primary author of the SMILIES curriculum, who is also her doctoral advisor (Data File, p. 172).
As I reported in chapter four, the volunteers received their training at one session held at the NAD Headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, during the week of August 24 through 28, 1997. The first 3 days of training were facilitated by NAD personnel. Covered topics included the scope of the initiative, understanding at-risk children, community organizing, project development, public relations, leadership development, and fund-raising. Information was delivered primarily through lecture and question/answer sessions.
Dr. Shirley Freed from Andrews University and I provided 2 day's training in the SMILIES tutoring curriculum developed specifically for this project. We covered topics having to do with the Seven Pathways to learning, the nature of the tutoring relationship, reading-level diagnosis, making books and using related materials, and lesson planning. We used lecture, demonstrations, small-group work, and discussions to deliver the information.
For reference during and following the August session, the trainees received the Handbook for Community-based Tutoring & Mentoring Projects (Sahlin, 1997) and numerous related handouts from the NAD facilitators. We provided them with the SMILIES: Helping Children Read (Freed et al., 1997) tutoring manual, the related videotape which provided demonstrations of techniques, one complete set of little readers, magnetic letters, scissors, and markers. Even though most trainees said the initial training was too short to fully equip them to become trainers themselves, these materials were adequate to provide ample opportunity for home reference and study.

Question 2

Question 2 asked: What initial concerns did they have about their abilities to fulfill their commitment to tutor children and to train other volunteers? The trainees responded to this question by completing the Open-Ended Statement of Concern About an Innovation assessment (Newlove & Hall, 1976) at the end of the training session (see Appendix A). Fuller (1969) suggested that teachers are initially concerned about "self" issues, then concerns arise about the "task," and finally issues relating to the "impact" they are having on their students take precedence. Hall et al., (1977) further dissected these concerns of teachers into seven stages as they are learning about an innovation: from "awareness," "informational," and "personal" concerns, to issues around "management"and "consequence," and finally to concerns about "collaboration" and "refocusing."
The trainees responded to the question, "When you think about the SMILIES Reading Tutoring project, what are you concerned about?" I coded and evaluated their responses, and discovered that half of their concerns had to do with self/personal issues, reflected in statements such as "I feel so inadequate to be a trainer," and "Is this book (program) practical for someone who is not an educator?" The other half of the concerns expressed were around task/management issues borne out by comments such as "I am concerned about finding enough people, if any at all, willing to be tutors," and "Money for transportation is one of my biggest concerns–to and from the program." These responses indicate that the trainees were lacking in confidence as they left the seminar–confidence that they had the skills personally to implement the program, and confidence that the details of management could be adequately addressed. The fact that only 2 of the original 25 trainees were able to initiate projects by the end of the first school year indicates that these concerns were valid. Hall (1976), after stating that "self concerns are a fully legitimate part of change," has recommendations for project coordinators:
Rather than indicting people for having self concerns, the role of the adoption agents and policy/decision-makers should be to aid in the resolution of self concerns and to facilitate movement toward task- and impact-related concerns. When planning for innovation implementation, managers of change need to anticipate self concerns and initiate actions to accommodate and resolve them at the outset of the innovative effort. The crime is not in having self concerns, but in others not accepting their legitimacy and constructively addressing their resolution. (pp. 22-23)

I was able to reach 18 of the first cohort trainees (21, if couples are accounted for) to solicit further comment during the months following the August session. Even though they believed that the training offered to them was of high quality, 16 of these participants said that they needed more training in order to feel competent in the innovation. Many of them wondered why there was so little follow-up from the project organizers.
Hall et al., (1977) do not lay total responsibility for a lack of change (or innovation/project implementation) at the feet of the coordinators. They state that "personalized interventions can facilitate change, but, in the end, each individual determines for herself or himself whether or not change will occur" (p. 17). A toll-free telephone line was installed in my home to facilitate contact with me in case any trainees needed advice or support. The telephone did not ring one time through the school year with any requests for help. Several people did mention that they thought about calling me, but for one reason or another they never did.
Even so, the NAD project organizers must take into account and actively address the self and task concerns of the trainees if they expect for project implementation to take place, as Hall (1976) makes clear above. According to the statements of the trainees, their obvious lack of implementation, and my observations, their concerns still exist and have even intensified over the months since their training.

Question 3

Question 3asked: What happened after they left the training session? Two of the participants, Arnold and Nydia, were almost immediately successful in establishing tutoring programs in two very different situations. Their stories are told in chapters 5 and 6. It became obvious to me as I visited them, worked on their transcripts, coded their data, and wrote their stories that both of these dynamic individuals were already well-prepared for the challenge of setting up programs prior to attending the Tutoring and Mentoring seminar. Key characteristics in the vision, skills, and resources categories of the matrix of critical components (Table 2, Chapter Two) were already established because of their diligent and thorough work beforehand. Arnold and Nydia both had functional vision statements that were guiding their individual efforts before adopting the Adventist initiative. They each are successful educators who have proven their competence in countless ways. Because of their current responsibilities in their spheres of operation, the necessary resources were available to them without having to expend large amounts of time, effort, or finances.
Both Arnold and Nydia were and are well-respected by all who work with and for them. They were prepared to offer the appropriate tangible and emotional support to their volunteers. And their volunteers are responding in ways that reveal the respect and loyalty that they feel for their leaders.
The research on school effectiveness, although not directly related to tutoring programs, does shed some light on the success or lack of success in establishing a project. Even though the factors leading to school effectiveness vary slightly from report to report, several components are consistent across the studies. The key factors of strong instructional leadership by the principal coupled with a clear instructional focus seem to be present in every effective school (Steller, 1988). Arnold and Nydia demonstrated these components in establishing their projects, which apparently contributed to their initial success.
As I conversed with the other trainees on the telephone and listened to their stories of frustration, I realized that key components were not as accessible to them as they were to Arnold and Nydia. The most important of these were in the skills category of the matrix. Most of the trainees indicated that they needed more training in order to feel competent to tutor a child and especially to train others to tutor. Several trainees inquired about the availability of Dr. Freed or myself to come to their area and train prospective tutor volunteers. I indicated that we could arrange, one way or another, to work with them, but I never got a return call.
Table 1 (Chapter Two titled, "Managing Complex Change") by Ambrose (cited in Tucker, 1993), warrants another examination in this context. Ambrose indicates that when the "skills" component is missing from a change scenario, anxiety is the result. I believe "anxiety" is a good term to describe what most trainees were feeling as they thought about or made the first attempts in establishing a tutoring project. The trainees indicated their anxiety on the Stages of Concern questionnaire I administered at the end of their training session (Appendix A), and their anxiety was obvious as I talked with them later on in statements such as "I need for someone to do this for me" (Terry, Data File, p. 297), and "How do you just dive in and start a tutoring project?" (Carla, Data File, p. 307).
The other component that was missing for many of the trainees had to do with resources. Lee said that "work and time" (Data File, p. 307) were the reasons why he has not been able to get a program going. Many other trainees also indicated that lack of time was the biggest obstacle they have not been able to overcome. Ambrose (cited in Tucker, 1993) indicates that when resources are lacking, frustration is the result. Frustration is the key word that I have used to describe the feelings of these trainees. Because of this frustration, "interest is leaving. Things are kind of fizziling out" (Dawn, Data File, p. 306), or in Ella's words, "Not much is happening with me. . . . We all want it, but we didn't realize the magnitude" (Data File, pp. 305-306).
An interesting observation can be made regarding the anxiety and frustration these trainees were feeling because of the lack of skills or resources. These possibly are the very same feelings that the children whom they are supposed to be helping are experiencing. These children lack the skills and possibly the resources necessary in order to become proficient readers. They may feel inadequate or paralyzed when approaching the reading task. If children in this predicament need more intense, directed help in the form of tutoring, so these frustrated trainees need more direct help in becoming confident tutors and trainers of tutors!

Question 4

Question 4: What adaptations did they make in the implementation of the tutoring program? Since most participants were unsuccessful in establishing projects, the adaptations that I discuss below are those made in Nydia's and Arnold's projects exclusively. My original reason for including this question was because I anticipated that many more people would be successful as project organizers. The compilation of adaptations that they might have made would have helped the NAD coordinators to confirm or modify their training and support model accordingly.
At the time of my visit, both Arnold's and Nydia's projects were just getting started. They had held training sessions only weeks or a few months before. In the training they provided, the SMILIES curriculum was the exclusive source of instruction in techniques. Arnold and his teaching assistants did adapt the manual for their trainees, cutting and pasting various portions of the manual to make it more manageable. Their trainees received a substantially smaller version of the manual. In Nydia's case, the only adaptation they made in the manual was to remove the plastic binding off of each trainee's copy, punch holes in the pages, and place it in a three-ring binder. They felt this made the rather massive volume easier to manage.
Arnold had established three projects in the Los Angeles area at the time of my visit. The coordinators at each project were using other curriculum materials in addition to the SMILIES manual. Another curriculum was being used as the primary course of study at one of the projects. In Nydia's case, the volunteers were striving to follow what Nydia had taught them, but the classroom teachers with whom they worked asked the tutors to use other materials as well. The tutors, the teachers, and Nydia were all very comfortable with this arrangement.
No doubt the coordinators at each project will continue to adapt their operating parameters to each of their unique situations. Scheduling, curriculum modifications, training options, and recruiting policies are areas that each project coordinator will continue to adjust to make their programs the best they can be.

Other Findings

Several other themes emerged as I reviewed transcriptions and notes from my interviews. I review these below, then I adapt them to the critical components framework that I developed as a result of the literature review in chapter 2.

Marketing/Public Relations
Arnold's projects are housed and sponsored by local churches in the Los Angeles area. Because their projects are designed to serve children outside of the school day setting, the volunteers need to make the public aware of the opportunity to enroll their children in a local tutoring program. This was accomplished in several ways–by word-of-mouth, church newsletters, advertising in local papers, announcements at church meetings, and by the distribution of door-to-door flyers.
This characteristic was not mentioned in any of the literature I reviewed, probably because most tutoring programs in these reviews were operated from public schools. Including a public awareness thrust may not be seen as a necessity in these situations because the children are selected for service by the educators in the school. But with the Adventist initiative, one of the major reasons for establishing a local project is to extend the message of Christianity to a needy world. Sahlin (1997), in discussing the question "Why should Adventists get involved?" explains:
As we get involved in meeting the needs of at-risk children in our communities, we will meet people we would otherwise never touch. This includes not just children and their families, but also administrators and teachers in the public schools, staff workers in community organizations, civic leaders in the neighborhoods and downtown at city hall, and news media employees. Not only are each of these contacts a witness to the grace and power of Christ in our lives, but we will make friends with some of these individuals. In the context of those friendships opportunities will arise for you to share your faith. . . . (pp. 11-12)

An active marketing and public relations thrust is important, therefore, to enable this mission to occur. Because of the central place it has in the Adventist initiative, I believe "an active marketing/public relations strategy" characteristic needs to be added to the matrix of critical components under the "Action Plan" heading.

Emotional Needs
Both Arnold and Nydia offered much encouragement to their volunteers, the kind of encouragement intended to move these people to a deeper level of self-esteem and leadership capability. Many of the volunteers indicated that this is the reason why they maintain their commitment and expend so much time and energy to the tutoring project. To repeat Angie's words, who works in Nydia's project, "I have a lot of satisfaction out of this. I'm beaming about it. . . . If my work wasn't a payback, if I didn't see improvement, I wouldn't know how to work" (Data File, p. 209). As a result of this "payback," the tutors themselves had an increased capacity to extend friendship and

TABLE 6

emotional support to the children whom they serve. All of this combines to add to the success of the project.
Included in the matrix, under the "Incentives" component, is a characteristic called "support from the administrative level." (See Table 6.) In order to emphasize that this means support in practical things such as providing a place for tutoring, awarding certificates or other verification that training was completed, offering a stipend, and providing the necessary tutoring materials, I wish to rename this characteristic "practical support from the administrative level." Then I suggest adding another characteristic under this category titled "offering emotional support to volunteers and children." I believe the importance of this new characteristic should not be underestimated.

Recommendations

Recommendations for the North American Division
Tutoring and Mentoring Project

Based on the findings and conclusions of this study, I offer several recommendations for those involved in the implementation of this initiative.
1. Provide more time for training. A majority of the trainees said that 5 days of training was not enough for them to develop competence and confidence in the demands of the project. Several recommended at least 2 days more, and others suggested and extended initial training session of up to2 weeks.
2. Include opportunities for practice with feedback. Many of the trainees said that role-playing as a tutor and a student would have helped to prepare them better. Others suggested that work with "real" children would be an even better way to gain the necessary skills. Feedback and coaching from trainers would be an expected and valuable part of this practice. These suggestions do reflect the recommendations of the Joyce-Showers Model for Staff Development (1995; Showers et al., 1987; Joyce & Showers, 1988).
3. Provide regular opportunities for further training and support. One participant suggested that follow-up within 3 months after the initial training session would enable him to stay in touch with the demands of the project. Many trainees were surprised that there was not more follow-up contact from the NAD coordinators. They expected updates in the form of newsletters, and more teleconference opportunities like the one held by NAD project coordinator Sandra Brown in January, 1998. Others expressed interest in extended training opportunities which could be offered at an Adventist university or at other easily accessed locations.
4. Address directly the "self" concerns expressed by trainees, and work to help their concerns evolve into "task" concerns, as determined by measures such as the Stages of Concern (SoC) evaluation instrument (Fuller, 1969: Hall et al., 1977; Newlove & Hall, 1976). Those who have studied the concerns of teachers as they are learning a new innovation have discussed the need for "managers of change" to "anticipate self concerns and initiate actions to accommodate and resolve them at the outset of the innovative effort" (Hall, 1976, pp. 22-23). These "self" concerns are probably magnified for those who do not have a background in education or experience in working with young children.
5. Press forward with plans to hire and extensively train regional coordinators for the Tutoring and Mentoring effort. Those knowledgeable in the field of volunteer tutoring programs have discussed the value of having highly trained coordinators and of reimbursing them financially for their efforts (Morrow & Walker, 1997a; Pinnell & Fountas, 1997a; Wasik, 1997, 1998). Most people who are otherwise full-time employed will struggle with trying to balance the demands of a tutoring project with their other responsibilities. In order for more localized training to continue, the coordinators should be experienced educators or at least highly trained people who have the skills to provide ongoing training.
6. Consider shifting the responsibility for implementation of the Tutoring and Mentoring initiative away from an Adventist Community Service sphere toward more of a local church sphere or even toward another Adventist agency such as the Latino Educational Advancement and Research Now (L.E.A.R.N.) organization organized by Arnold Trujillo. I agree with Arnold's assessment that "community service centers (ACS) are not perceived by the rank-and-file of Seventh-day Adventists as either being a youth-oriented program or a deliverer of educational services" (Data File, p. 84). Many times in my interviewing of people associated with the initiative, this bias was discussed as a debilitating factor in trying to garner resources or volunteer support. Perhaps shifting the responsibility toward another agency would give the initiative a fresh infusion of understanding, enthusiasm, and support.

Recommendations for Further Study
1. Follow the thrust of this study through the 1998-1999 school year in order to investigate how the program adapts and evolves. 1998-1999 is viewed by project organizers at the first full implementation year. This current study is a report of the intermediate status of the Adventist Tutoring and Mentoring initiative.
This study was a formative evaluation of a recently established tutoring and mentoring initiative by a major church denomination. Its focus was thereby limited and not intended to necessarily verify the value or potential success of volunteer literacy tutoring programs in general. Yet, most of the findings I discussed above are applicable to any similar program. If the focus of a related study is expanded, the following recommendations would be worth considering.
2. Expand the study to include evaluations of several programs using a variety of tutoring curricula. This would not necessarily be to determine the effectiveness of a given program, but rather to explore common and unique approaches to the task.
3. Investigate several other projects launched by other organizations in response to the America Reads Initiative. Once again, the focus would not necessarily be to compare the success of these programs, but rather to determine whether nationwide initiatives such as this one do have the desired effects within organizations that choose to become involved.
4. Investigate the adaptability of various personality types to the task of tutoring young children or of actually becoming tutor trainers in a volunteer setting. A tool such as the Keirsey Temperament Sorter (Kiersey & Bates, 1984) could be administered to volunteers as they begin their work in a literacy tutoring project. Their eventual adaptability/success as judged by a variety of measures would be compared to their temperament type. This might prove to be useful when recruiting personnel for their work in a tutoring project.

Reflections

The Tutoring and Mentoring initiative of the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist church is an extraordinary effort by a major church denomination to make a difference in the lives of thousands of children across the United States. False starts and struggles are to be expected along with stories of success and of the positive differences made in families in this country. I am impresseded by the willingness of so many people in the Seventh-day Adventist church to put their own time and financial resources on the line in order to become involved in this endeavor. However, unless the training and support offered to volunteer leaders are greatly expanded upon, the organizers of the effort will encounter only isolated incidences of success.
Trainees from the August 1997 seminar were expected to establish sites on their own as a result of this single training event. The only 2 people of the 25 who were successful were already equipped and already had the foundations in place to establish projects. The August seminar acted as a catalyst to get them moving, but it alone did not prepare them to implement tutoring programs.
It is my belief that the church will be successful and will achieve the goals outlined at the Philadelphia Summit in April 1997, but only if the needs of the trainees are more adequately addressed. I hope that this study contributes toward the achievement of all these goals.