Background

After every tutoring session I set aside at least 5 minutes to talk to my weekly students about what they want to accomplish before they see me for their next session.  We construct the action plan together and I send them off on their merry way. They walk out exactly knowing what to accomplish and the steps they need to take in order to do so.

Or at least that’s what I would hope for.  The following scenario is much more likely: I meet the student a week later and inquire about the progress they made since they last met.  They admit that they didn’t get around to completing their next rough draft or getting a B on their next exam. When I ask why they didn’t follow the action plan I’m usually met with a shrug or an “I don’t know”.  

Now this is not to say that every one of my weekly students possesses a lackadaisical attitude toward meeting their goals - some of has responded quite well to the action plan.  However I did notice that not every tutee seemed to benefit from making an action plan. I began to wonder if there was anything I could do to help them reach their goals.

Enter WOOP.

WOOP is a motivational is a motivational goal setting practice backed by over 20 years of evidence. It’s very popular because it’s extremely simple to use and can be applied in a lot of different situations, from improving couple’s love lives (oooh) to increasing helping self care levels within elderly patients (awww).  WOOP has had the most success in the academic setting so far - it’s helped students struggling with truancy to boost their attendance and has raised standardized testing score in high schools.

I decided to implement WOOP in my tutoring sessions because I noticed while WOOP had been successfully utilized in large groups of students, there was no data regarding if WOOP worked in an one on one setting.  So I decided to take advantage of the lack of research and decided to see if I could scout anything worthwhile. I did NOT do this by constructing my own research experiment - although throughout this post it may sound like one.  Rather I simply wanted to see if there was any correlation between WOOP and student’s goal reaching progress.

What is WOOP?

Before I delve into my project, it’s probably helpful if I define WOOP.  WOOP is comprised of four easy steps as shown below:

Wish - This first step of WOOP is to identify a goal or a wish.  The wish must be specific in order for WOOP to be effective. The wish also has to be challenging yet realistic to achieve. Lastly, the wish has to completed in a certain time frame.

Outcome - The third step asks the participants to consider the best possible outcome from completing their goal.  It is encouraged to shut your eyes and take a few moments to imagine the outcome in order for it to feel real as possible.

Obstacle - Next, one must think of certain obstacles they might encounter when achieving this goal.

Plan: -  The final step is for the participant to envision how they're going to overcome potential obstacles that may arise.  The plan must follow an "If, then" statement.

Simple, right?

The Procedure

Prior to administering WOOP I gave two tutees a brief overview about what they would be doing.  I kept my description vague by informing them that they would be participating in a goal setting exercise.  I chose to withhold the information about WOOP as I didn’t want to have

Next I handed out a WOOP worksheet and opened the WOOP app on my iPhone.   I instructed them to navigate the app per the instructions and write down their responses on their worksheet.  I chose for the tutees to use the worksheet rather than entering their answers in the app because I wanted them to have a physical copy of their responses.  Other than having the students follow the prompts on the app, I told them to think of any academic goal that could be accomplished within a few weeks. Below is an example of one’s student WOOP:

Wish - I want to get an A on my social psych midterm

Outcome - If I were to an A on the exam I won't have to take the final. I will feel happy.  

Obstacle - I don’t have enough time to study

Plan - I will fulfill my wish by studying during my time on the bus.

After they completed WOOP,  I had the students answer some follow up questions.  The questions immediately preceding the exercise are “framing” questions, which is most often used in therapy as it gauges the level of interest the individual has toward changing their behavior.

On scale of 1-5 how confident are you that you will reach your goal?

On a scale of 1-5 how important for you is it to reach this goal?

What worries or concerns do you have about reaching this goal?

What would be the advantages of making this change?

After I asked them the questions listed above I waited about a week to ask them “checkpoint” questions as I wanted to see how much progress they had made since our last tutoring session. I repeated the questions about confidence and importance to see if there were any changes.  Lastly, I concluded with the following closing questions:

Did you obtain the goal set earlier?

Do you think WOOP helped with your goal setting?

Would you use WOOP again in the future?

Results

Both of my tutees responded quite positively to the use of WOOP in the tutoring sessions.  Surprisingly their results were extremely similar - they both found their goals important to achieve academic success and were confident in reaching their goals in their framing and checkpoint answers.  They also both believed procrastination was the main concern they had about completing their goal. Unsurprisingly, both tutees responded WOOP helped them achieve their goal and they would be open to using WOOP again.

Discussion

From the tutees’ point of view it’s fair to conclude that WOOP is a useful tool that can be implemented in tutoring sessions based on their responses.

But can we say with utmost certainty it was WOOP which helped them achieve their goals?

It’s impossible to say as there were many outside factors that affected my experience. For one, it may have not been WOOP that helped them attain their goals.  When I first introduced WOOP to my tutees I mentioned I would be following up to monitor their progress. It’s possible they anticipated my questions and knew I would be following up and therefore put more effort into reaching their goals. Another factor was I lacked a control group, or in other words a set of participants that did not engage in WOOP.  Now I know I stated earlier this wasn’t a proper research experiment, but I had planned to use another set of weekly students as a comparison. Initially I was going to talk to weekly students about goals and to have them complete a general goal setting exercise. Unfortunately, my plans got sidetracked due to the campus closures so I had to scrap my idea.  Lastly (and probably the most significant limitation) is my sample size - a whopping two participants. I don’t have many weekly students to begin with and because I originally set aside my other two tutees as a control group, I only had two students left. As a result of having such a small sample I chose to forego using quantitative data as the numbers would have been either too high or too low.

Closing Notes

So if my results are inconclusive, how does this relate back to the LAC?

Well for one, I don’t think my findings undermine the decades of research reported on WOOP’s success.  I may lack statistical data, but the fact that both of my weekly students responded positively to WOOP does count for something.   If a tutor were to work with a weekly student and noticed they had trouble following an action plan to complete their work, it wouldn’t hurt to incorporate WOOP in their session.  This can also be applicable toward group tutoring sessions, as WOOP is usually integrated with multiple people. In addition to tutoring, WOOP can be taught to students in a workshop as it may attract students who struggle with time management and goal setting.