Ashlee: Mecklenburg County tutor

Certified Tutor

I am a behavioral health researcher with a PhD in Health Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University. I am deeply passionate about research design and using data to answer questions and make decisions.

I served as an instructor for undergraduate statistics and the use of the SPSS statistical software for 4 years (for a total of about 20 class sections and 500 students!). I have experience using quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection and analysis, and I've mentored students through designing and completing analyses for their own research projects over the years. I've enjoyed teaching students in a classroom setting; however, I love teaching students one-on-one even more.

In particular, I enjoy working with students who have some sort of neurodivergence (i.e., whose brains work differently) and/or those who have anxiety or a lack of self-confidence when it comes to statistics. I am neurodivergent myself, with a touch of autism and more than a touch of ADHD, and I empathize with students who feel like it takes more effort to get statistics to "click" for them.

I also believe that you can learn anything if you have someone to help you learn it in a way that fits *you* best.

I believe in (1) figuring out how to work with your brain rather than trying to fight it to get it to accept new knowledge, and (2) creating a judgement-free zone for learning. My approach to teaching is to:
Get to know you and your personal goals for learning the material,
Learn how your brain works and what kind of communication, examples, and methods might work best for you
Work with you to develop some strategies for working with your brain to understand the material and continue to teach you in that manner
Work with you to manage any anxiety or negative self-talk when it comes to learning

I also love the topics of statistics and research design. I believe they can be *fun* if we allow them to be, and I aim to *at the very least* help students develop an appreciation for the usefulness of these skills.