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An investigation of the impact of selected prereading activities on student content learning through laboratory activities

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An investigation of the impact of selected prereading activities on student content learning through laboratory activities

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Content AN INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF SELECTED
PREREADING ACTIVITIES ON STUDENT CONTENT
LEARNING THROUGH LABORATORY ACTIVITIES
by
Jesse (Shaya) Kass
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(EDUCATION)
December 2003
Copyright 2003 Jesse (Shaya) Kass
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UMI Number: 3133292
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This dissertation written by
Jesse Kass
under the direction o f his dissertation committee, and
approved by all its members, has been presented to and
accepted by the Director o f Graduate and Professional
programs, in partial fulfillment o f the requirements fo r the
degree o f
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Director
Date December 17, 2003
Dissertation Committee
Willi« McComas, PhD, Chair
David Yaden, PhD
Thomas Olson, PhD
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Dedication
I dedicate this dissertation to my mentor and my soul mate,
Tova Baichman-Kass.
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Acknowledgements
This dissertation would not have been possible without the patience and
guidance of my advisor, William F. McComas, PhD. From the first moment I walked
into his office before beginning the PhD program he has consistently set a high
standard and encouraged me to surpass it.
Additionally, this could not have been done without the students of Graves
Middle School in Whittier CA who agreed to participate in this study. The staff at
Graves Middle School was also very encouraging.
I must acknowledge my chief editor, Tova Baichman-Kass, who may have
memorized this body of work as well as Sharona Baichman and Chana Baichman
who also helped with editing.
Finally, I must acknowledge Bentzion Baichman-Kass, Amichai Baichman-
Kass and Itamar Baichman-Kass who spent many hours without their Dad while this
dissertation was finished.
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iv
Table of Contents
Dedication.......................................................................................................................... ii
Acknowledgements...........................................................................................................iii
List of Tables....................................................................................................................vii
Abstract........................................................................................................................... viii
Chapter 1 - Introduction................................................................................................... 1
Overview................................................................................................................1
Research Questions............................................................................................. 4
Proposed Method..................................................................................................5
Assumptions..........................................................................................................6
Delimitations.........................................................................................................6
Definitions.............................................................................................................7
Chapter 2 - Review of the Literature..................................................................... 8
Constructivism..........................................................................................................8
Constructivism and Schema Theory................................................................... 9
Constructivism and experiences........................................................................10
The Social Component of Constructivism........................................................11
Hands-on Instruction..............................................................................................12
Science and literacy................................................................................................ 18
Effect of talk and writing on learning.................................................................. 20
Effective Content-Area Reading Instruction....................................................... 25
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V
The effect of prereading instruction on learning............................................. 26
K-W-L Charts.................................................................................................27
Anticipation Guide......................................................................................... 34
Summary................................................................................................................. 36
Chapter 3 - Research M ethod........................................................................................ 38
Research Questions........................................................................................... 38
The Nature of the Study.....................................................................................39
The treatments................................................................................................ 39
The design of the study.................................................................................. 40
The content taught in the study..................................................................... 43
Subjects...............................................................................................................43
Instruments..........................................................................................................44
Research Procedure........................................................................................... 45
K-W-L Treatment...............................................................................................47
Anticipation Guide.............................................................................................50
The Discussion (Control) Group.......................................................................50
Chapter 4 - Results...........................................................................................................51
Quantitative Analysis........................................................................................ 52
Data analysis of pretested vs. nonpretested students...................................53
Data analysis of students who received K-W-L treatment vs. control
group.....................................................................................................................55
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VI
Data analysis of students who received anticipation guide treatment
vs. control group..................................................................................................55
Data analysis of students who received anticipation guide treatment
vs. students who received K-W-L treatment.....................................................56
Qualitative Analysis.......................................................................................... 57
Chapter 5 - Conclusions.................................................................................................. 59
Plausible Alternative Explanations................................................................... 62
Implications.........................................................................................................65
References........................................................................................................................67
Appendix A - Sample K-W-L Chart..............................................................................73
Appendix B - Anticipation Guides............................................................................... 74
Appendix C - Pretests and Posttests............................................................................. 76
Appendix D - Information Sheet for Test Subjects..................................................... 80
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v ii
List of Tables
Table 1 -Final Assignment of Classes to Random Groups.......................................... 47
Table 2- Pretest and Posttest Scores for each Group.................................................... 51
Table 3 - Analysis of Having Talked with Others....................................................... 57
Table 4 - Analysis of Having Enjoyed the Activity..................................................... 57
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viii
Abstract
This study investigated the impact of two prereading activities on student
learning from hands-on science activities. The study was based on constructivist
learning theory and hypothesized that students who activated prior knowledge
would learn more from laboratory activities. Furthermore, building on the work of
Vygotsky, the researcher hypothesized that students who talk more or write more
would learn more from the activity. The what I Know, what I Want to know, what I
Learned (K-W-L) chart and anticipation guide strategies were used with eighth
grade middle school students in conjunction with activities related to levers and
convection currents. Ogle (1986) developed the three-column K-W-L chart to help
students activate prior knowledge. In the first column, the students write what they
already know about a subject, in the second column, the students indicate what they
want to know about the subject, and the students complete the third column after
learning about a subject by writing answers to the questions that they asked in the
second column. The other pre-reading strategy involved in this study, the
anticipation guide, was produced by Duffelmeyer (1994) based on Herber’s (1978)
reasoning guide. In the anticipation guide, the teacher creates three or four
sentences that convey the major ideas of the topic and the students either agree or
disagree with the statements. After learning abut the topic, students revisit their
answers, decide if they were correct, and defend their choices. The research
protocol employed was the Solomon (1947) four-square design and compared
students in the experimental groups using pre-reading strategies to students in a
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control group that simply discussed the concepts in a traditional fashion before
completing the hands-on activity. The investigation showed no significant
difference in content acquisition between the control group and either of the
treatment groups. Reasons for the lack of significant differences may be related to
unfamiliarity on the part of students with the prereading activities. They simply did
not have much experience with using either writing-to-leam or talking-to-learn
strategies, so a short-term intervention of the type employed here was not effective.
Conversely, it may be that there is no cause and effect link between pre-reading
activities such as these and knowledge acquired through laboratory study.
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Jesse Kass William McComas, PhD
Abstract
AN INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF SELECTED PREREADING
ACTIVITIES ON STUDENT CONTENT LEARNING THROUGH
LABORATORY ACTIVITIES
This study investigated the impact of two prereading activities on student
learning from hands-on science activities. The study was based on constructivist
learning theory and hypothesized that students who activated prior knowledge
would learn more from laboratory activities. Furthermore, building on the work of
Vygotsky, the researcher hypothesized that students who talk more or write more
would learn more from the activity. The what I Know, what I Want to know, what I
Learned (K-W-L) chart and anticipation guide strategies were used with eighth
grade middle school students in conjunction with activities related to levers and
convection currents. Ogle (1986) developed the three-column K-W-L chart to help
students activate prior knowledge. In the first column, the students write what they
already know about a subject, in the second column, the students indicate what they
want to know about the subject, and the students complete the third column after
learning about a subject by writing answers to the questions that they asked in the
second column. The other pre-reading strategy involved in this study, the
anticipation guide, was produced by Duffelmeyer (1994) based on Herber’s (1978)
reasoning guide. In the anticipation guide, the teacher creates three or four
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2
sentences that convey the major ideas of the topic and the students either agree or
disagree with the statements. After learning abut the topic, students revisit their
answers, decide if they were correct, and defend their choices. The research
protocol employed was the Solomon (1947) four-square design and compared
students in the experimental groups using pre-reading strategies to students in a
control group that simply discussed the concepts in a traditional fashion before
completing the hands-on activity. The investigation showed no significant
difference in content acquisition between the control group and either of the
treatment groups. Reasons for the lack of significant differences may be related to
unfamiliarity on the part of students with the prereading activities. They simply did
not have much experience with using either writing-to-learn or talking-to-learn
strategies, so a short-term intervention of the type employed here was not effective.
Conversely, it may be that there is no cause and effect link between pre-reading
activities such as these and knowledge acquired through laboratory study.
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Chapter 1 - Introduction
Overview
Since 1957 when the Soviet Union successfully launched the Sputnik space
probe, there has been a continued interest in finding the most effective modes of
science instruction. During this time, researchers have revisited the value of hands-
on activities oriented toward discovery learning (Stohr-Hunt, 1996). The National
Science Education Standards (NSES, National Research Council, 1996) emphasized
that to learn science students must be actively engaged in their learning.
According to the more recently published Inquiry and the National Science
Education Standards: A Guide for Teaching and Learning (National Research
Council, 2000) students who engage in inquiry learning are engaged in processes
similar to the processes that scientists use when scientists are expanding human
knowledge. This is very important since this new report states that “Knowing
science, however, is not only knowing scientific concepts and information . . . All
students need to learn strategies for scientific thinking . . .Through scientific inquiry,
students can gain new data to change their ideas or deepen their understanding of
important scientific principles” (p. 117).
During the 1960s, the National Science Foundation granted funding to
researchers to develop a variety of curricula that engaged higher cognitive skills
(Shymansky, 1984). The developers of these programs envisioned students engaged
in hands-on activities that also engaged the student’s minds, thus making students
very active learners. Stohr-Hunt (1996) says that many researchers and educators de
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emphasized science content in many of the curricula developed in the post-Sputnik
era.
Many educators recognize that students who are physically engaged in
science activities will be learning and the purpose of this study seeks to maximize
that learning. Dufflemeyer (1994) states, “prior knowledge about a topic facilitates
comprehension and retention” (p. 452). If we can find ways for students to activate
prior knowledge about the activity in which they are about to engage, or if we were
to develop an advanced organizer about the activity, we would most certainly expect
that the students will learn more and retain more from the activity.
This study will be informed by the literature on constructivism. According to
Rivard and Straw (2000), “Constructivism posits that personal knowledge and
understanding result from the myriad connections that learners make while
integrating new information with prior knowledge” (p. 567). We want our students to
integrate new knowledge with old, and to do this, our students must activate this
prior knowledge and bring it forward into their consciousness.
To help students activate prior knowledge and integrate new knowledge, we
must look for an efficient way to do this. Vygotsky argues that one way humans
learn is by using speech. Vygotsky states that speech and thinking are intertwined.
To a certain point speech and thinking develop separately, but at a certain point
the two lines of development intersect. Speech becomes intellectual and thinking
verbal” (Reiber, 1987, p. 117). Before we learn any new concept, there must also be
a social component that initiates that learning. Specifically, “Any higher mental
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function was external and social before it was internal.’’(Vygotsky, as quoted in
Reiber, p. 21). Vygotsky goes on to say that “thinking depends on speech, on the
means o f thinking, and on the child’s socio-cultural experience. Inner speech is
developed from the outside" (Reiber, p. 120). Thus, to help our students incorporate
any new information, speech must be involved to help them learn.
While Vygotsky helps us understand the importance of talk in facilitating
learning, Barnes and Todd (1995) explain the mechanism of how talk helps to
facilitate learning. They argue, “both children and adults continually set up implicit
models or pictures of how the world seems to be ... The models ... are open to
continual modification in the light of new experience, especially when there is
evidence that other people see things differently” (p. 10). Barnes and Todd (1995)
reported on 1977 research in which they found that even though they asked students
a specific question, students still had to clarify for themselves what exactly was
being asked of them.
However clearly the teacher frames an exposition or chooses a
question, the learner must use what she knows already in order to make sense
of them. In the groups we are able to observe this happening; in lessons
which restrict opportunities for learners to speak it must go on silently, if at
all. (1995, p. 57)
The reason that talk helps students learn, according to Barnes and Todd, is
that students need to reorganize information, not just add to it (p. 63). This goes back
to Piaget’s idea that learners must accommodate new information into these pre
existing schema. To help facilitate learning, teachers must help students recall the
existing schema and to see how the new information fits into those schema. Since
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reading comprehension depends on the efficient accommodation of new knowledge,
it will be useful to consult the literature on reading instruction.
Educators in the field of reading have done much work to create strategies
that help students activate prior knowledge before proceeding with reading. These
strategies, known as prereading strategies, are intended to engage the reader actively
in the reading process by having prior knowledge activated and having the students
read for a purpose. For example, when using the K-W-L (what I Know, what I Want
to know, what I Learned) (Ogle, 1984) strategy, students formulate questions that
they expect to answer by completing the reading. This study has focused on two of
those strategies, K-W-L charts and anticipation guides (Herber, 1987), which require
that students discuss their thoughts before and after the activity. This research will
compare these prereading activities to the normal practice of discussion only where
selected students have a conversation with the teacher only rather than discussing
their ideas in a small group discussion.
Prereading activities and hands-on activities in science class are similar in
that there is an expectation that both will actively engage the learner. One of the
hypotheses of this study is that strategies to activate prior knowledge before a hands-
on activity, would further improve student learning.
Research Questions
This study will focus on the following questions:
1. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of an
anticipation guide before a hands-on activity?
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2. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of a K-
W-L chart before a hands-on activity?
3. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of a
discussion before a hands-on activity?
Proposed Method
To address these questions, the investigator conducted research in twelve
seventh grade general science classes at an urban school in Whittier, CA. The
researcher randomly assigned classes to one of twelve treatment possibilities using
the Solomon Four-Group design (Campbell and Stanley, 1963) (See Table 1). Half
the classes were involved in a design in which students took a content test on
convection currents and half the classes were in a design in which students took a
content test about levers. Since there are two possible treatments, K-W-L or
Anticipation Guide, groups that did not receive either treatment served as
comparison to both treatments. The discussion group acted as a control group on the
assumption that teachers presently use discussion before laboratory activities.
The convection currents activity had the students place an ice cube at one end
of a rectangular plastic bin filled part way with water. When students slowly dropped
food coloring into the water, the students were able to see that the water in the bin
circulated down on the side near the ice, across the bottom of the bin, and around
again.
The lever activity had students place 1” ceramic tiles on one side of a
meterstick and try to balance it with pennies.
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Before the activity, the students completed a K-W-L chart, an anticipation
guide, or discussed the activity. These exercises included predictions about what
might happen. If the data showed that students in the K-W-L group or the
anticipation guide group have improved significantly more than students in the
discussion group, it would be possible to conclude that these prereading activities are
more effective than traditional discussion alone in helping students learn from
science activities.
Assumptions
The first assumption in this research was that students learn new information
by integrating that information with existing knowledge, that is, constructivism is
how children learn. Second, there is an assumption that if students activate existing
knowledge before instruction, the students will retain more knowledge. Finally, the
research assumed that activities that promote reading comprehension would also
promote comprehension in science activities.
Thus, the researcher expected that students who activated prior knowledge
would learn more from the activity. Further, this study may have showed that one of
the strategies can significantly increase student learning over the other methods.
Delimitations
This investigation was conducted in urban middle schools. Lott (1983), in a
meta-analysis of 16 studies, found that advance organizers were more advantageous
in urban settings than in rural or suburban settings. Since prereading activities are
similar to advance organizers, if there is a positive effect on laboratory learning seen
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from K-W-L charts or anticipation guides, these may or may not be seen in rural or
suburban settings.
Further, the population of students at the school is 85% Hispanic. If there is a
particular learning style that is more prevalent in Hispanic students than in students
in the general population of the United States, these results may not be generalizable
to the general population.
Definitions
A K-W-L chart is a three-column chart that students use to prepare for
reading activities. The first column is titled “K” for “Know” and the students list
what they already know about a certain topic. The second column is titled “W” for
“Want”, and the students list what they want to learn about the topic; this can be
done in the form of questions. The title of the third column is “L” for “Learn” and
after students complete the lesson, they list what they have learned. An example is
included in Appendix A.
An anticipation guide is a list of statements that the student must agree or
disagree with before reading a passage. After reading, the student revisits their
answers and states whether the new information they received strengthens their
belief or causes them to change their mind. Examples are included in Appendix B.
In the discussion group, the researcher led the students in a discussion about
the topic and what might happen and what the students might learn.
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Chapter 2 - Review of the Literature
In this study, the researcher investigated the assertion that completion of
prereading activities before a laboratory activity assists students in learning from the
laboratory activity. One hypothesis of this study is that when students complete the
prereading activities, they will gain more content knowledge because these activities
ask the students to commit, in writing, to what they already know about the topic.
Further, these strategies ask the students to have small group discussions abut the
topic.
The researcher has searched the literature to understand how students learn,
how science and literacy are linked, how talk and writing help students to learn, and
how hands-on activities or laboratory activities help students to learn. The researcher
also searched the literature on content area reading instruction and prereading
activities since these play a central role in this investigation.
Constructivism
Central to this investigation is how students learn and means to increase
student learning. The investigation is based on the theory that students learn by
connecting new information to prior knowledge. Thus, the basis for the construction
of new knowledge is prior knowledge. This theory of learning is based on the work
of Piaget, Dewey and Vygotsky, all eminent educational theoreticians of the early
20th century.
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Constructivism and Schema Theory
Constructivism is the theory that each student constructs his or her own
understanding of material based on what that student knew before the lesson. It is
commonsensical that those students who bring more information will construct more
knowledge. The following discussion will both define constructivism and show ways
that other researchers have made practical use of the constructivism theory.
Von Glasersfeld (1993) defines constructivism as a theory of knowing; the
theory attempts to explain how people come to know things. As early as the pre-
Socratics in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C, people realized that not everything that
they knew was from outside stimuli but that the human mind could shape new
knowledge (p. 24). Thus knowledge is not a representation of some outside truth,
rather, each person’s knowledge is a representation of that person’s experiences and
how that person made sense of those experiences. When we teach students we
typically do not provide new concepts, we simply prod students to combine, in
different ways, the concepts they already have (p. 32).
Anderson, Spiro and Anderson (1978) explained constructivism through
schema theory. They defined schemata as “mental structures that incorporate general
knowledge” (p. 434). When new information is learned, schemata incorporate that
information into more general, larger groupings. If a learner does not have a schema
for a new piece of information, or if they do not recall that schema, they will have
difficulty learning that new information. Anderson et al. showed, in addition, that
students who read a list of foods embedded in a story about a restaurant remembered
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more of the list, and more of the list was in order, than did students who read the list
embedded in a supermarket story.
Tobin and Tippins (1993) argue that each student comes in with pre-existing
ideas about the scientific material that we are presenting. Since the teacher’s role is
“to mediate the learning of students (p. 9)” teachers must focus on the student and all
the knowledge, experiences and cultural understanding that the student brings to the
class.
Constructivism and experiences
Dewey proposed this notion of centrality of experiences. O’Brien (2002)
contends that Dewey thought that education enabled the individual to look at
previously accepted beliefs in light of new experiences. These new experiences were
vital but the new experiences had to be in the context of the previously accepted
beliefs. O’Brien goes on to maintain that all of education rests on the quality of the
educational experiences and how these experiences were sequenced. New
experiences had to build on prior experiences.
Glassman (2002) opined, “Dewey understood learning as occurring through
genuine experience” (p25). Again, without the experience the learning may not occur
or may not be as complete. Glassman maintains that there are different kinds of
learnings. In learning that involves scientific methodology, the learner can reflect
back on his understanding before that learning. Thus, after the learner has an
experience the learner can look back to knowledge before the experience.
Essentially, the learner can understand exactly what they learned. This is different
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from philosophical learning in which the initial understanding cannot be recaptured.
This reflection can be a very important part of learning.
The Social Component o f Constructivism.
Tobin and Tippins (1993) posit, “constructivism suggests that learning is a
social process of making sense of experience in terms of what is already known” (p
10). Knowledge is neither strictly personal nor is it only a social construct.
When we think of knowledge, it is convenient to think in terms of both the
individual and the social components. Just as it is sometimes useful to think
of an electron as a particle and at other times as a wave, so it is sometimes
useful to think of knowledge as an individual construct and at other times as a
social construct, (p. 6)
Tobin and Tippins caution that we cannot think of knowledge construction as
strictly personal or students may retain naive misconceptions. The social component
of knowledge construction is seen in a classroom when the teacher, as the
representative of society, educates students as to what is currently considered viable
knowledge by the wider society. They go on to caution teachers that, far too often,
what society regards as having the greatest viability simply reinforces a dominant
culture in which certain ways of thinking and speaking are legitimate and other are
not.
Vygotsky (1978), as quoted in Barnes and Todd (1995), states that things that
are learned in the social sphere are later internalized. Language is used for
communication with others and then to check and confirm thoughts. Thus, social
experiences affect the course of individual development.
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Indeed, there is a subdivision of constructivism termed social constructivism.
Von Glasersfeld (1993) defines social constructivists as those who posit a social
interaction component to knowledge construction. Knowledge construction is
increased both when students are forced to verbalize how they see a problem and
when they explain something to a peer. When verbalizing, students will usually see
inconsistencies in their own thinking and then the students are forced to confront
those inconsistencies. This supports the work of Rivard and Straw (2000) that is
discussed later in the research.
Yore and Shymansky (1985) sum up the need for a constructivist theory of
learning in arguing, “Comprehension is synonymous with understanding” (p 6). The
notion of prior knowledge and cognitive structures assumes that understanding lies
with the learner. This research study looked at some ways to maximize the use of
prior knowledge and cognitive structures by seventh graders. The literature about
hands-on instruction and prereading was searched to create a hypothesis concerning
the value of using prereading activities before science instruction. Additionally, there
is a presentation of the literature concerning the use of student talk to maximize
learning, since this also has implications for the present study.
Hands-on Instruction
Dewey (1902/1956) maintains that science content is secondary to experience
in science education. This may seem a radical notion, though not in light of the
importance that Dewey placed on the process of teaching. Dewey writes
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As a teacher he is not concerned with adding new facts to the science
he teaches; in propounding new hypotheses or in verifying them. He is
concerned with the subject-matter of the science as representing a given
stage and phase o f the development o f experience. His [the teachers] problem
is that of inducing a vital and personal experiencing, (p 23)
Many studies have found that hands-on instruction increases student
achievement in science and student enjoyment of science. Constructivist learning
theory may explain the increase in student achievement because when students are
engaged in hands-on activities they are actively involved in learning. The active
involvement may well cause the students to be thinking about prior experiences that
are related, thus activating prior knowledge and creating or referencing the schema
needed to incorporate the new information. The following studies illustrate the value
of hands-on activities both in increasing student achievement and in increasing
student enjoyment of science instruction.
Korwin and Jones (1990) studied 50 eighth graders enrolled in four industrial
arts and math classes. The students received 40 minutes of instruction on geodesic
domes. Twenty-five students received information through reading and a hands-on
group assignment while the other 25 students received instruction though reading
and an illustrated lecture. Both groups were then tested on the information they had
learned. Some of the test items required simple recall while others required higher
order thinking. The hands-on group received a significantly higher test score both
one day and two weeks after the activity. This study shows the advantage of hands-
on activity over illustrated lecture.
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Cantu and Herron (1978) studied randomly selected concrete and formal
learners at a midwestern high school. They found that concrete learners did not
adequately learn concepts if formal reasoning is involved in the lesson. They suggest
that teachers use many concrete examples when teaching concrete learners. In the
current study, students discussed concrete examples during the discussion about the
K-W-L chart. Students often give concrete examples from their own experiences
during the first phase of the K-W-L chart when they write what they already “know”.
In addition, concrete examples are in the anticipation guides. Thus, these strategies
build on the work of Cantu and Herron. If concrete examples were discussed during
the discussion groups, results may have been mixed.
Further, Freedman (1997) conducted a study to examine the relationship
between laboratory instruction, attitude toward science and achievement. Freedman
conducted the study in 20 ninth grade physical science classes in a large urban high
school. These students are similar to the students in the present study. Freeman
showed that when he engaged students in laboratory experiences, they had a more
positive attitude toward science and greater achievement in science knowledge.
Weaver (1998) carried out a study over two months in a high school, a
middle school and an elementary school in a suburban, middle-class neighborhood in
Colorado (p. 457). Weaver selected fourth, eighth and tenth grade classrooms based
on an overrepresentation of minority students compared to the general population.
The middle school classes that Weaver studied were 24 and 26 percent Hispanic.
Weaver collected data using multiple methods; she administered surveys to teachers
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and held group interviews with students. An overwhelming majority of the middle
school students responded that the most enjoyable part of science class was doing
hands on and laboratory investigations. Students commented that they learned more
through lab work and that laboratory activities maintained their interest.
There is a caution to be learned from the Weaver (1998) study. During the
interviews, the middle school students had spirited discussions about the experiments
they had conducted over the school year. The students could provide details about
the experiments but their understanding was limited. They often did not understand
the purpose of the experiment and had formulated no conception of the phenomena
that they were observing (p. 464). This certainly shows a need for more research into
how to help students’ long term learning.
Stohr-Hunt (1996) studied the effect of the frequency of hands-on
experiences on standardized science achievement scores. The study was conducted
using data collected in the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988. Stohr-
Hunt found that eighth grade students who experience hands-on activities every day
or once each week scored significantly higher than students who experience hands-
on activities less often. This shows us that not only do students who experience
hands on activities have a better attitude toward science they also learn more science.
Tyler-Wood, Cass and Potter (1997) conducted a study of 400 randomly
selected seventh and eighth graders in Wisconsin. The students were selected from
three schools. Two of the schools had outdoor science labs and contributed 100
seventh graders and 100 eighth graders to the sample. The third school did not have
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an outdoor science lab and contributed 200 students to the sample. In this study, the
students not only learned the lessons but also taught lessons to elementary school
students. The students were tested with the Test of Integrated Process Skills (TIPS).
After a one-year exposure to the outdoor laboratory curriculum, both seventh and
eighth grades scored significantly better on the TIPS than students who were not
involved in the outdoor curriculum. Students were also evaluated with the Wisconsin
Environmental Survey and again, those students involved in the outdoor curriculum
scored significantly higher.
Students in the Tyler-Wood et al. (1997) study also taught the material they
learned to younger students. For this reason, it is hard to know if the hands-on
program or the teaching component contributed most to the students higher scores,
but it does show that students involved in the program not only had higher content
area scores but also higher scores on a test of science processes.
These studies show that students who are engaged in hands-on laboratory
activities gain more knowledge and have better attitudes about science. While the
findings certainly do not prove causation, there is certainly a correlation between
hands-on activities and increased achievement.
While these many studies show the advantages of using lab activities and
hands-on learning, there certainly are pitfalls in using these methods. Colosi and
Zales (1998) point out that many labs are often teacher centered rather than student
centered. Many students experience lab activities in a passive learning environment
and teachers should restructure the activities by putting students into active learning
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groups. They suggest using cooperative learning groups since these have many
students in the classroom participating simultaneously, each in their own group.
Further, these groups foster talking and social skills. Colosi and Zales found that
when students were placed in cooperative groups, they spent more time actively
discussing the lab exercise and less time listening passively. Furthermore, the
instructor’s time was used more effectively, students relied on one another rather
than the instructor, and students improved their communication skills and took more
responsibility for their own learning.
The present study mirrored in many ways the Colosi and Zales study. This
study looked to improve lab instruction by having students more actively involved in
their learning. This study had the students working together in a cooperative setting
and the students were given an opportunity to talk and write about their experiences,
thus giving structure to their thinking, talking and learning.
These studies have shown that when teachers use hands-on activities and
laboratory activities, students are more interested in the learning, they learn more and
they have a better attitude toward the subject. For all these reasons, science educators
are often encouraged to use laboratory experiences and hands-on activities to
improve science learning. Talk and writing can also be used to improve student
learning. Before this review focuses on the literature on talk and writing, a more
fundamental link between science and literacy will be explored.
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Science and literacy
There is a link between science and literacy that is very fundamental. Science
is passed from one generation to the next and even within a generation from one
scientist to the next through the written word. Without the ability to read and write
science, students cannot be part of the science community.
The National Research Council (1996) defines science literacy as “the
knowledge . . . of scientific concepts required for personal decision making . . ,”(p
22), and the ability for a person to be able to ask and find the answers to scientific
questions. This includes the ability to describe natural phenomena, the ability to read
about science in the popular press and the ability to evaluate arguments based on
evidence. It is interesting to note that only one part of this definition refers to actual
reading.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, 1993)
maintains that scientifically literate people have the ability “to use the habits of mind
and knowledge of science . . . to make sense o f . . . the events they encounter in
everyday life” (p 322). This definition of science literacy has nothing to do with
reading. AAAS certainly implies that the ability to read is a part of science literacy,
but it is not explicitly included.
Norris and Philips (2003) argue for a much more basic definition of scientific
literacy. Since literacy in its most basic sense is simply being able to read
instructions and follow them (de Castell, Luke and MacLennan, 1986). In a similar
vein, Norris and Phillips define science literacy as have the skills to be able to cope
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with science text. While this is a very fundamental definition, science teachers may
be neglecting to teach even these basic literacy skills.
Wellington and Osborne (2001) contend, “Reading is by and large a
neglected activity in science classrooms.” Even though scientists spend a great deal
of time reading, science teachers have little concern for tests. In addition, since many
students will not become scientists after leaving school (Leyden, 1984), they are
certainly much more likely to read about science than to actually perform science.
Wellington and Osborne therefore encourage teachers to include planned and
enjoyable reading as part of the science curriculum. They advocate that teachers
should teach students to become active readers of science by having students read for
a purpose, reflecting on the reading and collaborate with others during reading.
Norris and Phillip (2003) go on to write that science teachers hold a very
simple view of reading; that a child who can decode the words fluently, can read.
This negates the need for comprehension strategies and this may be why many
science teachers do not teach students comprehension strategies and coach them in
their use. Miller, as quoted in Norris and Phillips, posits that the ability to read and
write about science is too broad a definition of science literacy; he proposes that
science literacy is a grasp of basic science vocabulary and the ability to comprehend
science arguments. What one realizes from these arguments is that science literacy is
not unique, except that the texts are scientific (Norris and Phillips).
Another way to look at science literacy is to look at the similarities between
science and literacy. Norris and Phillips (2003) argue, “reading is best understood as
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a constructive process” (p 228). Students must interpret and integrate knowledge.
This allows for knowledge construction that “goes beyond what is in the text, what
was the author’s intent, and what was in the readers mind before reading it” (p 228).
This is very similar to what happens during science experiences. Students will
interpret experiences differently than how the teacher expected them to interpret the
experience. In addition, students will ignore knowledge gained from experiences and
cling to their original misconceptions. The obvious danger in this is that not all
interpretations are equal and some are incorrect. For this reason, it is important to
give students a chance to talk and write about the knowledge that they get from
science experiences, as will be seen in the next section.
Effect o f talk and writing on learning
As was mentioned in chapter one, Vygotsky advocated that humans learn
though speech (Reiber 1987). In this section, there is an explanation of why talk, and
subsequently writing, help students to learn.
Von Glasersfeld (1993) points to the centrality of talk and language on
instruction. Language is learned, he says, in the course of interaction because “we
modify our words and utterances when they do not yield the expected results. Insofar
as a classroom is interactive, it provides [the students] with opportunities to witness
the use of words and the context of the experiences to which they refer” (p. 30).
When students verbalize how they see a problem, this generates reflection; this in
turn can provide an occasion for active abstraction. Parenthetically, this may help
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students move from the concrete stage of Piagetian thinking to thinking that is more
formal.
Rivard and Straw (2000) conducted a study on the effects of talk, writing and
talk and writing on science instruction. The researchers randomly assigned students
to one of four groups, a talk-only group, a writing only group, a talk and writing
group and a control group. The control group completed descriptive tasks about the
concepts taught that included fill-in-the-blank, true-false exercises, etc., so one might
argue that the students activated prior knowledge and recalled schema. Yet, the
control group and the writing-only group did not do as well as either of the talking
groups. Rivard and Straw surmised that this might be because of the quality of the
discussion that the students had. The discussions were audio taped and analyzed
qualitatively. The researchers heard students sharing knowledge, extending
knowledge and distributing the knowledge to other students in the group. Thus, it
seems that good teaching would involve small group discussion.
Though talk is so important to learning science, Wellington and Osborne
(2001) point out that “using discussion is not a well established feature of science
classrooms” (p 83). They go on to argue that to make science a minds-on activity,
science teachers must give students a chance to discourse about science.
The research has shown that talk has a positive effect on learning and should
be a central feature in science classrooms. Writing effects instruction in a very
similar way, and the next section includes literature that will show the importance of
writing in science education.
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As was just shown, there was a link shown between talk and learning. When
students talked about a topic, they shared and extended their knowledge. When
students stated an opinion, they had to justify it. In a similar manner, when students
write an opinion or an understanding, they must be prepared, if only in their own
mind, to justify it.
Rivard (1994) did a review of the literature on writing to learn in science.
Writing can be thought of as ‘thinking on paper’ and thus students should be asked to
write not only to communicate but also to articulate their thoughts. Thus, teachers
should use writing to help student construct knowledge.
Hand and Prain (2002) assert the importance of writing in science has
increased because science literacy has come to include the ability to write in a
scientific manner. Some define “literacy” as the ability to communicate as was
mentioned in an earlier section. Hand and Prain use this definition and conclude that
students must be able to communicate scientific ideas in writing if they are to be
truly scientifically literate. In addition, “writing serves learning” (p 738). Any task
that causes students to “elaborate understandings, reprocess concepts
hypothesize, interpret, . . . and hence develop higher order thinking skills” (p 739),
will maximize learning for the student. Writing does this because it requires students
to reflect on what they learned and to communicate these reflections and new
concepts.
The notion of reflection is an important one. Hand and Prain view writing as
“a resource for thinking and learning, an interim process or clearing-house by which
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students clarify and consolidate conceptual knowledge” (p 741). Thus, the writing
process helps students connect the new information and ideas to prior knowledge and
helps students to construct the new knowledge.
Langer, as quoted in Rivard (1994) found that children appear to be more
aware of strategies and background knowledge while writing than they are while
reading. It seems that since writing is a more active instructional strategy than
reading, children have more metacognitive awareness. This makes writing a
particularly effective tool for learning.
In addition, Hand and Prain assert that writing is part of “science as doing”, a
concept that is central to science education. Many science educators assert that a
central goal of teaching science is for students to experience what scientists do. An
outcome of this is an emphasis on hands-on instruction. Since part of what scientists
do is communicate through writing and disseminating their work to a wide audience
through writing, students of science should have writing as a part of their educational
experience as well.
Wellington and Osborne (2001) suggest that much of the writing in science
classrooms is very low-level writing especially copying. Since no active processing
or participation goes on while a student is copying, there is little or no knowledge
construction. Wellington and Osborne contend that if students are to be scientifically
literate, they must “learn both how to read and how to write science” (p 64).
Rivard (1994) points out three different kinds of writing with different levels
of effectiveness. When students are answering study questions, they are focusing on
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discrete bits of information. Study questions often ask for recall of information and
students will often refer to a specific passage and quote or paraphrase. When taking
notes, students appear to integrate slightly larger chunks of information, but again it
is rather superficial. Yet, while writing an essay, students integrate information and
engage in more complex thought processes. This seems to show that writing,
especially essay writing, can be an effective tool for stimulating knowledge
construction. Indeed, Kirkpatrick and Pittendrigh, as quoted in Rivard (1994),
reported that 90% of college students who were asked to write essays to explain
everyday natural phenomena reported that the writing assignment enhanced their
learning of physics concepts.
Wellington and Osborne also argue that scientific writing needs special
instruction because scientific writing is so peculiar to children. Students are taught to
write narrative, often in the first person. Scientific writing shuns the personal and
tries to be more objective by excising agent, motive, scene and temporality. This, of
course, is in addition to the specialized words used in scientific writing. Thus writing
in science not only helps the students to understand the science; writing in science
can be seen as part of science literacy.
Yet, Rivard (1994) asserts, “rarely is expressive or persuasive writing used in
the classroom.” When the writing is used, Rivard argues that students rarely use
writing for learning of for clarifying ideas. Rather, students use writing for
evaluative purposes or note taking. Writing simply is not used to stimulate higher-
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order thinking. Rivard concludes, “students write a lot, but rarely to enhance
learning” (p 975).
Thus, we see that while talk and writing could be used to stimulate
knowledge construction, it usually is not. Teachers are not giving students these
effective learning tools and writing and talk are not being used by teachers to help
students learn. The research on another teaching tool will be presented next. Since
much of science is passed on in writing, students must be able to read scientific
literature. Research on effective reading instruction is presented next.
Effective Content-Area Reading Instruction
Research indicates that there is a direct relationship between prior
knowledge, topic interest and reading comprehension (Asher, Hymel & Wigfield,
1978; Belloni & Jongsma, 1978; Bernstein, 1955; Cecil, 1984; Estes & Vaughan,
1973; Stevens, 1980). As the following research shows, when students activate prior
knowledge and are interested in the topic, they will comprehend more of what they
read.
Pearson, Hanson and Gordon (1979) showed that second grade students who
had a good prior knowledge base and well developed schemata were able to answer
more questions correctly than those students with a poorer knowledge base and less
well developed schemata. Building on this theme, Baldwin, Peleg-Bruckner and
McClintock (1985) studied the connection between interest and prior knowledge in
two classes of fifty-two seventh and eighth graders. While interest and prior
knowledge were found to be uncorrelated, students who had both prior knowledge
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and interest in a topic scored two standard deviations higher than students who had
low interest and a low level of prior knowledge.
Expository text often introduces a hardship to otherwise good readers
because it is often rich in concepts. Readers must both decode the reading and
understand the concepts. This double endeavor can strain the capabilities of even
good students and severely challenge weaker ones. These weaker readers often have
trouble with both decoding the text and with understanding the concepts in the text.
Many researchers have pointed to the need for prereading activities to help
students better understand expository text. These researchers expect that prereading
activities will help students access the knowledge they already have about a topic
and allow the students to integrate new information more easily.
One might ask why content-area reading needs special instruction. As Herber
(1978) says,
Like any other skills, reading skills are applied at many levels of
sophistication. As students progress through the grades, they encounter
increasingly sophisticated material. The concept load is heavier. The ideas
are more abstract. The information load is increasingly more concentrated.
The basic skills learned in early reading instruction contribute to a student’s
ability to handle such requirements, but they are not sufficient.” (p. 2)
The effect o f prereading instruction on learning
The research on the difficulties that students encounter in content-area
reading leads us to the need for strategies. Wong and Au (1986) argued that
elementary school students need to learn reading strategies before engaging
expository text. This would help the students understand expository text. Techniques
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are needed that will help students absorb the new information contained in
expository text. Further, the structure and text are often unfamiliar to elementary
school students. If teachers properly prepare students for reading expository text,
they will have a much better understanding of the text.
As long ago as 1981, Langer argued, “Unfortunately, only general guidelines
and a few instructional strategies have been available for helping students realize
what they know about a topic and how to relate that knowledge to the information in
a text” (p. 152). Today, many textbooks on content area reading focus on strategies
teachers can use to help students understand expository text. Walker (1996) listed no
fewer than 62 strategies for helping students understand content area reading.
This research focused on two of those many strategies. The researcher chose
K-W-L charts and anticipation guides because these strategies focus on activating
prior knowledge. These strategies activate prior knowledge by having the students
write about and talk about what they already know. This is very important when
teachers want students to construct their own knowledge and make the learning
meaningful. In addition, both of these strategies have the students reflect back on
their initial understandings. Glassman (2002) maintains that reflecting back on initial
understandings can be a very important part of learning.
K- W-L Charts.
Ogle (1986) developed the K-W-L chart to help students become better
readers of expository text. When using a K-W-L chart, students activate prior
knowledge and thus ease the strain of understanding the many concepts in the
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expository text. Ogle also points out that it is a very simple strategy to use, thus
making it more likely that teachers will actually use it.
The strategy is often taught in teacher preparation programs from an array of
textbooks on teaching reading comprehension. As early as 1991, Irwin suggests
using the K-W-L chart to improve reading comprehension. Many more recent texts,
including Almasi (2003), Blachowicz and Ogle (2001), Lipson and Wixson (2003),
Tonjes (1999), and Walker (2000) all teach prospective teachers to use the K-W-L
strategy as a way for students to access prior knowledge.
The strategy has students use a three-column chart to map out what they
already know about a topic prior to reading, what they want to learn about the topic
from the reading, and what they learned after they have finished reading about the
topic. This strategy allows students to both activate prior knowledge and heighten
interest in the topic. Verbal discussion by students in small groups accompanies the
first two steps of the K-W-L chart, giving students a chance to gain from the
knowledge of the whole group. An example of a K-W-L chart is included in
Appendix A.
In the first step of K-W-L, Ogle (1986) directed teachers to begin by
brainstorming with the students about the specific topic. The example given was a
reading about sea turtles. The teacher began the activity by brainstorming knowledge
about sea turtles rather than animals that live in the sea. If students lacked sufficient
knowledge about sea turtles, the teacher could ask students to brainstorm the next
more general topic, turtles.
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Ogle continues that to stimulate even higher-level thinking, the teacher may
probe students regarding where they learned the information they share. This may
help students to think about the source and accuracy of their knowledge. This may
also help students to challenge the information and provide contradictory
information and then confirm or refute the information during reading.
To help students understand the organization of content area reading, the
teacher may then ask students to anticipate which information might be encountered
in the reading. In the turtle example, students who are familiar with expository text
on animals might expect to find information about habitat, descriptions, care of
young, etc. If the students cannot generate this kind of list, this inability provides the
teacher with good diagnostic data about the students’ familiarity with expository
text.
During the second step of completing a K-W-L chart, students generate
questions about the topic. Expository text conveys information that we want students
to learn and remember. Students are more likely to retain information from reading if
they read with a purpose. What better purpose would a student have to read than to
answer his or her own questions? If the teacher points out contradictions and gaps in
the information that students already have, this may lead the students to ask
questions to be answered by the reading. Ogle (1986) suggested that teachers
conduct most of the “W” phase as a group activity with students discussing what
they learned. Remember, Rivard and Straw (2000) found discussion to be a very
powerful tool for extending student knowledge. Tobin and Tippins (1993) add “that
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an important part of learning is identifying questions that need to be resolved” (p.
11).
During the final step of K-W-L, after students have finished the reading, the
teacher directs the students to write down the answers to their own questions. If the
reading has not answered their questions, the teacher can suggest that students pursue
other activities or avenues of research to find answers to their questions. Thus,
students’ own desire for knowledge governs their learning rather than having their
learning limited by what the author has chosen to include.
Ogle (1986) offers that she evaluated the K-W-L method by asking students
at the end of a term which articles they remembered reading. Invariably, of the many
articles that students read, students most remembered those articles that teachers had
taken the time to develop using the K-W-L chart.
The K-W-L chart has been adapted for use in many areas of education. Jared
and Jared (1997) described how to use the K-W-L chart in a middle school
technology classroom. They described how a K-W-L chart helped students to
organize their learning and thus allowed the students to have a more complete
understanding of the material that they learned. Jared and Jared went on to include
semantic mapping as a way to help students visualize the connections between the
topics that they have learned. Jared and Jared further suggested having the students
summarize what they learned as a way of further cementing their knowledge.
Many other teachers have also adapted the K-W-L chart. These innovations
have added to the robustness of the tool and have made it even more useful.
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Mandeville (1994) suggested adding a fourth column to the chart and having
students answering such questions as “What do I find interesting?” or add statements
which begin with “The part I liked was.
There is precious little research on K-W-L charts. Cantrell, Fusaro and
Dougherty (2000) point out that there is a lack of scientific evidence supporting K-
W-L. They report on one other study by Stone in 1991 done with community college
students and could find no other studies conducted in the middle grades. Cantrell et
al. set out to empirically compare the effectiveness of K-W-L journal writing and
summary journal writing. They studied four seventh grade social studies classrooms
over the course of one school year. Students who used K-W-L journaling two to
three times each week scored significantly better on the posttest than did students
who used summary journals two to three times each week. Cantrell et al. found that
K-W-L does increase student content learning.
Al-Shaye (2003) studied eleventh grade male Kuwaiti students who used
either K-W-L or SQR3 reading comprehension strategies. He compared these
strategies to traditional methods for teaching reading and found that both these
strategies help students score significantly better on the Reading Comprehension and
Comprehension Strategies Test, which was designed by the researcher.
Drew (1995) tested the K-W-L Plus strategy in a remedial college reading
class. The students were placed in a treatment group that received four weeks of
instruction in using K-W-L Plus or a control group that had discussion groups. Both
groups read the same passages for four weeks and in week five were given a passage
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and asked to recall as many facts as they could. A statistically significant number of
students who were trained to use K-W-L Plus used the technique without being
asked to and those students recalled more facts and spent more time studying.
Larmon (1995) tested the effect of K-W-L, Polya's Problem-Solving Plan,
and Directed Inquiry Activity on third grader’s ability to solve mathematical word
problems. Students were placed in one of three groups and each of the groups were
taught one of the three strategies. Each of the three groups contained below average,
average and above average ability students. At the end of the five-week study, the K-
W-L group outperformed the other groups in both choosing the correct operation and
in solving the problem correctly.
Burns (1994) studied the effect of K-W-L on the reading comprehension and
reading attitude of 52 heterogeneously grouped fifth graders. Burns taught the K-W-
L group for six weeks while the control group was taught by their regular classroom
teacher and did not receive instruction in reading strategies. The treatment group had
statistically significant better scores on comprehension at the end of the six-week
period, but did not score better on the test of reading attitude.
Hall (1994) tested K-W-L Plus, Directed Reading - Thinking Activity
(DRTA) and traditional teaching methods with and without cooperative learning.
The subjects of her study were 145 eighth grade students and the students were given
reading material at the fifth, eighth and eleventh grade level. K-W-L was the most
effective method of instruction when students were reading material at or above their
reading level, DR-TA was the most effective method of instruction when students
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were reading a passage at or below reading level. Interestingly, cooperative learning
had no effect on reading comprehension.
Witherspoon (1996) tested four metacognitive strategies, Cloze procedure
Semantic Mapping, K-W- L, and the DRTA for increases in student reading
comprehension and metacognitive awareness. The subjects of Witherspoon’s study
were sixth grade students in Alabama. Witherspoon found that while the students had
increased metacognitive awareness, they did not have increased reading
comprehension.
Mayer-McLain (1990) studied 51 third graders and 57 seventh graders in six
intact classes in a Midwestern school district. The students were either taught the K-
W-L strategy or the Predicting / Evaluating strategy to assist them in comprehending
a paragraph. A control group read the same passages during sustained silent reading
and received no comprehension strategy. Mayer-McLain found that most students
read equally well whether or not they had received comprehension strategy
instruction. Third grade males who received no instruction outperformed third grades
that received comprehension instruction.
Stahl (2003) reported on a study of 31-second graders who used either K-W-
L, DRTA or picture walks. While the two other strategies yielded statistically
significant results, K-W-L was motivational but did not yield statistically significant
results.
Jared (1993) reported on a study of 70 preservice teachers in a Language Arts
teaching methods class. Students read about the discipline theories of Canter, Glaser
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and Kounin and completed an immediate recall test and a delayed recall test. Jared
found no significant relationship between those students who used the K-W-L
prereading strategy and those who did not.
While K-W-L is a very popular reading strategy, there is little empirical
research to suggest that it actually helps students to comprehend written material.
Almost all of the research that has been found about K-W-L was done as part of
doctoral dissertations and not by experienced educational researchers. Of the
research reported here, one study was found in a refereed scholarly journal while ten
studies were found in Dissertation Abstracts International. Of the 11 studies reported,
five found a significant positive difference when K-W-L was used, five found no
significant difference, and one study found K-W-L to be helpful under certain
conditions. There is another very popular prereading strategy, anticipation guides,
that is explored next.
Anticipation Guide.
Herber (1978) pioneered the use of the anticipation guide by suggesting that
students use a reasoning guide after having read a passage. The reasoning guide was
to help students to reason through what they had just read to better understand the
passage. The reading guide designed by Herber has eight statements that the reader
must check. The reader decides if the statements are a possible extension of the
passage or an application of ideas from the passage.
The anticipation guide is an innovation on the reasoning guide. A teacher
would administer the anticipation guide before instruction rather than after as Herber
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(1978) used it, but the reason for using the anticipation guide is similar to Herber’s
notion that prediction can arouse student interest and activate prior knowledge. The
anticipation guide is a list of teacher-generated statements that students agree with or
disagree with before reading a passage. This is in contrast to Herber’s design in
which a student decided if statements were an extension of the passage or if they
were an application of information from the passage. The student responses to the
statements are a springboard for discussion during which misconceptions and
differences are likely to surface.
According to Duffelmeyer (1994), to construct an anticipation guide requires
four tasks
1. identifying the major ideas presented in a text
2. considering what beliefs the students are likely to have
3. creating statements to elicit those beliefs
4. arranging those statements in a form that requires the student to
respond to each one either positively or negatively.
Both Herber’s reasoning guide and the anticipation guide have the teacher
identify the major ideas presented in the text, but only the anticipation guide requires
the teacher to consider the students’ prior beliefs. The anticipation guide asks the
student to consider their prior knowledge before instruction begins and this is one of
the strengths of this strategy. In addition, the anticipation guide has the students
agree or disagree with the statements; again, this is a strength because the student
now has “a stake” in the outcome.
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36
Duffelmeyer (1994) suggested that when creating anticipation guide
statements, teachers make sure that the statements convey to the student the major
ideas they will encounter. This process steers students toward concept development
rather than fact memorization. Teachers should also attempt to draw upon students’
prior experiences so that the students can link the reading to their own world
experiences.
Duffelmeyer (1994) recommends that statements should be general rather
than specific as these are more apt to invite opinion from students. In addition,
effective statements should challenge students’ beliefs and bring about what
Readence, Bean & Baldwin (1992) call “conceptual conflict”.
Duffelmeyer, Baum and Merkley (1992) suggest extending the anticipation
guide by having students write why their choices were correct or incorrect, thus
actively confronting their misconceptions. Duffelmeyer and Baum further extended
the anticipation guide (1992) by having the students paraphrase from the reading
why their choice was incorrect.
Provence (1989) studied the effect of anticipation guide on passage
comprehension of high school students studying French. Anticipation guide was used
four times during the first month of instruction. She found no significant difference
between students who used the anticipation guide and those that did not.
Summary
The preceding research has reviewed the theory of learning known as
constructivism, which posits that people learn by incorporating new knowledge into
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37
preexisting schema. Theorists have claimed that people learn best through experience
and in social groups. This has led many science educators to advocate having
students experience hands-on laboratory investigations as a part of their science
studies. Indeed studies have shown that students learn best when talk and writing are
incorporated into the learning experience.
Educational strategists, hoping to help students recall preexisting schema,
have devise strategies to help students recall this knowledge. Unfortunately, little
research has been done on these strategies and the research that has been done does
not show that these strategies consistently help students to learn more.
This study used these prereading strategies in a novel way. This study hoped
to show that students who complete a K-W-L chart or an anticipation guide before an
activity will learn more from the activity since the students would be given an
opportunity through these strategies to talk about their learning, to write about their
learning and to recall pre-existing schema and pre-existing knowledge.
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Chapter 3 - Research Method
This study examined the relationship between the way in which students were
prepared for several hands-on activities and their retention of concepts from the
activity. As mentioned in Chapter 2, constructivist learning theory posits that
learners construct all new knowledge by incorporating new information into existing
schema. By helping students recall existing schema, students may learn new
information more efficiently. The different forms of preparation used in this study
represent different methods of having students recall prior knowledge and helping
the students to construct new knowledge from newly presented material.
The researcher used three distinct methods to prepare students for a
laboratory activity: (a) K-W-L chart, (b) anticipation guide, and (c) discussion. The
researcher used the discussion group as a control since most teachers have some
discussion before a laboratory activity and this can be considered a typical mode of
instruction. The discussion group did not have the benefit of writing and talking,
afforded by the use of K-W-L and anticipation guide strategies.
To insure that all groups were treated properly, the researcher tape-recorded
the classes. The researcher explained why he was audio taping the classes and there
were no objections.
Research Questions
This study focused on the following questions:
1. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of an
anticipation guide before a hands-on activity?
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39
Null Hypothesis: There will not be a significant relationship between
student learning and the use of an anticipation guide before a hands-
on activity.
2. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of a K-
W-L chart before a hands-on activity?
Null Hypothesis: There will not be a significant relationship between
student learning and the use of a K-W-L chart before a hands-on
activity.
3. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of a
discussion before a hands-on activity?
Null Hypothesis: There will not be a significant relationship between
student learning and the use of a discussion before a hands-on
activity.
The Nature o f the Study
The treatments.
Three treatments were used in the study: K-W-L, anticipation guide and
discussion. K-W-L was used for numerous reasons. First, it is a very popular strategy
that is often taught in reading comprehension classes and covered in many recent
reading comprehension instruction textbooks (Almasi, 2003, Blachowicz, 2001,
Lipson and Wixson, 2003, Tonjes, 1999, and Walker, 2000). All these texts point to
the fact that K-W-L can help students to activate prior knowledge. In this strategy,
the students must think about what they already know.
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4 0
Anticipation guide was chosen because it is opposite the K-W-L strategy.
Rather than have the students think about what they already know, the anticipation
guide gives the students statements to which they agree or disagree. This may be
helpful for students who cannot think of what they already know.
Both the K-W-L strategy and the anticipation guide give the students a
chance to talk about what they know with other students. The talking and
collaboration may, in itself, help the students to learn as was discussed with the
philosophy of Vygotsky and the study done by Rivard and Straw (2000).
Discussion was chosen because most science teachers, before an activity, will
discuss the nature of the activity with their students. This too may activate prior
knowledge, but usually does not give the students a chance to talk to each other.
The design o f the study.
This study used a Solomon four-group design (Campbell and Stanley, 1963;
Solomon, 1947). The Solomon four-group experimental design quantitative study
uses an analysis of variance to compare each of the treatments to the control group.
Campbell and Stanley considered the Solomon four-group design the strongest of the
true experimental designs outlined because the Solomon four-group design explicitly
considers internal and external validity.
The design has numerous controls for internal validity. The design controls
for history because any historical event that would have an effect on the treatment
group would likewise produce an effect in the control group. Since all groups had the
same time lapse between pretest, treatment and posttest, all groups lived in the same
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41
community and went to the same school, all the groups have access to the same mass
media, and all the groups could have had the same experiences, all groups will have
the same history. Since the researcher assigned all groups randomly and there were
no extraneous differences (i.e. fires, gunshots, etc.) that effected groups differently,
there was no internal threat to the study caused by history.
The Solomon four-group design easily controls for maturation since all the
groups underwent the same time lapse and no group would be hungrier, more tired,
more bored, etc. All rooms are climate controlled so no matter what day they were
tested, outside temperatures would no effect the students to a great extent.
The Solomon four-group design may have its greatest strength in the lack of
danger from testing since this effect is tested for between groups 1 and 3 and groups
2 and 4. Group 1 and group 3 both receive the treatment with group 1 receiving the
pretest and group 3 not receiving the pretest. If there were more growth in group 1,
the researcher would attribute this to the pretest. Similarly, group 2 and group 4 are
both control groups, in this case receiving the discussion. If there were more growth
in group 2, the researcher would attribute this to the pretest.
The researcher controlled for instrumentation in this study because the
researcher assigned groups randomly. Since any group may have received any
treatment, pretest or protest at the beginning, middle or end of the study, there is no
threat from instrumentation.
There was no threat from regression because, since the researcher assigned
all groups randomly and the school assigned students to groups randomly, there is no
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reason to believe that any group would begin further from the mean and thus regress
to the mean more than any other group.
The researcher can rule out selection as an explanation for difference because
randomization has assured group equality. Mortality was likewise controlled because
all groups completed all treatments and posttests and no group is more likely to have
had a higher mortality rate than others.
External validity refers to the generalizability of the findings. In education,
researchers are never sure if their findings can be generalized to any student other
than those students who match the research group in age, intelligence, educational
history, socioeconomic status, etc. Yet educational researchers do generalize based
on past studies, and expert knowledge. In addition, researchers rely on Mill’s law
which states that the closer two events are in time, space and measured value on any
or all dimensions, the more they tend to follow the same laws.
The greatest threat to external validity would be the interaction of testing and
treatment. The Solomon four-group controls for this threat to external validity
because the researcher compares those groups who were pretested and given the
treatment and those that were pretested and not given the treatment.
The threat from the interaction of selection and treatment were minimized in
the current experiment because selection was based on the researcher’s employment,
not any factor that would affect the school or the choice of school. Alas, the
interaction was not completely eliminated due to the factors peculiar to the school
site in the study.
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43
Reactive arrangements could not be eliminated in this study since the
researcher entered the class instead of the classroom teacher. Reactive arrangements
were minimized in that the students received the pre-test, treatments and posttest in
their regular classroom as opposed to a ‘foreign’ classroom, but the fact the regular
classroom teacher was not teaching the class certainly introduces reactive
arrangements.
The content taught in the study.
One science topic applied in this study was convection currents because the
study of such currents is part of the sixth grade California content standards
(California Department of Education, 2000). Since sixth grade teachers are under
extreme pressure to improve the students’ scores on achievement test such as the
Stanford Achievement Test, Ninth Edition (SAT9), it is unlikely that the students
encountered the material in sixth grade. Convection currents are not part of the
seventh grade curriculum at Graves Middle School (GMS). The second topic for this
study was levers. Levers is part of the eighth grade curriculum at GMS and it can be
expected that seventh grade students will have had very little or no exposure to this
topic.
Subjects
The subjects of this study were seventh grade general science students at
GMS. The administration at GMS uses a computer program to randomly assign
students to general science classes (Rock Moore, GMS Assistant Principal, personal
communication, February 7, 2002). Some students then have their schedules changed
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4 4
due to scheduling concerns, for example, band is only offered fourth period, and
other students have their schedule changed to cluster resource program students
together. These changes are minimal and, therefore, random assignment was
considered for the purposes of the research design. Further, assignment of classes to
treatment groups was random. Since all groups are considered equal and the groups
are randomly assigned, there was little threat to internal validity such as selection
bias, statistical regression, mortality, testing and instrumentation. History and
maturation should affect all groups equally (Huck, Cormier and Bounds, 1974).
Twelve of the thirteen seventh grade general science classes at GMS
participated. The choosing of the twelve and the assignment was random. The
researcher performed the treatment in each class while the regular classroom teachers
substituted in the researcher’s classroom.
Instruments
For both the pretests and the posttests, the researcher created an eight item,
multiple-choice test. The eight items consisted of two recall items, five items about
cause and effect and one item asking for a prediction. The tests can be found in
Appendix C. The posttest also included a question asking the students if they had
spoken to others about the experiment. This question was included to determine if
students had significant conversations between the class and the posttest as this
might skew the posttest scores. The posttest also asked the students if they enjoyed
the activity. This was included to determine if the students enjoyed either of the
treatments more than the control group.
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Research Procedure
1. The researcher arranged with the three seventh grade science teachers
at the school site to exchange classes to conduct the study. The
treatment occurred in general science classes to the exclusion of
advanced science classes and science classes for students who have
limited proficiency in English.
2. Thirteen course sections fit the parameters given in one. Since the
research only involved twelve of those classes, the researcher dropped
one of those classes after random assignment. After the random
assignment, one of the classroom teachers gave a pretest to the wrong
class, so the researcher switched two periods from the initial random
assignment. Table 1 shows the final assignment of classes.
3. The experimental schedule was:
a. On Day One of the study, the regular classroom teacher
administered a pretest and handed out an information sheet.
The information sheet appears in Appendix D. The purpose of
the information sheet was to inform parents and students about
the purpose and nature of the study. It also gave students a
chance to opt out of the study, though none did.
b. On Day Two of the study, the researcher entered the
classrooms and administered either the K-W-L chart, the
anticipation guide, or facilitated a discussion with the control
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4 6
group. The students then conducted the convection currents
activity or the lever activity. A detailed description of the
classes follows Table 1. The students in Ms. Rothell’s classes
usually sit in groups so, no rearranging was necessary and the
groups were kept intact. The students in Mr. Hotz’ class
usually sit at tables of two, so alternating rows were asked to
turn around to create groups of four. The students in Mr.
Covey’s classes usually sit at individual desks so the
researcher first created groups of four students,
c. On Day Three of the study, the regular classroom teacher
administered the posttest.
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4 7
Table 1 -Final Assignment of Classes to Random Groups
Class
#
Class Pretest Treatment Activity / Science
Content Focus
Post
test
1 Covey Per 1 Yes KWL Convection Currents Yes
2 Rothell Per 5 KWL Convection Currents Yes
3 Covey Per 7 Yes Discussion Convection Currents Yes
4 Rothell Per 1 Discussion Convection Currents Yes
5 Rothell Per 7 Yes A.G. Convection Currents Yes
6 Covey Per 5 A.G. Convection Currents Yes
7 Covey Per 2 Yes KWL Levers Yes
8 Hotz Per 3 KWL Levers Yes
9 Covey Per 6 Yes Discussion Levers Yes
10 Rothell Per 4 Discussion Levers Yes
11 Covey Per 3 Yes A.G. Levers Yes
12 Rothell Per 2 A.G. Levers Yes
A.G. = Anticipation Guide
K-W-L Treatment
In those classes that received the K-W-L treatment, the researcher had the
students take out a blank piece of paper. The researcher then showed the classes how
to create the K-W-L chart by turning the paper so that the longer side is horizontal
and folding the paper in three. The researcher then had the students title the first
column “Know”, the second column “Want to know” and the third column “What I
learned”. The researcher then explained to the students that the first column should
be a list of what they already knew about levers or convection currents and the
researcher asked the students to create the list.
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Many students were not familiar with the terms ‘lever’ and ‘convection
current’, so the researcher gave a brief explanation. In the levers classes, the
researcher briefly told the students that an example of a lever is a “teeter-totter” or a
“see-saw” in a playground. In the convection currents classes the researcher
informed the students that an example of a convection current was when hot air rises.
The researcher then had the students share all the items on the list with their
group. After sharing, the researcher had some students verbalize what they had
written and, invariably, some questions came up during this discussion. The
researcher instructed the students to write these questions in the “What I want to
know” column. After the discussion, the researcher instructed the students to write
questions that they might want answered about the topic in the middle column of
their K-W-L chart. Again, the students shared some of these questions.
In the convection currents classes the researcher gave the students a plastic
shoebox approximately 9 inches long, 6 inches wide and 5 inches high. The
researcher asked the students to fill the shoebox with about 3 inches of water. The
researcher passed out plastic sandwich bags with three ice cubes and a bull-clip and
the researcher showed the students how to attach the plastic bag to the side of the
shoebox with the bull-clip. The students then dropped 5 drops of food coloring into
the water at approximately equal intervals and watched what happened. After many
“oohs” and “aahs”, the researcher led a discussion about why the food coloring
moved away from the ice along the bottom of the shoebox and toward the ice along
the top of the water. The researcher then asked the students, as a group, to attempt to
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4 9
answer the questions they had written while the researcher cleaned up the materials.
The researcher again led a discussion with students sharing the questions that the
students had been able to answer and the answers that they had found. The students
also shared unanswered questions that the researcher then answered.
In the lever classes, the researcher gave the students a wooden meterstick and
two pencils on which to balance the meterstick. The researcher gave the students five
pennies and about 20 one square inch ceramic tiles. The researcher then asked the
students to place five pennies at the 5-centimeter mark and to try balancing the
meterstick by placing ceramic tiles at the 95-centimeter mark. After accomplishing
this, the researcher asked the students to remove the tiles and to attempt to balance
the meterstick by placing tiles at the 75-centimeter mark. Finally, the researcher
asked the students to remove the tiles and attempt to balance the meterstick by
placing tiles at the 5 5-centimeter mark.
The researcher then led a discussion about where more tiles were needed to
balance the meterstick and why more tiles were needed if the pile was closer to the
fulcrum. The researcher then defined the terms “fulcrum”, “effort arm” and
“resistance arm”. The researcher then asked the students to attempt, as a group, to
answer the questions that they had asked in the “What I want to know” column while
the researcher cleaned up. The researcher again led a discussion with students
sharing the questions that the students had been able to answer and the answers that
they had found. The students also shared unanswered questions that the researcher
then answered.
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50
Anticipation Guide
In the classes that received the anticipation guide treatment, the researcher
handed out the anticipation guide and asked the students to circle “agree” or
“disagree” for each of the statements. The researcher then asked the students to share
their answers with their group and to defend each of their answers. The researcher
then led a brief discussion about what students had answered. The researcher then
distributed the materials and followed a procedure identical to the K-W-L classes.
After the activity, the researcher then asked the students to revisit their original
answers in the bottom portion of the anticipation guide. The researcher then led a
final discussion about the answers.
The Discussion (Control) Group
In the classes that acted as the control group, the researcher led a discussion
about levers or about convection currents. The researcher then distributed the
materials and followed a procedure identical to the K-W-L classes. After the activity,
the researcher led a discussion about the activity and answered questions the students
asked.
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Chapter 4 - Results
The study was conducted according to the methods outlined in Chapter 3.
The audiotapes were analyzed and all classes were given similar instruction based on
the methods outlined in Table 2. Pretests and posttests were scored and the results
were analyzed using the SPSS statistics computer program. Pretest and posttest
scores are shown in Table 2.
Table 2- Pretest and Posttest Scores for each Group
Class Pre
test
Treatment Activity
Content Focus
Post
test
Pretest
Score
Posttest
Score
Covey 1 Yes K-W-L Convection
Currents
Yes 37 38
Rothell 5 K-W-L Convection
Currents
Yes 29
Covey 7 Yes Disc * Convection
Currents
Yes 30 46
Rothell 1 Disc * Convection
Currents
Yes 38
Rothell 7 Yes A.G. Convection
Currents
Yes 28 28
Covey 5 A.G. Convection
Currents
Yes 45
Covey 2 Yes K-W-L Levers Yes 40 34
Hotz 3 K-W-L Levers Yes 42
Covey 6 Yes Disc * Levers Yes 38 46
Rothell 4 Disc * Levers Yes 36
Covey 3 Yes A.G. Levers Yes 38 49
Rothell 2 A.G. Levers Yes 33
* Control Group, A.G. = Anticipation Guide, Disc = Discussion
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52
Quantitative Analysis
The test results were analyzed to determine if there were significant
differences between students who were pretested and those who were not pretested.
It was not possible to do a covariate analysis on pretest scores because students
answered all tests anonymously and, therefore, it was not possible to match up
pretest and posttest scores and perform such an analysis. Therefore, scores were first
analyzed by comparing average pretest score for classes with posttest scores for
classes. The classes who took the pretest did not show significant difference,
possibly because there were only six classes pretested and it is difficult to show
significant difference with only five degrees of freedom.
After pretest and posttest scores were analyzed, scores of each of the
treatments were analyzed, regardless of the content taught. First, K-W-L was
compared to the control group, then anticipation guide was compared to the control
group, and finally, K-W-L was compared to anticipation guide.
For many of the groups, Levene’s test for Equality of Variances was
required. Levene’s test is performed because any statistical test, including the t-test
that is used in this study, requires that the groups have similar variation. If the groups
have unequal variance, as happens often in this study, the t-test must be corrected for
this inequality.
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53
Data analysis o f pretested vs. nonpretested students.
Students who received the convection currents pretest did not perform
significantly better than those who did not receive the pretest about convection
currents thus, pretest cluing was not an issue. This gives the researcher a reliable
measure of student knowledge before the treatments.
When class averages were analyzed, the average posttest score of students
who were pretested was 37.3 (sd = 9.02, std error of the mean = 5.21), the average
score of those not pretested was also 37.3 (sd = 8.02, std error of the mean = 4.63).
Levene’s test for equality of variance showed equal variance is not assumed (F =
.032, p = .866). This shows that the variance among the scores of pretested and non
pretested students is not equal. Because of this, the researcher conducted a t-test for
equality of means. The t-test for equality of means showed no significance at the .05
level (t=0, df = 3.946, p = 1.0) for the group that took the pretest.
When individual convection currents test scores were analyzed, the average
score of those students who were pretested was 35.9 (sd = 22.1, std error of the mean
= 2.6), the average score of those students who were not pretested was 37.2 (sd =
18.7, std error of the mean = 1.9). These small standard errors of the mean show that
there is a normal distribution of posttest scores. Levene’s test for equality of variance
was performed to analyze the variance between the pretested group and the non
pretested group. Levene’s test showed that variance in two groups is not equal (F =
1.8, p = .176). A t-test for equality of means was performed and showed that there is
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54
not a significant correlation between the students who were pretested and the
students who were not pretested (t = -.383, df = 137, p = .702).
Students in classes assessed with the levers pretest did not perform
significantly better than those who did not take that pretest. The average score on the
posttest of the classes that were pretested was 43 (sd = 7.94, std error of the mean =
4.58), the average score of those not pretested was 37 (sd = 4.58, std error of the
mean = 2.65). Levene’s test for equality of variance showed equal variance is
assumed (F = 1.60, p = .275). The t-test for equality of means showed no
significance at the .05 level (t=-1.134, df = 3.2, p = .335).
When individual lever test scores were analyzed, the average score of those
students who were pretested was 42.5 (sd = 18.8, std error of the mean = 2.1), the
average score of those students who were not pretested was 37.1 (sd = 17.7, std error
of the mean = 2.0). These small standard errors of the mean show that there is a
normal distribution of posttest scores. Levene’s test for equality of variance was
performed to analyze the variance between the pretested group and the non-pretested
group. Levene’s test showed that variance in two groups is not equal (F = . 128, p =
.721). A t-test for equality of means was performed and showed that there is not a
significant correlation between the students who were pretested and the students who
were not pretested (t = -1.8, df = 154, p = .71).
Data analysis o f students who received K-W-L treatment vs. control group.
When individual scores of students who received the K-W-L treatment vs.
those students who were in the control group were analyzed, the average score of
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55
those students who were received the K-W-L treatment was 35.49 (sd = 18.3, std
error of the mean = 1.7), the average score of those students who were in the control
group was 41.3 (sd = 21.2, std error of the mean = 2.3). These small standard errors
of the mean show that there is a normal distribution of posttest scores. Levene’s test
for equality of variance showed that variance in two groups is not assumed to be
equal (F = 2.7, p = .097). A t-test for equality of means was performed and showed
that there is a significant correlation at the .05 level between the students in the K-
W-L group and the students who were in the control group (t = -2.07, df = 171, p =
.040).
Data analysis o f students who received anticipation guide treatment vs.
control group.
When individual scores of students who received the anticipation guide
treatment vs. those students who were in the control group were analyzed, the
average score of those students who were received the anticipation guide treatment
was 38.6 (sd = 18.8, std error of the mean = 1.8), the average score of those students
who were in the control group was 41.3 (sd = 21.2, std error of the mean = 2.3).
These small standard errors of the mean show that there is a normal distribution of
posttest scores. Levene’s test for equality of variance was performed to analyze the
variance between the anticipation guide group and the control group. Levene’s test
showed that variance in two groups is not assumed to be equal (F = 1.9, p = .164). A
t-test for equality of means was performed and showed that there is no correlation at
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the .05 level between the students in the anticipation guide group and the students
who were in the control group (t = 949, df = 175, p = .344).
Data analysis o f students who received anticipation guide treatment v .v .
students who received K-W-L treatment.
When individual scores of students who received the anticipation guide
treatment vs. students who received K-W-L treatment were analyzed, the average
score of those students who were received the anticipation guide treatment was 38.6
(sd = 18.8, std error of the mean = 1.8), the average score of those students who
received K-W-L treatment was 35.5 (sd = 21.2, std error of the mean = 2.3). These
small standard errors of the mean show that there is a normal distribution of posttest
scores. Levene’s test for equality of variance was performed to analyze the variance
between the anticipation guide group and the students who received K-W-L
treatment. Levene’s test showed that variance in two groups is not assumed to be
equal (F = .07, p = .784). A t-test for equality of means was performed and showed
that there is no correlation at the .05 level between the students in the anticipation
guide group and the students who received K-W-L treatment (t = -1.28, df = 227, p
.20).
Qualitative Analysis
266 students of 320 participants responded to the question “Did you talk to
other kids about the activity after we did it in class?” Table 3 summarizes the
responses.
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57
Table 3 - Analysis of Having Talked with Others
Treatment Total Respondents Had talked Had not talked
K-W-L 99 N = 55, 56% N = 44, 44%
Anticipation Guide 94 N = 41, 44% N = 53, 56%
Discussion 73 N = 25, 34% N = 48, 66%
258 students of 320 responded to the question “Did you enjoy doing any of
the activities, why or why not?” Table 4 summarizes the responses.
Table 4 - Analysis of Having Enjoyed the Activity
Treatment Total Respondents Enjoyed Had not enjoyed
K-W-L 117 N = 83, 71% N = 12, 10%
Anticipation Guide 115 N = 80, 69% N = 14, 12%
Discussion 88 N = 57, 65% N = 12, 14%
The majority of students who reported a reason for enjoying the activity
wrote that it was fun or cool. Other responses included that the students enjoyed
working in groups, enjoyed the fact that it was hands-on, that it was interesting, that
they had learned something new and that there was no book involved. Three
comments that students wrote were “because it’s better than reading from a book”,
“because thats [sic] what we should do in science class and we never do” and
“because it was fun and better than science”.
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58
The majority of students who did not enjoy the activity wrote that it was
boring.
No students commented on the value of the pretest.
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59
Chapter 5 - Conclusions
This research set out to find out if students who received comprehension
strategy training would learn more from hands-on activities than students who were
not given comprehension strategy training. The research is based on constructivist
learning theory and widely used teaching practices.
Constructivism is a theory about how people learn. Constructivist theorists
believed that people learn by incorporating new knowledge into schema that already
exist in the person’s memory. If students do not have any preexisting knowledge on a
subject and cannot incorporate new knowledge into pre-existing schema, they will
not learn the new material well. Conversely, when students have a strong knowledge
base on a subject and can recall that knowledge, they can incorporate new
knowledge very efficiently.
Theorists also believe that if students have pre-existing schema, it is helpful
to have the students recall those pre-existing schema before learning. If students can
recall the pre-existing schema and have those schema in the forefront of the students
memory, then new knowledge will be learned efficiently.
Educational strategist then set out to find ways to have students recall those
pre-existing schema and to recall that pre-existing knowledge. One way to have
students recall pre-existing knowledge is to have a class discussion. The shortcoming
of a class discussion is that only a few students actually talk and discuss the topic
while most students are very passive. To respond to this need, educational strategists
created individual assignments for students that they can complete before reading or
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6 0
doing some other learning activity. Arguably, the most well known and widespread
of these techniques is the K-W-L chart created by Ogle (1986). The strength of the
K-W-L chart is that each student completes the chart so each student must recall pre
existing knowledge. Further, students then discuss their responses to each of their
comments, thus getting the advantage of talk as well. K-W-L charts were one of two
pre-reading strategies used in this study.
The second pre-reading strategy used in this study was the anticipation guide
developed by Herber (1978) and Dufflemeyer (1987). The strength of the
anticipation guide is students are forced to agree or to not agree with a series of
statements with the hope that the students will then try to find out if they are correct
or not. Like K-W-L, this technique allows students to discuss their responses in small
groups giving the students the benefit of learning through talk strategies.
The questions that this research set out to address and the hypotheses to be
evaluated were:
1. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of an
anticipation guide before a hands-on activity?
Null Hypothesis: There will not be a significant relationship between student
learning and the use of an anticipation guide before a hands-on activity.
2. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of a K-W-L
chart before a hands-on activity?
Null Hypothesis: There will not be a significant relationship between student
learning and the use of a K-W-L chart before a hands-on activity.
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61
3. What is the relationship between student learning and the use of a discussion
before a hands-on activity?
Null Hypothesis: There will not be a significant relationship between student
learning and the use of a discussion before a hands-on activity.
The investigation was conducted in 12 intact middle school classrooms. Half
the classes had a pretest administered by the regular classroom teacher one day
before the researcher entered the classroom. Only half the classes received the pretest
so that the researcher could ascertain if the pretest had an effect on student learning.
The researcher then entered the classrooms and either led a discussion about the
upcoming activity, or the researcher led the students in the completion of a K-W-L
chart about the upcoming activity, or the researcher administered an anticipation
guide about the activity. The students then completed one of two activities, either a
lever activity or a convection current activity.
In the lever activity, students were asked to balance a meterstick with ceramic
tiles on one end and pennies on the other. The students learned that the further a
force is from the fulcrum, the greater its effect on the balancing of the lever. In the
convection currents activity, students were given a plastic shoebox filled with water
that had an ice-cube placed at one end. When students dropped food coloring in the
water, they saw the food coloring being carried in the convection currents created by
the ice. A posttest was administered to all students three days after the activity.
The first null hypothesis is accepted since there is not a statistically
significant relationship at the .05 level. There is no evidence that students learned
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6 2
more of less effectively when an anticipation guide is used. The second and third null
hypotheses were rejected because students in the discussion group scored
significantly better than students in the K-W-L group. There are a number of
possible reasons for this outcome, which will now be reviewed.
Plausible Alternative Explanations
Clearly, the results of the research were not what the researcher expected
given the suggestions made by the literature in this field. It was expected that
students who received either K-W-L or the anticipation guide would perform better
than students in the discussion group. In fact, the discussion group students
performed better. It can be noted that this research comes to a similar conclusion as
Provence (1989), Mayer-McLain (1990), Stahl (2003), Jared (1993) and McLain
(1993) that no significant difference was found in students who used these
prereading strategies. The question of why the investigation failed to show that these
strategies might help improve student learning is now addressed.
Colburn (2000) states that inquiry based instruction creates a new, complex
situation for both students and teachers and that both need to make a gradual
transition from lecture type activities to open-ended activities. Since this was a one-
shot experiment, the students may not have had sufficient opportunity to make that
transition from the lecture and worksheet instruction that they usually received and
the open-ended format of the research study. The students do not usually do hands-
on activities nor do they often have student-to-student discussions. One of the
teachers involved told the researcher that he does not do hands-on activities anymore
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63
since no one at the school seems to care. Rather, he uses worksheets most often with
the students. Many of the student comments reflect the one quoted earlier that they
enjoyed the activity because they so rarely do hands-on activities.
Second, using “talk” as a tool for learning, as is true for any learning tool,
requires practice. If, as was said by the participating teacher, students are expected to
quietly complete worksheets, the research may have been flawed in the expectation
that one lesson that involved student talk would produce significant results. It seems
that these classrooms bear out Wellington and Osborne’s (2001) realization that
“discussion is not a well established feature of science classrooms” (p 83). The
research would certainly have produced a more powerful result if it had been done
with classes that ordinarily use talk as a learning tool. Future studies might train
teachers and students to engage in these techniques on an ongoing basis and then
evaluate the techniques.
Third, there is some research revealing a connection between levels of
literacy and language among lower socioeconomic students (Hicks, 2001; Hoff-
Ginsberg, 1998; Jeynes, 2000). While much of this body of work refers to students
younger than those in the study reported here, there is reason to believe that as
students mature, their language deficit does not improve without interventions. There
is no reason to believe that the students at the study school site had such
interventions. Research could be done to see if these results would be produced in
other socioeconomic and cultural groups. It would also be interesting to determine if
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64
educators could use science as an avenue to reduce the language deficits experienced
by lower socioeconomic students.
The finding regarding students speaking to other students was very
interesting. Of the group that received the K-W-L treatment, 56% had spoken to
other students, 44% of the anticipation guide treatment group spoke to other students
and 34% of those in the discussion group spoke to other students. While it cannot be
inferred that K-W-L caused the students to speak more about their experience, there
does seem to be a connection. Perhaps the uniqueness of the situation prompted the
students to talk more about their experience. It may also be true that if students speak
about their studies and reflect on the material that they learned outside of class, their
learning will become more deeply rooted. This certainly would be a very interesting
avenue of research.
This does, however, bring up other possibilities as to why the students in the
experimental groups did not do better than those in the more tradition settings. Since
the K-W-L group did talk to others about their experience, it is possible that there
was cross-contamination between groups.
A final possible explanation for the results may be that the students had many
unique experiences and because of the uniqueness, did not learn the content. This can
be partly explained by Driver, Brousseau and Hunsaker (1990) who contend that
when people are put in stressful situations, they become unifocused, looking for only
one solution to a problem and ignoring all other possibilities. Furthermore, under
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65
stress, people tend to integrate the first information that comes to hand and ignore
further information that could be useful.
While the researcher attempted to keep the students as unstressed as possible,
the students were having such a unique experience that the effect of the treatment
may have been overwhelming. Students usually do not have a pretest on a new topic,
the students were being taught by the researcher rather than their regular teacher, the
students do not usually experience hands-on learning, talking to learn, K-W-L, or
anticipation guide. The students in the experimental treatment groups may have been
overwhelmed and did not learn well. Again, the study should be done in classrooms
that regularly experience this kind of learning.
Implications
The classroom implications of this study are minimal. The investigation
reported here has not demonstrated that it is worthwhile to use the K-W-L or
anticipation guides before hands-on activities to increase student learning of science
concepts. There is no reason to believe that any of the strategies hurt student
learning. The investigation did show that use of these strategies increased the amount
that students talked about the material, though the value of that talk is not
established. Perhaps other pre-reading strategies that were not tested would yeod
significant results.
The literature shows that writing and talk help learning and this warrants
further research. It is the belief of the researcher that writing and talk improve
learning because the writing and talk make the learner active, rather that a passive
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6 6
learner. When teachers ask students to write about what they will learn or what they
have learned, they must engage their minds. Even reading may not cause this to
happen as much. It is the intent of the researcher to conduct further studies on the use
of writing to learn strategies, as Rivard (1994) suggested. These studies should be
conducted as both short term and long term studies. Indeed, Rivard (1994) explains
that students need time to adopt expressive writing to learn strategies, which may
explain why brief intervention studies may not produce treatment effects.
In addition, the studies on the value of prereading activities have showed
mixed results. It is intuitively true that consistent use of these strategies should
increase their value. In addition, the use of pre-reading activities is very widespread.
The intent of the researcher is to conduct action research in middle school
classrooms that consistently utilize talk and prereading activities. In this
environment, a more robust comparison of strategies can be completed. If a more
robust study cannot prove the value of pre-reading strategies, their value may be
questioned.
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6 7
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Appendix A - Sample K-W-L Chart
Taken from Jared & Jared (1997)
Table 1
What Jessica Knows about transportation
K W L
cars, boats, planes, trains
power makes these go
help us go different places
faster than walking
astronauts travel in rockets
Table 2
What Jessica Wants to know about transportation
K W L
cars, boats, planes, trains
power makes these go
help us go different places
faster than walking
astronauts travel in rockets
How fast do rockets go?
How hot can a rocket get?
How big are the rockets
and how much do they
weigh?
Table 3
What Jessica Learned about transportation
K W L
cars, boats, planes, trains
power makes these go
help us go different places
faster than walking
astronauts travel in rockets
How fast do rockets go?
How hot can a rocket get?
How big are the rockets
and how much do they
weigh?
How do I become an
astronaut?
They travel 18,000 mph to
orbit and 25,000 mph to
escape earth’s gravity
6.000 degrees F (3,300
degrees C)
Stands 363 ft. tall and
weighs 6 million pounds
(2.7 million kg.)
B.S. in Engineering,
Science, or Math; 3 years
o f related experience;
1.000 hrs experience in a
jet; supervision
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74
Appendix B - Anticipation Guides
Convection Current Anticipation Guide
Section 1 - To be completed before the activity
Agree or disagree with the following statements by circling your choice.
Agree Disagree 1. Cold fluids are less dense than hot fluids.
Agree Disagree 2. Temperature differences cause movement of air in the lower
atmosphere.
Agree Disagree 3. The Earth’s surface gets moved around by liquid.
Section 2 - To be completed after the activity
Please “revisit” your earlier answers based on the experiences you had talking about
and doing the activity. Circle either “correct” or “incorrect” and complete the
sentence.
1. I now know that I got #1 correct incorrect because in the activity
2. I now know that I got #2 correct incorrect because in the activity
3 .1 now know that I got #3 correct incorrect because in the activity
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75
Lever Anticipation Guide
Section 1 - To be completed before the activity
Agree or disagree with the following statements by circling your choice.
Agree Disagree 1. It is easier to use a lever when the side you push on is long.
Agree Disagree 2. It is easier to use a lever when the side that has the weight
on it is long.
Agree Disagree 3. Levers always allow you to use less force.
Section 2 - To be completed after the activity
Please “revisit” your earlier answers based on the experiences you had talking about
and doing the activity. Circle either “correct” or “incorrect” and complete the
sentence
1 .1 now know that I got #1 correct incorrect because in the activity
2. I now know that I got #2 correct incorrect because in the activity
3. I now know that I got #2 correct incorrect because in the activity
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76
Appendix C - Pretests and Posttests
Convection Currents Quiz
Please choose the best answer from the choices given and fill in the
answer on the scantron.
1. Heat transfer within a fluid takes place by
a*, convection currents, b. radiation, c. conduction, d. density.
2. When the heat source is removed from a fluid, convection currents in
the fluid will
a. speed up. b. change direction, c*. eventually stop. d. continue at the
same rate forever.
3. Scientists think that convection currents flow in Earth’s
a. atmosphere, b. magma, c. oceans, d*. all of the above.
4. Convection takes place because
a. warm air is denser than cold air. b. warm air and cold air have the
same density, c. cold air is less dense than warm air. d*. cold air is
denser than warm air.
5. Most of the heating of the troposphere comes from
a. conduction b. induction, c*. convection, d. radiation.
6. Cool air masses tend to
a. be less dense and flow over warm air masses, b. be lifted up by more
dense warm air masses, c*. be more dense and flow under warm air
masses, d. mix easily with warm air masses.
7. Old oceanic crust is denser than new oceanic crust because it is
a. hot. b. moving toward a deep-ocean trench, c*. cool. d. farther from
the mid-ocean ridge.
8. Most geologists think that the movement of Earth’s plates is caused
by
a. gravity, b. subduction. c*. convection currents below the surface,
d. Earth’s magnetic field.
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77
Convection Currents Quiz (posttest)
Please choose the best answer from the choices given and fill in the answer on the
scantron.
1. Heat transfer within a fluid takes place by
a*, convection currents, b. radiation, c. conduction, d. density.
2. When the heat source is removed from a fluid, convection currents in
the fluid will
a. speed up. b. change direction, c*. eventually stop. d. continue at the
same rate forever.
3. Scientists think that convection currents flow in Earth’s
a. atmosphere, b. magma, c. oceans, d*. all of the above.
4. Convection takes place because
a. warm air is denser than cold air. b. warm air and cold air have the
same density, c. cold air is less dense than warm air. d*. cold air is
denser than warm air.
5. Most of the heating of the troposphere comes from
a. conduction b. induction, c*. convection, d. radiation.
6. Cool air masses tend to
a. be less dense and flow over warm air masses, b. be lifted up by more
dense warm air masses, c*. be more dense and flow under warm air
masses, d. mix easily with warm air masses.
7. Old oceanic crust is denser than new oceanic crust because it is
a. hot. b. moving toward a deep-ocean trench, c*. cool. d. farther from
the mid-ocean ridge.
8. Most geologists think that the movement of Earth’s plates is caused
by
a. gravity, b. subduction. c*. convection currents below the surface,
d. Earth’s magnetic field.
On the back of the scantron, please answer the following two questions:
1. Did you talk to other kids about the activity after we did it in class?
2. Did you enjoy doing the activity, why or why not?
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78
Lever test
Multiple Choice
Identify the letter o f the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
1 . When we set up a meterstick on a pipe, the pipe acts as a
a. lever b*. fulcrum c. gear d. machine
2. A lever has something being moved and something that is causing the movement.
The cause of the movement is called the
a. mover b. shaker c*. effort d. resistance
3. A see-saw works best when the two people are close to the same weight. This is
because
a. they would also be about the same age. b. they would also be about the same
height, c*. there would be about the same force pulling them down. d. they would
have equally strong legs.
4. Why is it more difficult to steer a bike when your hands are close together on the
handlebars?
a*. Because you have shortened the length of the lever, b. Because there is more
weight on the front wheel, c. Because you have to squeeze the handlebars tighter,
d. Because there is no padding in the center of the handlebar.
5. When cutting a thick stack of papers it is easiest to put the paper
a*, close to where the scissors cross so that resistance arm is short, b. far from
where the scissors cross so that resistance arm is long. c. close to where the
scissors cross so that effort arm is short, d. far from where the scissors cross so that
effort arm is long.
6. When opening a can of paint you wedge the pointy side of a screwdriver under the
lid and you push down on the handle. You should hold the handle...
a. close to the can so that the effort arm is short, b. far from the can so that the
effort arm is short, c. close to the can so that the effort arm is long. d*. far from
the can so that the effort arm is long.
7. When a baseball player hits a ball with the bat, what part of the bat should the ball
hit?
a. Close to the batter's hands, so lever is short, b*. Close to the end of the bat so the
lever is long. c. Close to the batter's hands so that it is closer to his or her muscles,
d. It docs not really matter.
8. A plumber has to remove a pipe that is stuck and will not turn. Which wrench
should the plumber use?
a. The heaviest wrench so the extra weight will help. b. The lightest wrench so that
the effort can go to turning the pipe. c*. The longest wrench so the extra lever
length will help. d. It does not really matter.
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79
Lever test (posttest)
Multiple Choice
Identify the letter o f the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.
1 . When we set up a meterstick on a pipe, the pipe acts as a
a. lever b*. fulcrum c. gear d. machine
2. A lever has something being moved and something that is causing the movement.
The cause of the movement is called the
a. mover b. shaker c*. effort d. resistance
3. A see-saw works best when the two people are close to the same weight. This is
because
a. they would also be about the same age. b. they would also be about the same
height, c*. there would be about the same force pulling them down. d. they would
have equally strong legs.
4. Why is it more difficult to steer a bike when your hands are close together on the
handlebars?
a*. Because you have shortened the length of the lever, b. Because there is more
weight on the front wheel, c. Because you have to squeeze the handlebars tighter,
d. Because there is no padding in the center of the handlebar.
5. When cutting a thick stack of papers it is easiest to put the paper
a*, close to where the scissors cross so that resistance arm is short, b. far from
where the scissors cross so that resistance arm is long. c. close to where the
scissors cross so that effort arm is short, d. far from where the scissors cross so that
effort arm is long.
6. When opening a can of paint you wedge the pointy side of a screwdriver under the
lid and you push down on the handle. You should hold the handle...
a. close to the can so that the effort arm is short, b. far from the can so that the
effort arm is short, c. close to the can so that the effort arm is long. d*. far from
the can so that the effort arm is long.
7. When a baseball player hits a ball with the bat, what part of the bat should the ball
hit?
a. Close to the batter's hands, so lever is short, b*. Close to the end of the bat so the
lever is long. c. Close to the batter's hands so that it is closer to his or her muscles,
d. It does not really matter.
8. A plumber has to remove a pipe that is stuck and will not turn. Which wrench
should the plumber use?
a. The heaviest wrench so the extra weight will help. b. The lightest wrench so that
the effort can go to turning the pipe. c*. The longest wrench so the extra lever
length will help. d. It does not really matter.
On the back of the scantron, please answer the following two questions:
1. Did you talk to other kids about the activity after we did it in class?
2. Did you enjoy doing the activity, why or why not?
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80
Appendix D Consent Forms
The following pages are copies of the parent permission form and the assent
form that the students completed.
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
use
UNIVERSITY
OF SOUTHERN
CALIFORNIA
Rossier School of
Education
U niversity o f
S o u th ern C a lifo rn ia
W a ite Phillips Hall
Los A ngeles,
C a lifo rn ia 90089-0031
University of Southern California
Rossier School of Education
Science Education
ASSENT FORM FOR RESEARCH
ASSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH
AN INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF SELECTED
PREREADING ACTIVITIES ON STUDENT CONTENT
LEARNING THROUGH LABORATORY ACTIVITIES
1. My name is Jesse Kass, I am an eighth grade science teacher at your school,
Graves Middle School.
2. We are asking you to take part in a research study because we are trying to
learn more about the best way to teach science.
3. If you agree to be in this study you will have a lesson from me one day next
week instead of your regular science teacher.
4. There will be no risk to you. Whether you learn a little or a lot will have no
effect on your grade.
5. If you take part in the study you will learn a a new thing about science that I
think you will enjoy.
6. Please talk this over with your parents before you decide whether or not to
participate. We will also ask your parents to give their permission for you to
take part in this study. But even if your parents say “yes” you can still decide
not to do this.
u s e UPIRB # 03-05-117
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7. If you don’t want to be in this study, you don’t have to participate. Remember,
being in this study is up to you and no one will be upset if you don’t want to
participate or even if you change your mind later and want to stop.
8. You can ask any questions that you have about the study. If you have a
question later that you didn’t think of now, you can talk to me at school or call
me at school, 562-944-0135 or ask me next time.
9. Signing your name at the bottom means that you agree to be in this study.
You and your parents will be given a copy of this form after you have signed it.
Name of Subject Date
Subject’s Signature
Name of Investigator Date (must be same as
Subject’s)
Investigator’s Signature
USC UPIRB #: 03-05-117
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use
UNIVERSITY
University of Southern California
OP SOUTHERN „ ■ c ^ ,
---------------- Rossier School of Education
CALIFORNIA „ .
— * Science Education
INFORM ED CONSENT FOR NON-MEDICAL RESEARCH
Rossier School of
Education
CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE IN RESEARCH
AN INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF SELECTED
PREREADING ACTIVITIES ON STUDENT CONTENT
LEARNING THROUGH LABORATORY ACTIVITIES
You are asked to allow your child to participate in a research study conducted by
William F. McComas, PhD. and Jesse Kass, Ed.M, from the Science Education
Department at the University of Southern California. The results of this study will
be used by Jesse Kass as part of his doctoral dissertation. You were selected as a
possible participant in this study because your child is in seventh grade at Graves
Middle School. A total of 360 subjects will be selected from the seventh grade to
participate. Your participation is voluntary.
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to find out if one way of teaching science is better
than another.
PROCEDURES
If you allow your child to volunteer to participate in this study, here is what will
happen:
On Day One of the study, your child’s regular classroom teacher will administer a
pretest.
On Day Two of the study Mr. Kass will come into the classrooms and
u s e UPIRB # 03-05-117
U niversity o f
S o u th ern C a lifo rn ia
W a ite Phillips Hall
Los A ngeles,
C a lifo rn ia 90089-0031
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
administered either a K-W-L chart, a anticipation guide, or have a discussion.
These are simply different ways of teaching and your child may already use them.
The students will then do an activity about convection currents or levers. These
activities are group activities.
On Day Three of the study,, your child’s regular classroom teacher will
administer a posttest.
The pretest and the posttest will be identical and will be questions typically asked
on a seventh grade science test.
I will audiotape the classes to make sure that I teach all the classes properly. I will
not use any of the voices or statements of the children.
I will never be using the names of your child. They do not need to put their name
on any of the papers I will be using.
The study will take place over one class period in your child’s regular science
classroom. Your child’s regular science teacher will give the tests.
POTENTIAL RISKS AND DISCOMFORTS
There is no risk, whatsoever, to your child. It will be as if they have a substitute
teacher for one day.
POTENTIAL BENEFITS TO SUBJECTS AND/OR TO SOCIETY
Your child may have an interesting science lesson for one day.
If the study works out well, Mr. Kass may be able to help other science teachers
teach better.
PAYMENT/COMPENSATION FOR PARTICIPATION
Your child will not receive anything for participating in the study.
u s e UPIRB # 03-05-117
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
CONFIDENTIALITY
Any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be
identified with you or your child will remain confidential and will be disclosed
only with your permission or as required by law.
If you want to review the audiotape or the tests or any other materials from the
study, you can do so. You can contact me at Graves Middle School at 562-944-
0135 or you can contact Dr. William McComas at The University of Southern
California at 210-740-3470. We will be happy to show you all the materials form
the study.
No one else will be hearing or seeing any of the materials. I will hold on to all the
materials until the end of the study, then I will destroy everything.
When the results of the research are published or discussed in conferences, no
information will be included that would reveal your identity. If photographs,
videos, or audiotape recordings of you will be used for educational purposes, your
identity will be protected or disguised.
PARTICIPATION AND WITHDRAWAL
You can choose whether to be in this study or not. If you volunteer to be in this
study, you may withdraw at any time without consequences of any kind. You
may also refuse to answer any questions you don’t want to answer and still remain
in the study. The investigator may withdraw you from this research if
circumstances arise which warrant doing so.
IDENTIFICATION OF INVESTIGATORS
If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to
contact Dr. William McComas at The University of Southern California at 210-
740-3470 or me, Jesse Kass, at Graves Middle School at 562-944-0135
RIGHTS OF RESEARCH SUBJECTS
You may withdraw your consent at any time and discontinue participation without
penalty. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your
u s e UPIRB # 03-05-117
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
participation in this research study. If you have questions regarding your rights as
a research subject, contact the University Park IRB, Grace Ford Salvatori
Building, Room 306, Los Angeles, CA 90089-1695, (213) 821-5272 or
upirb@usc.edu.
SIGNATURE OF RESEARCH SUBJECT, PARENT OR LEGAL
REPRESENTATIVE.
I understand the procedures described above, have carefully read the information
contained in the Experimental Subject’s Bill of Rights for Psychosocial Studies,
and I understand fully the rights of a potential subject in a research study
involving people as subjects. My questions have been answered to my
satisfaction, and I agree to participate in this study. I have been given a copy of
this form.
Name of Subject
Name of Parent or Legal Representative (if applicable)
Signature of Subject, Parent or Legal Representative Date
SIGNATURE OF INVESTIGATOR
I have explained the research to the subject or his/her legal representative, and
answered all of his/her questions. I believe that he/she understands the
information described in this document and freely consents to participate.
Name of Investigator
Signature of Investigator Date (must be the same as
subject’s)
u s e UPIRB # 03-05-117
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
SIGNATURE OF WITNESS (If an oral translator is used.)
My signature as witness certified that the subject or his/her legal representative
signed this consent form in my presence as his/her voluntary act and deed.
Name of Witness
Signature of Witness Date (must be the same as
subject’s)
USC UPIRB # 03-05-117
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Kass, Jesse (Shaya) (author)

Core Title An investigation of the impact of selected prereading activities on student content learning through laboratory activities

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Education

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag education, sciences,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor McComas, William (committee chair), Olson, Thomas (committee member), Yaden, David B. (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-493955

Unique identifier UC11340202

Identifier 3133292.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-493955 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3133292.pdf

Dmrecord 493955

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Kass, Jesse (Shaya)

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA