EXERCISES

For the following exercises, work in pairs and describe the research design answering following questions: 1. How will the subjects be assigned to groups? 2. Identify relevant variables 3. Describe the treatment design 4. Identify the way the data will be analyzed.

Exercise 5/ Assignment The dean of a college of education is interested in determining if the education majors who take an optional course in working with students with disabilities are using the strategies learned in the course. He decides to study this issue. Fifty education majors will be randomly assigned to take the course when they enter as freshman. The control group of fifty education majors will be assigned a multicultural education course. The junior field experience will occur prior to the courses, thus allowing monitoring for strategies prior to taking the course. Students will again be monitored for use of strategies during student teaching. In both the pre-course and post-course field experiences, students will each teach ten lessons in their classrooms. These lessons will be videotaped. A researcher will view the videotapes and observe the lessons to determine which strategies are used. Describe this study using a true experimental, pretest-posttest control group design.

Random assignment for two groups (50 each): give a number to each and draw out a number for Group A and then Group B until you finish all the numbers. Indep variable: taking optional course in education Dep variable: use of strategies Group A will get an optional course whereas Group B will not. Strategies will be observed in pre-course and post-course field experiences (teaching ten lessons in their classrooms). (Paired) t-test for the mean scores obtained from the strategies used in pre-course and post-course field experiences is used. Also possible to use descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis.

Exercise 6/A school district has budgeted some funds for satellite television reception of educational broadcasts. The social studies teachers are interested in assessing the results of news broadcasts on the students awareness of international news events in weekly news quizzes in college preparation classes. Students discuss international news events at the beginning of each social studies class. Describe this study using a quasiexperimental, pretest-posttest nonequivalent control group design.

Assign one class as the experimental group (Group A) and another class as the control group (Group B) Indep variable: watching news broadcast Dep variable: awareness of international news She gives a pre-test to both groups. Then, students in the experimental group (Group A) discuss news at the beginning of each class; the control group (Group B) does not do this. After 2 months she gives another test (post-test) to both groups. A t-test for the mean scores obtained from the pre-test and post-test of both groups is calculated.

Exercise 7/ A reading researcher is interested in determining which, if any, of three instructional strategies would be best for improving students reading comprehension. The three instructional strategies are as follows: Questioning: Teaching student to independently generate inferential questions related to what they have read. Imagery: Teaching students to construct and describe vivid mental images of what they have read. Mapping: Teaching children to construct concept maps of what they have read. Use quasi-experimental, pre-test and post-test design

Assign 3 classes: one for questioning, one for imagery and one for mapping Indep variables: questioning, imagery, mapping Dep variable: reading comprehension She gives a pre-test to all groups. Then, students in the Group A receive questioning strategy; the ones in Group B imagery and the ones in Group C mapping strategies. At the end of instruction, the teacher gives all groups a post-test. ANOVA is used
Ind. Var. 1 (Questioning) Ind. Var. 2 (Imagery) Ind. Var. 3 (Mapping)

Dep. Var. (Reading Comprehension)

Exercise 8 The mathematics curriculum in a large school district is undergoing a comprehensive review. Some teachers are advocating a new curriculum that is concept-based (i.e., it focuses on students comprehending mathematics concepts and processes rather than computations). A second group of teachers is advocating an approach that is based on the memorization of various algorithms and formulas for computing the solution to mathematics problems. Finally, there are those in the middle, who are in favor of a balanced approach that would use a blend of methods from both points of view. The central administration decides to test each of these approaches for one year with a sample of students in the third, fourth, and fifth grades.

Because of the logistical problems that would be associated with randomly assigning students to different treatment groups, the curriculum coordinator in charge of this project decides to use several different schools as the sample, each of which would use a different curriculum. Describe this study using a pretest-posttest nonequivalent control group design.