¶ … teacher instructional technology with new literacy instruction to improve elementary (K-5) student achievement in reading vocabulary?
The alternative hypothesis would be that new literacy instruction does have th potential to improve elementary (K-5) student achievement in reading vocabulary. In other words that significant difference is found between classrooms that employ new literacy instructions and classrooms that do not use this method.
The null hypothesis would be that no significant difference is found between classrooms that employ new literacy instructions and classrooms that do not use this method.
The study will choose 2 different schools in a certain district with classes k-5 where one school has introduced new literacy techniques (namely technological strategies), and the other school is still employing traditional instruction.
The schools would be as closely matched as possible with students coming from a similar socio-economic background and with their parents generally sharing a similar educational niche (i.e. either largely college educated or largely high-school graduates alone).
Not only will students be closely matched but teachers will be too so that both schools will indicate similar teachers who have similar background experience and credentials.
The study will attempt to have schools that have similar cultural demographics and similar economic resources. In other words, the sole distinguishing feature will be investigation of the variable regarding whether or not new literacy instruction has impacted vocabulary in the school.
Data collection method
The researcher and an assistant will interview the teachers and students (k-5) in the school that has introduced new literacy instruction in their classrooms and have been doing this for at least the previous 2 years. Teachers of the other school (that does not use literacy technology) will...
Literacy instruction will be defined as using technologies such as e-pals, blogs, wikis, and podcasts (McPherson et al., 2006) and employing these for the sake of teaching vocabulary to students.
The classrooms in both schools will be observed and exams as well as vocabulary assignments of students of k-5 in both schools will be evaluated and contrasted to see whether any differences exist in terms of vocabulary performance.
Teachers (of grades k-5) and students (of 3-4 grades) will be given a handout to fill out (a survey). A focus group may also be conducted in both schools where researchers, acting as facilitators will sound teachers k-5 on the influence of their technology as regards teaching (in the one case), and whether they see the need for technology (in the other case). This will be discussed in the context of an open-ended discussion forum with the emphasis on whether or not teacher consider technology to have improved the level of vocabulary attainment in their classrooms.
Data collection
Researcher will hand out the surveys ensuring participants of confidentiality. The survey would be collected at a certain date within that same week. participants will be informed of the purpose of the study and told that they can choose to exclude themselves at any time would they so wish.
Researcher would run the questions through an objective other to ascertain that questions are ethical, easily understood by participant, and does not hurt anyone's susceptibilities, nor are leading.
The same method would be employed with questions of the focus group.
In terms of observation, the researcher may be advised to observe the classroom from two stances, from sometimes entering and observing teacher instruction and other times observing though a one-way mirror and through audio recording since observation impairs and confounds the effects of the study decreasing its…
