Group+1+Case+Study

__Mixed Methods Case Study __
Sarah and Melissa P. ===Your local elementary school wants to know the reading ability of their schools 5th grade students. In all, the principle wants to make sure his students are reading at a level to be successful in middle school. The principle asked you to propose a mixed methods study and report your results. ===

===Choose a question related to the reading ability, and design a mixed methods study which will test your question. Think about what qualitative and quantitative information you will use. Keep in mind the steps you will take to formulate, plan and implement your design. Make sure you understand your design, and be able to tell us the steps you took and why. ===

SARAH AND MELISSA P.: I LIKE HOW YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THE COMBINATION OF READING SCORES COUPLED WITH ATTITUDES TO ADDRESS THE PRINCIPAL'S QUESTION. YOU NEED TO BE CAREFUL WITH THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CORRELATION AND CAUSATION WHEN DESIGNING A STUDY. LOOK THROUGH MY COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS BELOW AND SEE IF THE MAKE SENSE. WE CAN DISCUSS FURTHER NEXT CLASS PERIOD. (MY COMMENTS BELOW ARE IN ALL CAPS). THANKS, HILLER

*created together on googledocs.*

__Research Question:__ To what extent does fifth grade students’ confidence in reading grade level texts correlate to students’ tested reading comprehension on similar texts?

__Design Model:__ QUAL-quant

__Qualitative Piece:__
 * Open-ended questions on surveys regarding students’ perception and confidence with reading complex material
 * Interviews with students to determine their attitudes toward reading. Conduct open coding of interviews to look for common themes.

__Quantitative Piece:__
 * Scaled survey of confidence level for all 5th grade students WHERE DOES THIS SCORE COME FROM?
 * Standardized test results from Classscape assessment IS CLASS SCAPES A STANDARDIZED ASSESSMENT?

Method

1. We will administer an open-ended survey to all fifth grade students at Bob Hope Elementary. The survey will determine students’ attitudes toward reading. HOW WILL YOU DESIGN THE QUESTIONS FOR THE SURVEY? 2. Based on the quantitative results of survey, HOW DID YOU OBTAIN QUANTITATIVE RESULTS FROM THE OPEN_ENDED SURVEY? the researchers will create a stratified sample for further interviews. An equal number of students will be selected from the students with the top 5% and bottom 5% attitudes towards reading. The purpose of the interviews is to determine further what similarities and differences exist between the varying attitudes of students. ?? WHAT INFORMATION DO YOU HOPE TO OBTAIN FROM THE INTERVIEWS? HOW WILL YOU DESIGN THE QUESTIONS? WILL THE INTERVIEWS YIELD DIFFERENT INFORMATION FROM THE OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS IN THE SURVEY?

3. The interviews will be transcribed and open coding will be done based on emerging themes.

4. Students will then be given a Classscape reading comprehension test for Goals 2 and 3 of the NCSCOS for fifth grade students.

5. The researchers will determine if students’ attitudes are indicators for what level of reading comprehension they will achieve by doing a correlational analysis of Student Attitude Survey results and Classscape scores. IF YOUR SURVEY RESPONSES ARE OPEN-ENDED, HOW WILL YOU ACHIEVE A SCORE THAT THEN CAN BE CORRELATED WITH CLASS-SCAPE SCORES? DO YOU HAVE A HYPOTHESIS ABOUT THE DIRECTION OF THE CORRELATION?

Reasoning: We decided on open-ended questions because we wanted to be able to provide students to share their thoughts about reading without limiting them to a scale. We then thought interviewing the students with high and low attitudes toward reading would give us a clearer picture of students’ attitudes toward reading.

The purpose of the comprehension test is to determine students’ comprehension abilities.

Based on the survey and interview results we could then conduct a correlational analysis to determine if positive attitudes lead to higher comprehension scores recognizing the limitation of some students in a testing environment. YOU COULD POSSIBLY DETERMINE A CORRELATION< BUT YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO DETERMINE IF POSITIVE ATTITUDES LEAD TO HIGHER COMPREHENSION SCORES. THIS IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CORRELATION AND CAUSATION.