Leslie Hernandez Brooklyn College CBSE 7202T Dr. Sharon Anne O’Connor- Petruso

1. How will designing literacy instruction based on gender preferences improve literacy comprehension for first grade students? Leslie Hernandez Brooklyn College CBSE 7202T Dr. Sharon Anne O’Connor-Petruso

2. Table of Contents Rationale • Research Design • Threats to Internal Validity • Threats to External Validity • Survey Question Correlation: I enjoy reading vs. I do well in reading • Pre Test Results vs Post Test Results • Correlation of post-test results to opinions on reading • References • I have been working with first grade students in a public school in Brooklyn, New York who are struggling with literacy comprehension. These students do not have difficulty with decoding words and fluency, but struggle to recall main ideas and connections with the texts studied in class. I have observed that these students remain inattentive and lack a motivation to read texts based on constant fidgeting during literacy lessons. Male students do not seem interested during literacy lessons, but female students are sometimes engaged at the fictional texts provided. I wonder if designing literacy instruction based on gender preferences will improve literacy comprehension for both male and female first grade students.

3. Research Design • It is a Quasi-Experimental Design using the symbolic design: OX,O. A single group is pretested (O), exposed to a treatment (X), and post tested (O). • One-Group Pretest-Posttest Design over a period of six weeks. • Students will be given a pre-test, treatment and a post-test, as well as surveys to complete. • First grade teachers from the same urban public school will be given surveys to complete.

4. Threats to Internal Validity • History: Historical events can cause an internal validity threat. This action research project will be conducted over the course of six weeks. There is a possibility of natural disaster or bad weather that may cause schools in the area to close down, therefore delaying any progress in the research. Students may also lose focus if a change in weather occurs outside their windows during periods of research, therefore impacting their pre and post test treatments. • Maturation: Participants in the study could mature and/or have a change of mind about their feelings towards their teachers due to their adjustment into normal classroom routine. • Testing/Pre-test Sensitization: Surveys will only be conducted once, therefore no threats are seen. Pretest can affect posttest if students become more familiar or comfortable with exams and their formats. • Mortality: There is a very small chance that any of the students will be leaving school this late into the school year, unless a child is moving away to a different area in which they transfer out. • Statistical Regression:There will only be one survey per group (one survey per teacher, and one survey per student). Surveys are based on teachers and student’s feelings on the matter of literacy and their preferences, therefore numerical extremes will not exist. However, there is a possible statistical regression for the pre and post test aspect of the research project. • Selection-Maturation Interaction: There is a possibility that students will have different maturation rates. Some students are just entering school starting at first grade and may be scared and unfamiliar with the process of school, while other students are more experienced due to entering the education system in Pre-K or Kindergarten.

5. Threats to External Validity • Generalizable Conditions:It is likely that this study could be reproduced in another school setting and possibly improves literacy comprehension for students. • Multiple Treatment: Students will receive literacy treatment over a six week period twice a week for 2 hours a week. Literacy treatment done by their actual teacher outside of treatment for the research study may have an effect on results. • Experimenter Effects: The interaction the experimenter will have with the teachers in the study will be passing out of the surveys and permission to access their classrooms during literacy lessons twice a week. The experimenter’s gender and age compared to the student’s teacher may have an impact on how students feel about the experimenter. • Reactive Arrangements/Participants Effects:A number of factors concerning how the study was conducted, attitudes of subjects etc.: • Hawthorne Effect: The Hawthorne Effect is essentially when an individual’s behaviors is changed because they know that they are being studied. Students will be pre and post tested but may not change individual behaviors because they are accustomed to pre and post assessments. Unless, students observe me taking notes on them during literacy lessons, their behaviors are not likely to change. • Compensatory Rivalry Effect: There is no control or experimental groups in this research study, therefore there is no comparison group to compete with.

6. Survey Question Correlation: I enjoy reading vs. I do well in reading rxy= .7 This data set explores the relationship between students who enjoy reading and if they do well in reading. Based on the data collected, students who enjoy reading generally do well in reading. The students who disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement "I enjoy reading" generally do not believe that they do well in reading. The way students feel about reading relates to how they feel about how well they do in the subject. The correlation is a positive one with an rxy of 0.7.

7. This graph demonstrates pre and post test results of the students who participated in this research. According to the graph, students scores improved after treatment. Pre Test Class Mean: 64.54545 Post Test Mean: 75.90909

8. Correlation of post-test results to opinions on reading Rxy= .9 The data from this correlation demonstrates that students who have a positive attitude towards reading also had a positive outcome on the post test. Students who do not enjoy reading most likely did not do too well on the post test. Attitudes towards a specific subject do have an impact on test results.

9. References • O’Connor-Petruso, S. (2010). Descriptive Statistics Threats to Validity [PowerPoint slides].