The area of research I chose is related to literacy since I am on the reading specialist track. I am especially interested in the area of comprehension because of my experiences working with children who struggle with comprehension. When I first started out, I didn't know of any strategies to be able to help them. As I learned different strategies and tried to implement them, I often wondered what their lasting impact really was. I am thinking about basing my research problem specifically on three reading comprehension strategies that would be taught to students. These include the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA), picture walks and graphic organizers (story maps).
My quantitative research question is:
What is the effect on standardized test scores by implementing three reading comprehension strategies in second grade classrooms over the course of one school year?
My qualitative research question is:
How do three research-based reading comprehension strategies retain their effectiveness is terms of usage and motivation over a two-year span with elementary students?
My second question is qualitative-based because the data collected would include interviews, observations, surveys and field notes. The data would be more narrative in nature as opposed to the quantitative question in which the data would include numbers and statistics. The role of the researcher in the qualitative question would be more involved and working directly with the teachers and students through interviews and observations. This role is usually typical of qualitative research. In the quantitative question the standardized tests could be administered without the research being involved and the researcher would not develop a close relationship with any of their subjects. For my qualitative problem the participants would be several second grade classes in a middle-class neighborhood whose teachers had volunteered to participate. The teachers would be trained on the specific comprehension strategies in order to implement them effectively and enthusiastically. The following year the third grade teachers of these students would be advised about the study and would allow students to continue using their own comprehension strategies. This same group of students would then be re-assessed two years later. Therefore, this sample group is small and purposeful which coincides with qualitative research. In my quantitative study the participant group could be much larger and more varied since I would not be following specific students. Overall, the qualitative study would have the purpose of capturing and describing naturally occurring behavior while the quantitative study would be used to show a relationship and describe statistics.
I like your topic focus. I think you are going to find a ton of research related to reading comprehension and strategies for improving. These studies might give you some ideas for refining your questions. With your quantitative question you might try to expand your measure of effectiveness. That is, standardized test scores might be used alongside data about other classroom reading comprehension assessments. Maybe I am just showing my bias here. Or maybe this is exactly what the qualitative study would illuminate. It would give a much richer and multifaceted picture of what students had retained from the various teaching strategies.
ReplyDeleteI think you did a really good job describing the differences between the two research paradigms and using your questions as examples. Are you leaning toward one or the other at this point?