· Why did you choose the analysis methods that you chose?
· How did each method that you chose answer your research question? The study that I am doing about Quizlet will be using both qualitative and quantitative data. When first considering what kind of study I wanted to do, initially I was going to analyze test results and compare them, and so I thought that I would just be using quantitative data. However, as I read more and more studies, it became clear to me that that really wasn’t enough, as it wouldn’t provide me with the whole picture regarding students’ learning. With quantitative data the results are much more cut and dried, but learning also involves emotions as the study deals with people, and it is not just simply a question of if you study in one particular way then a certain result will occur. It is for this reason that I decided to also use qualitative data as well. To this end, students will be given a survey at the end of the study where they will answer questions about their feelings towards Quizlet and what it has to offer, and how often they use it to help them learn new vocabulary. I will be starting my study over the next week or so and will be using quantitative data analysis first. Before teaching students about 20-30 words of new vocabulary, they will be given a pre-test to see how much information they already know. The pre-test will contain 20 of the new vocabulary words and the students will have to write 10 of them into English and 10 into French. These pretest results are likely to be very low, since the students are in French 1 and none of them has any previous knowledge of French. The students will be then be taught the new vocabulary words just using traditional teaching methods (no Quizlet) and given a test on 20 of them – they will have to put 10 words into English and 10 into French. The tests will then be graded and the percentage of correct answers for each student will be recorded. (The difference in percentage between the pre-test and actual test scores will also be noted.) The same procedure will be repeated but this time when learning the new vocabulary words, students will use Quizlet flashcards both at home and in the classroom, and they will also play the game Quizlet live. When the students have taken a vocabulary quiz, which again will include 20 of the new words, their scores will be recorded as a percentage. Once both quizzes are taken, a comparison will be made between the two lots of data. The data recorded will show how many students scored 90% and above on each quiz, between 85-89%, 80-84%, 75-79%, 70-74%, 65-69% and below 65% in each quiz. The number of students who got a better quiz score when using Quizlet as a study aid will also be reported as a percentage. These results will help me determine if Quizlet has helped students acquire new vocabulary more effectively and if they are able to perform better in quizzes. It may also show me that there is no real difference in their test scores if they use Quizlet or not, which is why the second part of study is important, because this will determine if the students enjoy using Quizlet to learn. In this second part of the study students will answer a series of multiple choice questions about their study habits regarding Quizlet. They will record how they feel about using it and whether they believe it is an effective study aid. The results of each answer given will then be recorded as a percentage, and conclusions will be drawn from what the data says. If students respond positively towards Quizlet, ie they say that it’s more fun than learning using traditional teaching methods, or they use it a lot (inside and outside of class) or it makes them feel engaged/motivated to learn/focused or they would be likely to use it to help them study the night before a test, then my study will show that students view Quizlet as a very positive thing and that they believe it helps to advance their learning. In many previous studies qualitative data has been shown to support the use of the Quizlet app when using teaching new vocabulary, but the studies using quantitative data have been much less conclusive. It will be interesting to see the results of the study to see which of the data is most conclusive, qualitative or quantitative, and whether my hypotheses of Quizlet enhancing students learning will be shown in this study. I’m looking forward to analyzing the results!
1 Comment
Jona Sandau
11/10/2018 08:59:18 pm
Natasha, I love following your blogs. You have a great way of making your study accessible and interesting to the reader. I am always inspired to remember to keep my writing readable and interesting after following you! You also have a great way of keeping things manageable that I envy. I am still eagerly awaiting the results of your study!
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI am a French & Spanish teacher at Justin-Siena High School wanting to get new ideas to motivate my students. Archives
March 2019
Categories |