Thursday, November 20, 2008

notes for class

The Research Proposal
Proposal Introduction


Briefly describe the P, P, and Q(s)



Sample or Population

My data will come from a regional northern New England school district. I will look at different factors such as number of years that a second language has been taught in a district, grade span of world language learners, and significant assessment data for the subject.

My plan is to have a control group and an experimental group. My control group will have minimum access to technology and will be paper-based. My experimental group will be computer-based and required to be part of an on-line community of learners.

All groups will have the same assessments given and the score will be compared to see if the experimental group scored significantly higher on modern language acquisition and achievement tests.


I selected the source of my data as the National Spanish Exam, and I selected the subjects because recent regionalization has brought several districts under one administrative head. There is not yet a consensus as to what curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices will be used in the world language departments. Additionally, this will lay the groundwork for a distance learning model that could function at multiple sites within the new regional district.

Indicate the size (N or n)

The number of students (n) will range from 60-100 participants.

demographic variables (characteristics)

Students will come from three distinct high schools in northern New England. There will be males and females from grades 10-12. The total number of towns represented will be (find data) and the town size will range from (smallest) to (largest). The wifi capability in the region is (find data) and preliminary surveys indicated that (what percent) of students had access to high speed internet in and out of school.

Instruments
“tools” for data collection

The National Spanish Examination is an online, standardized assessment tool given voluntarily by over 3000 teachers throughout the United States to measure proficiency and achievement of students who are studying Spanish as a second language.

From 1957 until 2005, the National Spanish Examination was administered in a written format.� Beginning in 2006, the National Spanish Examination was administered in an online format through the Quia Corporation and will continue as the first online national foreign language exam.


The means to convert what we observe to symbols

Operationally define the behavior or construct

If an inanimate source, describe where it is and how it was created


Often requires citation.

Validity

How do you know the instrument measures what it is intended to measure?

Unique to a particular purpose for a particular group

professionally and empirically established

Reliability

How do you know the results will be consistent?

Can be empirically established

Research Procedure

What will you do to answer the research question?

Lit Rev provided the justification

What may limit the application of the results?

Imperfections; bias

Address how you attempted too avoid or minimize

Procedure

where, when, how were data collected and managed?


Analysis

-How will you organize the data?

Like to show boys versus girls as well as wiki versus paper based results. Would like to see results by town and look and influential factors beyond the technology integration.

-What quantitative and/or qualitative steps will you take to convert data into information?

I plan on using InspireData to put in the data acquired by the AATSP.

Timeline (for the final project only)

Project a calendar of events

Outcomes

Dates (months only)

Tasks and supporting activities

Presentation, 5 Pwr Pt slides

Title, presenters, school, date

Problem
Purpose
Question
Method (tentative)
Sample, instruments, analysis

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