Date of Award
2001
Document Type
Practicum
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Programs for Higher Education
Advisor
Diane Bryant
Keywords
computer-assisted instruction, middle school students, quasi-experimental research, reading achievement, reading instruction, reading levels, STAR Reading assessment, traditional instruction, t-tests
Abstract
The problem for this study was no available data documenting the impact of the computer assisted instruction (CAI) program on the reading levels of students in Pines Middle School's eighth grade reading program. Previous studies have suggested that students in CAI reading programs do increase their reading levels.
The research question for this study was "Will students participating in the computer assisted instruction reading program achieve significantly higher reading levels, as determined by the STAR assessment, than students instructed in the traditional reading program?" The quasi-experimental research methodology was applied because the investigator compared treatment effects in a setting that prohibited control of all relevant variables.
There were two predetermined reading groups. The first group was taught using CAI and the second group using traditional methods. The STAR Reading 2.x test was utilized to determine the levels. The independent variables for this study were the CAI and the traditional methods. The dependent variable was the students' reading levels. A t-test was used to compare the means of the two samples to determine if the null hypothesis should be accepted or rejected.
The critical and calculated t-value results were computed and compared. Subsequently, the null hypothesis was accepted because the calculated t-value was less than the critical t-value.
The results indicated that students taught reading using the CAI did not, on average, achieve significantly higher reading levels than students taught reading using traditional methods. The recommendations were to repeat the study with a larger sample, and control all the variables.