An experimental study of the effects of active participation on student learning was conducted with two levels of treatment of the independent variable. Intact groups were used because it was reasoned that results generated in classroom settings would likely be more generalizable to other classroom settings. The study was conducted in a medium-sized suburban school district mainly residential in character. Five project teachers were trained to teach a lesson on simple probability. Each teacher taught four lessons to fifth grade classes, two with Treatment I (active student participation) and two with Treatment II (no active student participation). The lessons were alike in all possible respects except the treatment. Immediately upon completion of instruction the students were administered a 15-item multiple choice posttest. The lesson and posttest were both researcher-developed instruments. The instruction and testing lasted about one hour for each class. The total number of students was 447. The research hypothesis for the study was that the posttest mean of classes taught with active participation would be greater than the posttest mean of classes taught without active participation. The statistical hypothesis was stated as (mu)(,1) = (mu)(,2). The results of a t-test were found to be statistically significant at the .05 level causing the statistical hypothesis to be rejected and the research hypothesis to be accepted. From this study, it appears that teaching is more effective when active student participation is incorporated into the teaching method. Additional research is recommended to test the retention of the effect and to test the effect with different age groups.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-1774 |
| Date | 01 January 1982 |
| Creators | Pratton, Jerry D. |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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