An experimental comparison was made of two treatment conditions: a definition statement and a strategy statement, and a no treatment condition. The effect of these variables on the conceptual skills of economically deprived preschoolers was investigated using six geometric configurations. Twelve preschoolers were selected to participate in the study which was conducted in their Head Start classroom. The study utilized an Adapted Alternating Treatment Design with four experimental phases. Phase I was the no treatment condition, Phases II and III were the experimental conditions, and Phase IV was best treatment only condition. Graphic representations of subject performance data was used to portray intersubject and intrasubject variability.Results indicated that the performance of 10 out of 12 (83%) of the subjects improved with analytic assistance and 8 out of 12 (66%) improved using a strategy statement. A limited number (16%) improved using a definition or after receiving no treatment. The findings also demonstrated that the treatment condition producing the best performance in the presence of the other conditions, continued to produce the best performance in the absence of the other conditions.It was concluded that the use of analytic assistance with strategy statements proved most beneficial with economically deprived children. Additionally, the strategy condition caused increased response latency and reduced off task behavior (i.e. looking around the room or playing with test materials). The few children who performed best during the definition condition or no treatment condition made more errors and objected to using a strategy statement.In sum, this investigation demonstrated that while a small proportion of children responded to other conditions, the majority of the children's performance improved following analytic assistance using strategy statements. More specifically, most of the children performed best with strategy statement assistance; for some, however, such assistance appeared to interfere with the learning task.Perhaps the most important practical implication of the present study was that in teaching concepts, strategies and definitions should not be viewed so much as different types of analytic assistance, but as different amounts of prompting. Thus, teachers should fade from strategy to definition assistance and, finally, to no assistance.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BSU/oai:cardinalscholar.bsu.edu:handle/174804 |
| Date | 03 June 2011 |
| Creators | Alvord, Cynthia B. |
| Contributors | Ulman, Jerome D. |
| Source Sets | Ball State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | vii, 124 leaves : ill. ; 28 cm. |
| Source | Virtual Press |
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