CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
3.9 Phases of the Research Project
62 The instruments above were used during three specific phases of the study project, namely: pre-intervention, intervention; and post-intervention phase. Use of each instrument will be discussed within the context of the relevant phase.
63 Figure 7: The Three Phases of the Research Study
3.9.1 Phase 1: Pre-intervention
Phase 1 consisted of an initial writing task (see Appendix 3) to assess the level of academic literacy with which the students entered into the programme with, and based on the results, those who would be tracked were chosen. The writing task consisted of asking the students to give an opinion on a recent statement made in the media about service delivery in South Africa. In hindsight, the initial writing task should perhaps have been a personal narrative on their experiences with reading and writing. Subsequent tasks given to the following year‘s students showed that an essay on their literacy history yielded more valuable and personal insights into their experiences. A questionnaire on literacy history was piloted and then given to the whole study group (see Appendix 4) in order to obtain background information on their experiences with text and print. Initial reading assessments were then conducted with the tracked students.
64 Other reading tests designed to grade the reading age of learners have been conducted previously. For example, Ralfe (2011) made use of the Gapadol Test which was devised in Australia in the early 1970‘s. This test was designed for adolescent readers and assesses reading up to age 16 years 11 months. However due to its age, this test is slightly dated and it was decided to utilise the R2L reading assessments given within the R2L training manual (Rose, 2009). These reading assessments consisted of graded texts ranging from grade 3 to grade 10 level (see Appendix 14). The researcher added an academic text to the range for students who were reading at a higher level. The assessment comprised of noting hesitations and mispronunciations in the individual texts, then dividing the number of ‗errors‘ by the total number of words in the text. The researcher then asked the student questions based on the text he had just read in order to ascertain comprehension. Combined, these gave the researcher the ability to see at which grade level the student was reading at.
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3.9.2 Phase 2: Intervention
The intervention period consisted of five genres taught over two semesters, using the six-stage cycle of R2L. These genres were explanation, exposition and narrative (Appendices 4 - 6) during the first semester and editorial and academic argument texts during the 2nd semester (Appendices 7 – 8). At the end of each R2L cycle, the independent writing task formed the basis of the assignment that the students were given. End of semester examination results were also taken into consideration. There was one exam at the end of each semester, as well as a formal class test per semester. During this intervention period, I also observed the students regarding class participation and attitudes towards the R2L approach. It is at this point that the concern of R2L with the deepening of classroom interaction should be discussed in some detail.
Students unable to read at the necessary levels they need in order to engage the curriculum are less likely to actively participate in classroom learning (Rose &
Martin, 2012:139). Nuthall (2005:919 in Rose & Martin 2012:139) reports that:
―Typically, a few students contribute the majority of the ideas, a few more students one or two ideas, and most students are silent.” It is generally the weaker students who are inclined to ‗hang back‘. If they offer an answer that is incorrect, the teacher may not accept it, which can serve to alienate these students further and cause communication breakdown (Malcolm, 1991 in Rose & Martin, 2012:140). In order to avoid such a situation, every answer offered by a student during class interaction is affirmed. This initially caused some concern to the researcher in this study because she was not sure how to ‗accept‘ an answer that was too far off- target. If the student is told that an incorrect answer is acceptable, the teacher runs the risk of misleading the student. After some considerable time and thought, the researcher believes she found a way to ‗accept‘ such an answer by probing deeper into the thinking behind the student‘s question, i.e. by asking questions of the
66 student regarding the answer. In this way, the researcher felt that the answer could be ‗gently corrected‘ without the student being made to feel inadequate or ‗stupid‘
for offering the original response. As students find their interaction attempts being affirmed, so they begin to increase in confident. As it is the goal of R2L to close the gap between weaker and stronger students, it is important that the classroom discourse is designed in such a way so as to support and encourage the active participation and learning of the weaker students.
In addition to observations and noting of classroom interaction levels, informal discussions were held in class from time to time on the students‘ understanding and perceptions of what they were learning. At the beginning of the 2nd semester, a semi-structured focus group meeting was held to obtain ideas, feelings and opinions of the tracked students and the results were duly recorded. Towards the end of the 2nd semester, reading assessments were conducted again with the tracked group, using the same texts used in the initial reading assessments, to ascertain if there had been any improvement in the reading ability of the participants during the course of the year.
3.9.3 Phase 3: Post-intervention
Post-intervention consisted of collating the data and analysing the questionnaire in order to uncover any patterns and trends such as whether or the weaker students received access to print before entering primary school Results of written assignment tasks were recorded and analysed in order to observe any positive or negative changes in writing skills between the 1st and 2nd semesters.
Both pre- and post-intervention reading test results were recorded and analysed.
Comments and feedback received during the focus group meeting were collated, as well as comments to the researcher from other lecturers on the perceived effects of R2L. These comments were both verbal and written, in the form of emails (see
67 4.1) to the researcher. After the analysis, the results were ‗interpreted‘, meaning that the researcher made her own inferences from the comments, meanings that collate with the data that others collect (Charmaz, 2002).