Transcript Name of your project

Vocabulary Strategies to
Improve SAT Scores
Leonardtown High School
Christine Chadwick, Stefanie Glorioso,
Daniel Morris, Marc Pirner
Justification
SIP: Improve SAT scores- “Offer the entire
school testing skills and vocabulary words”
35 Strategies for developing Content Area Vocabulary by
“Content area achievement depends closely on students’
mastery of specialized vocabulary”Our Strategy:
Semantic Mapping
Content Area Examples
•
English- students write the way they talk (or text),
emphasis on vocabulary to help overall academic
English
•
English- explicit academic vocabulary instruction is not
being observed in some classes
•
Government- there are many words and concepts that
are specific to government that are fundamental to
learning / high performance in social studies
•
Chemistry- there are many vocabulary words that are
highly specific to chemistry that are need to be
successful in the sciences
Problem and Population
• Students could improve their verbal SAT scores
and content area achievement with more explicit
vocabulary instruction.
• Population:
• Honors Chemistry
• English 11 and 12 Standard and CM
• Government 10 CM
Semantic Map
• Structured word map
• write the vocabulary word in the center
• connect words that are synonyms, antonyms,
definitions, examples, parts of speech etc.
• Gives students
• context rather than dictionary definition
• usage rather than memorization
• more vocabulary
• Example of student work
Benefits of Strategy
• Allows for a visual/spatial representation of
vocabulary
• Students see the relationships between concepts and
vocabulary
• Requires higher order thinking skills
• Can help activate prior knowledge
Research questions
• Affective Question:
• Do the students feel comfortable using
content area vocabulary?
• General Questions:
• Are the students using the vocabulary?
• Are students’ vocabulary scores rising?
Data collection plan
Pre-post Tests
Observation
Student Work
Do students feel
comfortable using
content
vocabulary?
X
X
X
Are the students
using the
vocabulary?
X
X
X
Are vocabulary
scores rising?
X
X
X
Pre-post Assessment I
• Half of the questions on the pre-post assessment will
look like the following question:
• (Vocabulary Word)
• A. I have never encounter this word before.
• B. I have seen this word before.
• C. I can define this word.
• D. I have used this word before
• Other half to check student understanding of each vocabulary
word.
Pre-post Assessment II
•
10 vocabulary words
•
Words will be used in context
•
Students will determine whether the word is
used correctly
•
Selected response format
•
Post assessment- vocabulary quiz
Observation guidelines
• Specific items to observe:
• If the students used vocabulary words
• When and how often students use vocabulary
words in speech and writing
• Tally of how many times students use
vocabulary words
• Questions to think about during observation:
• Do students hesitate when attempting to use
vocabulary words?
Timeline
• Each group member will complete every step on
the decided day in their respective classrooms.
• October 18: pre-test 1 will be given with the
vocabulary for the week.
• October 22: post-test 1 will be given for the same
vocabulary.
• October 25: pre-test 2 given with vocabulary for the
week.
• Week of October 26: strategy implemented
• October 29: post-test 2 will be given for the same
vocabulary
• November 8 and 9: analyze data
English 11 Results
Quantitative Data
• Vocabulary words
used correctly
• Student view on
vocabulary knowledge
• Pre-post 1: p=1.846E-12
Significant
• Pre-post 3: p=3.787E-23
Significant
• Pre-post 2: p=0.308
Not Significant
• Pre-post 4: p=3.376E-16
Significant
• Post-post 1: p=3.153E-11
Significant
• Post-Post 2: p=6.182E-5
Significant
• The semantic maps
made a significant
difference in increasing
vocabulary scores.
• Semantic maps made a
significant difference in
increasing student self view
of vocabulary knowledge
English 12 Results
Quantitative Data
• Vocabulary words
used correctly
• Student view of
vocabulary use
• Pre-post 1: p=0.102
Not Significant
• Pre-post 1: p= 3.16x10^5 Significant
• Pre-post 2: p=2.37x10^4 Significant
• Pre-post 2: p=1.28x10^10 Significant
• Post-post 1: p=0.0516
Not Significant
• Post-post 1: p=8.51x10^3 Significant
• The semantic maps
made a significant
difference in
increasing
vocabulary scores.
• The semantic maps
made a significant
difference in
increasing vocabulary
scores.
Chemistry Honors Results
• Vocabulary Words Correctly Used
• Pre test 1: Post test 1 Ttest p.= 2.03x10-6
• This shows that the students made significant improvements
on their knowledge of the vocabulary words from the pre test
to the post test.
• Pretest 2: Post test 2 Ttest p.= 8.95x10-13
• This shows that the students made significant improvements
on their knowledge of the vocabulary words from the pre test
to the post test.
• Post test 1: Post test 2 Ttest p.= 0.0769
•
There is no statistical significant difference between the two
post tests, but is approaching significance..
Chemistry Honors Results
• Student View on Vocabulary Knowledge
• Pre-test 1: Post test 1 Ttest p.= 3.55x10-9
•
This shows that the students made significant improvements
in their knowledge of the vocabulary words from the pre test
to the post test.
• Pre-test 2: Post-test 2 Ttest p.= 1.37x10-16
•
This shows that the students made significant improvements
in their knowledge of the vocabulary words from the pre test
to the post test.
• Post test 1: Post test 2 Ttest p.= 0.0215
•
This shows that the students felt they knew the words more
after they did the semantic maps than when they did not use
any type of formal strategy.
Experiment Variation
•
With this variation of the experiment, the same test was
given 3 different times:
•
Pre-test- first time they see the test
•
Post-test – second time- still no intervention
•
Final- third time after semantic mapping
•
Data is compared between pre-post, pre-final, and postfinal to determine whether or not the intervention was
successful
Government Results
• Vocabulary words
used correctly
•
Pre-post: p= 0.341761
Not significant
•
Pre-final: p= 0.000149
Significant
•
Post-final: p=4.75131E-05
Significant
•
The semantic mapping
technique made a
significant difference in
increasing vocabulary
scores.
• Students view on
vocabulary
knowledgePre-post: p=
0.003989
SignificantPre-final: p=
1.34406E-12
Significant
Post-final: p= 2.80948E-07
SignificantThe semantic
mapping technique made a
significant difference in
increasing student comfort with
vocabulary.
Findings from observations
• Few observations were made:
• rarely using vocabulary words in English or
Government class
• used more in practice in Chemistry
• used when explicitly asked to
• Students recognized words when used by others
Overall Findings
• Vocabulary scores increased from Post 1 to Post 2
• Student view of vocabulary use increased
• Rare student use of vocabulary words in the classroom
setting, more confidence and use in Chemistry
• Recognition of vocabulary words when used
Answers to research
questions
• Are the students using the
vocabulary?
• Students use vocabulary rarely
• Students reported using vocabulary words more
often after the implementation of semantic
mapping
• Therefore- semantic mapping increases student
use of vocabulary words
Answers to research
questions
• Are students’ vocabulary scores
rising?
•
Yes, scores are rising in English and Government, but
not in Chemistry
•
could be due to a lack of vocabulary routine in
Chemistry.
Discussion
•
This strategy yielded overall positive results
although reimplementation would help to provide
more reliable results
•
Reasons data could be flawed:
•
•
•
Faulty selected response questions
•
•
•
difficulty of vocabulary words varied across data sets
Strategies were not implemented identically in all
classrooms, nor did they follow a specific procedure
Timing of the tests
Deviation from observation guidelines
Too many words in a short amount of time for Chemistry
Next steps?
• Implications for Future Research:
– strategy should be implemented identically across all
content areas
– use fewer vocabulary words of relatively equal difficulty
– could be broken into two separate studies
–One study on vocabulary scores
–specify use as a study tool
–One study on student view on vocabulary use
Back to the big picture
• Semantic mapping is one of many study tools
• Students need to learn about different study
tools
• encouraged to use other visuals as study
tools to study for the SAT.