Research Question Reflection and Data Collection Plan

Through my literature review of my research question "How does peer teaching effect high school math academic performance?" I found that there was not much research on peer teaching as I had thought of it.  I envisioned assigning students different topics to investigate on their own and present to the class.  I believed this would help the individual student understand the topic in more depth and hopefully be able to present it in a way the other students would understand as well.  In addition, this activity would further students' presentation skills.

However, as I searched for "peer teaching" the term that came up more often was "peer tutoring."  The few "peer teaching" studies I found were more akin to "group teaching" in which groups taught other groups rather than one student teaching the rest of the students, as I had envisioned.  The peer tutoring concept was defined most often as a one-on-one activity in addition to the normal classroom lecture.  The studies that correctly implemented the defined "ClassWide Peer Tutoring" (CWPT) method seemed to experience a large amount of success.  So, I'd like to alter my focus to investigate this type of peer tutoring perhaps in addition to my original idea of peer teaching.

In order to proceed with my own investigation (assuming I had a classroom in which to conduct this investigation!), I would implement CWPT with the proper training and classwide teaming concept as described in the literature I reviewed.  I might also consider defining and implementing my idea of peer teaching as well. Then I would collect mostly quantitative data via pre- and post-tests, academic progress via report cards, and surveys.  I would also include some qualitative data in the surveys in the form of follow up, open ended questions and my own observations of changes in classroom behaviors and attitudes towards the subject (math).

Specifically, my initial plan to collect and triangulate data would include the following:

• Baseline data:
• Pretest on material before CWPT/peer teaching sessions
• Student survey asking
• how much they feel they understand the material beforehand - to assess any prior knowledge - using response choices from "never heard of it" to "expert"
• how do you feel about math (or specific subject) - "love it," "hate it," "scared of it" and everything in between
• by which method(s) do they feel they learn best, with response choices including "teacher lecture," "hands-on activities," "working with peers" and "other"
• Grades from report cards before CWPT/peer teaching sessions
• Results data
• Post test on material after CWPT/peer teaching sessions
• Student survey asking
• how well they feel they understand the material after the session, using the same response choices: from  "never heard of it" to "expert"
• how do you feel about math (or specific subject) - "love it," "hate it," "scared of it" and everything in between
• by which method(s) do they feel they learn best, with response choices including "teacher lecture," "hands-on activities," "working with peers" and "other"
• did the CWPT sessions help with understanding this material, with response choices ranging from "did not help at all" to "helped alot"
• Include follow-up, open-ended question on what was good about the sessions and what did not work well, suggestions for improvement.
• Grades from report cards after CWPT/peer teaching sessions
• Standardized test results, if applicable, compared to previous years classes' results

In addition to the academic results, I'd also be interested in seeing if this experience changed any students' attitudes about how they like to learn and about math (or the subject) in general, via the survey questions.

One concern I have with this type of measurement is not having a control group.  It would be difficult to attribute gains to the specific teaching method itself.  Perhaps if I taught the same subject to two different classes, I could teach one using the traditional method and try the CWPT and peer teaching with the other class.  If that was an option, I would also collect pre-and post-data from the other class, but only include the first question in the pre-and post-survey in the control class.