Research Project in Reciprocal Teaching

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    Design/Procedures/Validity

     I used a multiple baseline design across subjects.  I charted responses for three ninth grade students The interventions occurred between February 24, 2004 and March 26, 2004.  Interventions consisted of reciprocal teaching strategies of prediction, question-generating, clarification, and summarization.  Strategies were introduced to each subject on different days.  Because students were reading short passages of informational text, the strategy of prediction was applied at the beginning of reading.  As researched by Brown, Palincsar, and Armbruster, the prediction strategy would be applied more frequently (1994).

PROCEDURES: 1. I administered a reading strategy awareness inventory (Miholic, 1994) to students.    The inventory consisted of ten multiple choice questions covering twenty-five strategies used by good readers.  Students checked as many choices that they thought were effective strategies to use when reading.

2.  I established a baseline by providing students with passages from selections at their independent reading levels.   I assessed their reading levels informally using a variety of passages from Jamestown readers. Students read the passages and answered questions.  The questions included one main idea, two detail questions, one vocabulary in context and one inference question. 

 3.  Prior to beginning the intervention, baseline data was collected. Subject A data was from three sessions, subject C was from four sessions, and subject B was from five sessions.  Just before the intervention, I modeled the strategies of clarifying, questioning, summarizing and predicting.   I began the intervention of reciprocal teaching with subject A.  The intervention consisted of instruction in the use of clarifying, questioning, summarizing and predicting. 

4.  Assessment occurred at the beginning, during, and end of each session. Assessment consisted of ten multiple choice questions, and one or two summary statements.  Results of assessment were recorded in observation journal as well as anecdotal comments.  Intervention began with subject C after four baseline sessions and subject B after five baseline sessions, while continuing with subject A.  Subjects B and C were not in the same instructional group.  Subjects A and C were in the same instructional group when interventions began with subject C. Interventions continued for another 10-11 sessions.

5.  When the intervention phase was completed, the reading strategy awareness inventory was re-administered.

ASSESSMENT was conducted in three ways.  One assessment was a set of 10 comprehension questions designed to test each dependent variable during baseline and intervention phases.  Students were asked to write a one or two sentence summary of the passage.  Another assessment was the reading strategy awareness inventory administered prior to intervention and follow-up.  The third form of assessment was the use of a journal to record observations.  

VALIDITY: Staff members observed several sessions to ensure internal validity.  Observers looked for consistency in introduction, strategy review, formulation of questions and summary statements, and clarification of comprehension questions.  External validity could be determined by replication with other special education students and non special education students in ninth grade.

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