Introduction
Constructed response items in WKCE exams usually involve open-ended questions whose answers are supposed to be a small paragraph or several sentences. They are used in determining the level at which students engage their cognitive skills and content knowledge.
Contrary to popular belief, they are not intended to elicit opinion from students. Additionally, these questions use real world examples besides the primary and secondary stimuli in testing students (Paris & Stahl, 2005, p. 137). The stimuli may include graphs, maps, and animations. These questions differ from multiple choice questions in that, students are supposed to apply thinking skills to generate their own answers.
Constructed response items help examiners to gauge student thinking to determine if they have capabilities beyond multiple-choice questions. More often than not, students tend to memorize information that can be applied in CR questions. Sometimes, they simply restate the information as it appears in books or any other academic sources. This goes against their primary intention of requiring students to apply their knowledge in answering questions.
The questions are designed to stimulate students in higher-level thinking. This includes information synthesis, generalization making, evaluation of different points of view, identification of patterns and drawing comparisons between different phenomena (Alderson, 2000, p. 86).
Additionally, they are used to engage students to identify different patterns or various conflicting points of view, categorize, or sum up information, construct figures such as charts and graphs from given data and to draw conclusions through explanations and predictions.
A good number of students who take the WKCE exam perform poorly not because they are stupid but because they have not been taken through the process of answering open ended questions that the encounter in CR sections (Foertsch, 1990, p. 200). It is important to note here that the problem affects students and its effects are reflected in their results. Obviously, teachers have a role to play in any good or performance that students produce.
However, it would be grossly unfair to assume that poor performance is a teacher’s problem. Performance here is students’ problem. Clearly, there is something that teachers and/or students are supposed to do that they are not doing. The outcome however is poor results that demands the problem be looked through the students’ perspective.
There needs to be major focus on helping those students who perform poorly participate in remedial programs where they will be tutored on how to answer CR responses.
To achieve the above goal, a concerted effort by teachers and parents is needed. Both parties are critical in helping students especially third graders to use vocabulary, increase self-awareness and develop critical thinking processes.
Besides, instructors and teachers have to be careful how CR questions are set since they may at times be the lead cause of negative attitudes from students towards CR reading. This therefore is a proposal of joint activities by parents and teachers supported by school administrations both at home and school to help third graders improve their skills in tackling CR responses in exams.
Priorities
The priorities for the remedial efforts will be as follows:
- The improvement of third graders in their abilities to carry out critical analysis while processing strategies for reading comprehension
- They will as well need to improve on their written expression.
- The remedial measures will also aim at helping students improve their personal decision making skills that strongly correlate with self-esteem and attitude.
- They will also need to improve on their literacy with special emphasis on comprehension interpretation as wells as expression skills.
- Improved performance in CR questions especially in reading and writing skills will be another priority.
In order to make an informed needs assessment and recommendations on the remedies to the problems ailing the system, a small research study was conducted among the student and teaching population in both public and private schools in Wisconsin.
Data collection Instruments and sources
Abstraction Form
Data used in this research was collected with the aid of an abstraction form. The form was administered as questionnaire to parents and teachers. The form met methodological standards that a credible research demands. The form sought to collect information exhaustively from teachers and parents.
Reporting standards, as laid down by the state’s education regulators, statistical and literature aspects, pilot testing, stakeholder opinion, and review were taken into consideration when structuring the form. The form was very specific on the problem and the suggested remedies in the questions put forward to the participants.
A sample of fifty parents voluntarily took part in the study together with all teachers and instructors involved in teaching third graders. They were required to fill the form exhaustively and in some cases, oral interviews were carried out.
Interviews surveys
These involved third graders in various schools. The interviews were conducted using the “cold probe approach” borrowed from the medical field. The students were not made explicitly aware that they were being interviewed. However, the one on one-interaction sessions were open and students were encouraged to speak freely. A special abstraction form slightly altered from the original one was used as the interview guide. Though not all third graders participated, a majority of those willing did give their opinion.
Besides the above sources, there were a little bit of analysis on the schools records on the performance of the students and the techniques and available teaching resources. These provided an insight into the curriculum and offered a chance to evaluate the system and identify points of weakness that needed to be corrected.
The study also took into account the ethnicity of the students with emphasis given to the major American racial groups. A careful and objective study was carried out t determine the performance of African Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged students.
Data analysis techniques
Descriptive statistics and some bit of inferential statistics were used to analyze the data collected. The descriptive method was used to summarize the data while inferential statistics were used to learn about the student population. Descriptive statistics were used to provide simple summaries concerning the sample and measures used which in turn were generalized on the whole population.
Descriptive statistics was chosen so that they can infuse an element of simplicity to the findings for easier understanding. Inferential statistics on the other hand were used in order to make correct and subjective conclusions about the student population as well as the teaching fraternity.
Summary of results
The summary for the results was as follows:
The analysis centered on the testing and classification of students that scored proficiently in the CR in reading.
- Overally, 52.2 % of the combined population of students scored proficiently
- 62% of economically disadvantaged students posted proficient performance in CR reading.
- 48% of African American students scored proficiently in CR reading
- 51% of students of Hispanic and Cuban origin scored proficiently in CR reading
- Only 30% of students with disabilities had proficient performance.
- 70% of Caucasian and Caucasians of Hispanic origin scored proficiently in CR reading.
Findings
When looked at separately, Latinos and economically disadvantaged students performed poorly in content and/or style writing and passage literature. On the other hand, Caucasians were poor in content and literature. African Americans were the most challenged presenting poor performance in content, literature, sentence formation and passage content.
Overally, the combined student population was found to exhibit weakness and poor performance on content passage and literature. The two are the precursor to the undesirable performances shown over the years.
Majority of the students did cite lack of parental involvement in their school activities while almost half the interviewed population cited lack of clear guidelines to answering CR questions.
The students were of the opinion that all they get was drilling for exams instead of clear guidance of how to apply in exams the knowledge gained. They also cited the need for major change in the approaches that teachers use. Though they did not castigate them, many felt the need for teachers to do more on the procedures used in instructing students on tackling comprehension.
Needs Assessment
Teachers
Third grade teachers will analyze data to determine specific areas where the performance is poor. Areas that are performed below proficiency will be identified and the information that is gathered will be used in the redrawing of master maps that remedy curriculum maps.
There should be a requirement for all teachers to maintain a curriculum map for reading. Further, the maps should be updated on a monthly basis to ensure they meet all the standards required in terms of content, skills, and assessments. These assessments will include open response items that are critical in answering CR questions (Foertsch, 1990, p. 205). Content passages and style that are the most important components of open response reading will be given emphasis.
Teachers should also use explicit teaching procedures when instructing about comprehension. The instruction will be done on both whole and small groups. Landmark assessments will be established to assess benchmarks occasionally to ascertain if progress is made. Additional comprehension strategy instruction will be available to students who teachers may identify as weak or those that they will determine as not fully conversant with the comprehension skills.
Additionally, the use of teaching aids such as semantic as well as graphic organizers will be encouraged. This is besides conducting lessons characterized by generating and answering questions, recognition of story structures, doing summary, and encouraging the making use of mental imagery (Morgan & Anderson, 2008, p. 43). Teachers will also lay emphasis in independent practice while focusing on content reading passages. In isolated cases, additional practice may be given as homework.
Parents
Parents as important stakeholders of their children’s education should be granted full access to the curriculum mappiers. This will help them have a say on which areas need to be included in the curriculum to improve reading skills and consequently CR response in their exams. Prep periods should be introduced so that both teachers and parents of underperforming children conference to map out ways of meeting the instructional needs of the underperforming students (Paris & Stahl, 2005, p. 139).
Furthermore, parents should formulate literacy activities that their children will be involved in after school. These activities will be aimed at improving the students’ attitudes and generating some excitement about reading. These activities will also be useful in building their confidence hence help in self-awareness creation.
Suggested CR Question setting tips
These questions should always be based on specific stimuli and should be set in such a way that they range from the simplest to the most complex. The first question should be general with the answer not far from the stimuli while the second question should be geared towards helping the student make connections between the different parts of the stimuli.
Finally, the last question should nudge the student to answer with information that is related to the stimuli but which is not included in the question. Read alouds and discussion groups will aid in vocabulary building.
General Recommendations on improving scores for Third graders
One of the mistakes that system guiders make is the failure to tutor students on how to respond to CR questions. Familiarization of students to CR items will go along way in helping them improve their skills on CR answering.
CR items will be infused to the curriculum for students to study them as part of the syllabus. Student’s meta-cognition is developed better when CR tasks are introduced in classrooms and then given a chance to express themselves to their colleagues. After this is done, they will be in a better position to repeat the same on paper. It will also help in building their confidence and critical thinking process since they will incorporate different ideas from different students (Morgan & Anderson, 2008, p. 65).
A clear understanding of the CR purpose is necessary. Students will learn to appreciate and give it the seriousness it requires. Schools should make a point of availing examples of good CR responses especially to remedial students so that they have a clue to what is expected of them.
The rubrics should also be available to the third graders so that they can use them to evaluate their work. A general rubric booklet for responding to CRs will do the third graders a lot of good. The booklet will help students to be more familiar with the tools that are used to asses them. More importantly, the rubric should be kid friendly to ensure simplicity and easy understanding of its contents.
Conclusion
The above measures may seem drastic in description. It should not be forgotten that the students here are third graders. Some education experts assert that the most important thing in CR reading is the demonstration by students that they have read and understood the text that can be evidenced through their responses (Morgan & Anderson, 2008, p. 58). They further point out that it is their answers need not be neither grammatically correct nor well written.
The responses only have to show that students have answered all parts of a question correctly. Care therefore should be taken to ensure their young minds are not put through unnecessary stress in pursuit of better grades. Some of the methods described above are applicable across the board even to older students beyond third grade. While seriousness should be applied when trying to improve their performance, it is also important that the methods are softened to meet their age and needs (Donahue, 2000, p. 74).
Finally, it is worthy noting that the will to learn comes from within the learner himself/herself. All the above methods and recommendations can be enforced and followed through to the letter but the learners themselves have to have the will to do it. Counseling therefore will do a lot of good to the third graders, as it will help mould their attitudes towards CR reading.
References
Alderson, C, J. (2000). Assessing reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Donahue, L.P. (2000). Reading Report Card for the Nation and the States, 1998 (NAEP). New York: Diane Publishing Company.
Foertsch, A. M. (1990). Reading in and Out of School: Factors Influencing the Literacy Achievement of American Students in Grades 4, 8 and 12 in 1988 and 1990. New York.Nd
Morgan, G. & Anderson, P. (2008). Developing tests and questionnaires for a national assessment of educational of Educational Achievement. Washington: World Bank.
Paris, G. S. & Stahl, A, S. (2005). Children is reading comprehension and assessment. New Jersey: Laurence Erlbaum Associates Inc.