Degree Name

EdD (Doctor of Education)

Program

Educational Leadership

Date of Award

December 1984

Abstract

The problem of this study was to determine if achievement scores in reading and language arts could be increased for students who participated in the newspapers in education program. Ninety-three seventh grade students were selected for the study; seventy-seven students completed the study, sixteen students were lost due to attrition. Two experimental groups and one control group were selected by random assignment from the seventh grade class at one school. The Metropolitan Achievement Test was administered to all students as a pretest. After completion of the experimental treatment in two successive twelve week periods, the Metropolitan Instructional Test for reading and language arts were administered as posttests. The analysis of covariance was the statistical measure utilized to test seven null hypotheses. The effects of participating in the newspaper in education program was determined by comparing the posttest scores of the experimental groups and control group on the Metropolitan Instructional Test for reading and language arts. The appropriate pretest scores were used as a covariate of the posttest to control for any initial inequalities among the groups. Results at the .05 level of significance were used as criteria for accepting the hypotheses. Based on the findings of the study, a significant difference (p < .001) was found between the experimental groups and the control group on reading comprehension. It can be concluded that participating in the newspaper treatment enabled students to significantly increase the reading comprehension test scores in the study. Although the other subtest scores for reading skills were not significant, the adjusted mean scores of the experimental groups and the control group were approximately equal. Scores on the language arts subtests indicated significant differences in usage, spelling, and study skills. Contrary to expectations, the control group scored significantly higher than either experimental group. It can be concluded that participation in the basal text instruction was more successful in increasing student scores on the Metropolitan Achievement Test than participation in the NIE program for language arts. The study also revealed that participation in the NIE program did not produce any significantly different test scores between sexes.

Document Type

Dissertation - unrestricted

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