My enquiry is nearly finished, at least in terms of the changes I made (which I’ll detail below) and I will have the results from the post intervention survey’s soon. However I do have the initial results from before I did anything.
This graph shows the class that I’m studying and their average self reported level of confidence in each of the seven N5 topics. Already there are a couple of interesting things here, the first four topics to be taught all have a noticeably lower confidence level for my pupils. Second all four of those topics have similar confidence levels. Third there is a big jump between astrophysics and radiation, which coincides with the summer holidays (this class studied this material over two years)*. Lastly the most recent topic (energy) has the highest level of confidence.
I am hoping that by making sure that I cover all of these topics every week in some form (I am using multiple choice questions as a quick and easy way to do this) plus a heavy emphasis to pupils and parents the importance of studying a little bit of each topic regularly rather than revising a big chunk and announcing ‘done’. What I hope will happen is that when I ask the same questions again the confidence in all topics increases, with the most marked increase in the earlier topics. Whilst I don’t have the data yet, the pupils have responded well to this approach in terms of their engagement with revision lessons.
*This is not surprising as such as it is an effect I knew existed (The Effects of Summer Vacation on Achievement Test Scores: A Narrative and Meta-Analytic Review; Cooper, Nye, Charlton, Lindsay, Greathouse; Review of Educational Research, vol 66, issue 3, 1996) , but I am surprised that it was visible in my data that clearly.
PS The graph is not finished and very much a draft!
That’s a very helpful graph in terms of showing how pupil confidence levels can drop depending on when a topic was studied. And the multiple choice starters seems such a simple but effective way to cover a lot in a short space of time and to clearly flag up areas to revise. Did you tend to focus revision lessons on one topic at a time before and now you are including at least a little bit of most things?
Hi Chris,
I like the graphical presentation of your data as it’s very clear and easy to read. Like you, I wasn’t expecting such a marked effect over the summer holiday period – something to muse on for my own classroom practice!
Are you using the multiple choice questions via mini-whiteboards, something like Plickers, or written methods?
Looking forward to hearing more about the impact your enquiry has had on your learners and your own professional learning.
Thanks,
Gill