Sydney M. vanderWalComprehensive Review

May 20, 2011

Taking digital classroom photographs and displaying these photographs of student exploring scientific discoveries is what I do…. But I am not sure if it makes a difference in their cognitive growth.

What I have learned….My Leadership Style

Metacognition Brain Research and Brain Structures

Learning Theories my Favorites are: John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky,Lave & Wegner

Science Educational Needs Science Notebook

Draw a Scientist Research Applications Declarative Memory

What I have learned …

Research Methodologies Visual Literacy Science Literacy Organizational Change Children’s Thinking Statistics Mixed Methods How to Write This list could go on and on….

Three Research Projects The foundation to where I am as a researcher.

Quantitative: Independent Study Qualitative: Phenomenology Mixed Methods: Group Project

Independent Study

Science Literacy Through Declarative Memory

One treatment with four levels: science notebooks, digital pictures, science notebooks and pictures, and a control were used to stimulate declarative memory on an post-test 12 weeks after the pre-test was given.

Results : No significance, F(3,74) = 2.56, p=.061, partial eta2= .094.

Further investigation: Significance was determined within sections of the test.

Qualitative ResearchInterviews and Memory Recall with Digital

Classroom Photographs

One-to-one interviews were administered. Students were asked a specific question, allowed to answer and then shown a digital classroom (personal) photograph and were asked the same question again.

Three themes were discovered:

(i) digital captures enforce language comprehension,

(ii) digital captures stimulate informative thought allowing existing knowledge to be retrievable at a greater depth,

(iii) digital captures illustrate what it means to do science transferring personal ownership qualities.

Mixed-Methods ResearchGroup Project

The purpose of this mixed-methods dissertation proposal is to refine a nested, fully mixed, sequential, equal status, explanatory mixed-methods research study using digital classroom photographs as the focal point.

Mixed-Methods ResearchGroup Project

Three identical review tests were given to 5th grade students; however, content areas within the test offered different memory priming: classroom digital photographs, generic photographs, and no photographs.

Research Questions:1. How does visual priming, with photos of past, personal science

experiences, affect students’ recall during science tests as compared to performance on tests without pictures or tests with conceptually related but unfamiliar scenes?

2. Does science test performance in 5th graders improve when test items are accompanied by photographs of scenes from those students’ classrooms or from generic classroom scenes?

3. If the photos affect test performance, then how do students use the photos?

Mixed Method ResearchGroup Project

Findings

No significant difference was found between scores on test items with classroom photographs, generic photographs, and items without photographs.  

However, qualitatively we found that for some students the pictures, both classroom and generic, did seem to positively impact test performance.  These students were overwhelmingly English language learners and disproportionately female.  We found that these students used the pictures in different ways to help them with test responses. A deeper understanding of the characteristics of effective pictures is warranted.  

Proposal: Mixed-Method Research Study

Fourth grade science students will be digitally photographed during science exploration. These photographs will be applied to half of the unit post-test. Tests will be identical except for digital photographs. Small focus groups, one-to-one interviews and science notebook entries will also be used to help explain the impact of digital photographs. Here a more personal approach (photographs of the student in question) will be used to prime memory recall qualities.

Mixed-Methods Research Question

Proposal Overarching: How can the themes that emerge from qualitative

interviewing data and possible science notebook reflections over digital classroom photographs be used to provide a deeper understanding to the possible impact digital classroom photographs have on declarative memory test scores?

Quantitative: Do digital classroom photographs have an impact on

declarative memory recall science assessment scores?

Qualitative: What aspects of small group discussions, one-on-one interviews, and journal entries contribute to explaining the impact of digital classroom photographs?

Conclusion

I am ready! My passion has always been digital classroom photographs and declarative memory recall. But this time I will have learned from my previous research mistakes, and I will be doing research outside my own classroom.