Qualitative_Article

Qualitative Article: “ARE MATH JOURNALS EFFECTIVE'” Marquez Gibson Liberty University 07/28/2013 Summary The title of the article being reviewed is “ARE MATH JOURNALS EFFECTIVE'” The article is written by Blake Palmer. The purpose of the study was to determine if implementing journals in mathematics classroom will significantly impact test scores. The study was conducted in the third grade classroom of a low socioeconomic school in LaGrange, GA. The study did obtain validity, reliability, dependability, and an absence of bias. The data gathered from the study was analyzed by the focus question in which it was gathered for and the data was analyzed holistically. The holistic analysis focused on the concepts of validation, credibility, transferability, and transformational qualities (Palmer, 2011). The students involved with this research study were all third grade students of mixed ability levels. The students came from one home room class and totaled 12. Of the 12, 9 students were male and 3 were female. The racial composition of the class was 10 African American and 2 Caucasian students (Palmer, 2011). All of the students whom participated in the survey were eligible for free and reduced lunch. The students were chosen for the study were the researcher students. The students from the researcher classroom served as both the control and treatment group. There were also 12 teachers who participated in an anonymous survey. The teachers all taught in grades three through five. The instructional plan was also reviewed by a building level administrator from the researcher school. The recurring themes that emerged from all responses of the rubric, interview, and faculty review were (1) student motivation was not addressed, (2) how will mathematical vocabulary be taught,(3) preparation for journal writing, and (4) vagueness of the rubric. The research would have more catalytic validity and referential adequacy. Analysis If a researcher is interested in doing a study on math journals, the researcher would like recommend that they start the journaling process at the beginning of the school year. The qualitative data came from a reflective journal that was kept daily to record events from during the research. The reflective journal was coded for themes in order to be analyzed effectively. The results from the study cannot be generalized for the entire school population due to the small sample size. The results showed that the implementation of math journals did have significant gains from pre-test to post-test. Math journals are an effective strategy for teaching mathematics. The original goal for this study was to have two completely independent groups, but due to unexpected obstacles than was unable to occur. If a research is able to this thesis impacts student learning by showing that math journals can be an effective strategy in significantly increasing test scores. Math journals can be a great tool for teachers looking to incorporate writing across their curriculum. References Palmer, Blake. (2011). A thesis submitted. “ARE MATH JOURNALS EFFECTIVE'” LaGrange College.