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Illllll'lljll 3193 H H 745 530 mam]!!! } Michigan Sta to l University WTlllllllfllflll 1 This is to certify that the dissertation entitled The Influences of Gender, Work and Social Habits, and Content Area on Teachers' Perceptions Of Reading Abilities and Scholarship of Middle School Students presented by Edna Knighten Smit has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. Education degree in (Ben A. Bohnhorst Major professor Date October 19, 1984 MCIIi-n- AMa—nniu‘ ‘ F, 'n - 1 - - 0.12771 MSU RETURNING MATERIALS: Place in book drop to LIBRARJES remove this checkout from ABE—QFEEIL your record. FINES will be charged if book is returned after the date stamped below. 991% 89st THE INFLUENCES OF GENDER, WORK AND SOCIAL HABITS, AND CONTENT AREA ON TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF READING ABILITIES AND SCHOLARSHIP OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS By Edna Knighten Smit A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Teacher Education 1984 Copyright by EDNA KNIGHTEN SMIT 1984 THE INFLUENCES OF GENDER, WORK AND SOCIAL HABITS, AND CONTENT AREA ON TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF READING ABILITIES AND SCHOLARSHIP OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS By Edna Knighten Smit AN ABSTRACT OF A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Teacher Education l98u ABSTRACT THE INFLUENCE OF GENDER, WORK AND SOCIAL HABITS, AND CONTENT AREA ON TEACHERS' PERCEPTIONS OF THE READING ABILITIES AND SCHOLARSHIP OF MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS By Edna Knighten Smit Purpose of the study The purpose of the study was to determine whether the gender Of the teacher and the student and the content area Of the teacher influence teachers' perceptions of middle school students' reading abilities and scholarship. The influence of work and social habits was also investigated. Data were collected, analyzed, and compared regarding middle school content-area teachers' perceptions of superior readers and students, reading scores, and work and social habits of students perceived as superior, as well as Of superior readers who were not perceived as superior. Procedure From a population of 1,155 regular classroom students, A5 middle school teachers were asked to identify superior readers and good students. These perceptions were analyzed by gender of teacher and student, content area, work and social habits, and reading scores. Edna Knighten Smit Major Findings It was not necessary for students to have standardized reading test scores in the superior range to be perceived as superior readers and good students by the teachers in this study. Work and social habits and student gender played an important role in teachers' perceptions of their students' reading and scholarship abilities. Girls were perceived by both male and female teachers as being better students and proved to be better students using grade point average as the criterion. However, male teachers identified proportionately more girls than boys as superior readers and good students than did female teachers. Teachers' gender and content area were not factors in the identification process. On the whole teachers' predictions of students' reading abilities and scholarship proved to be accurate. Students who attained reading scores in the superior range but were not identified as superior readers were rated significantly lower in listening, speaking, and reasoning abilities than students who did not attain superior reading scores but were perceived as superior. Middle school teachers considered listening and reasoning to be more important than reading as factors in being a good student. Based on the findings Of this study, current methods of instructing students in listening, speaking, and reasoning skills should be examined more intensively and curricula practices should be developed that focus on including these practices in all instruction. TO my husband, Harvey Albert Smit, and to our children, Nancy, Houston, and Knighten ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many people have provided assistance and support throughout my doctoral program. To Dr. Ben A. Bohnhorst, my academic advisor and chairman of my committee, I owe a debt of gratitude for his unfailing courtesy, kindness, and encouragement. He is truly a gentleman and a scholar. My sincere appreciation is extended to Dr. Lois A. Bader who served on my doctoral committee as director of my dissertation. Her suggestions, guidance, and comments contributed greatly to the writing of this disseration. I am grateful to Dr. Ruth Hill Useem not only for serving on my doctoral committee but also for sharing her wisdom and knowledge with me throughout my program. Her kindness and support will always be remembered and appreciated. My sincere appreciation is also extended to Dr. George Ferns who served on my doctoral committee. He was always there when I needed him. I would also like to thank the principals and teachers of both middle schools who helped me collect the data, as well as sharing their perceptions and opinions with me, and Dr. J. William Smit, who helped me with the programming of the data. Finally, I owe the greatest acknowledgment to all the children whom I have taught, for indeed I have learned more from them than I have taught to them. If 'l' LIST OF TABLES Chapter I. THE P TABLE OF CONTENTS ROBLEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Background of the study . . . . . . . . . Related Research . . . . . . . . . . . . Purpose . . . . . . . . . . . . . Research Questions . . . . . . . . . . Contributions of the study . . . . . Delimitations and Generalizability of Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Definitions of Terms . . . . . . . Organization of Subsequent Chapters . . . II. RELATED LITERATURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . Gender Differences in Reading Achievement and Scholarship . . . . . . . Teachers' Perceptions of Students' Reading Abilities and Scholarship . . . Roles of Listening, Reasoning, and Reading in Schools . . . . . . Listening . . . . . . . . Reasoning . . . . . . . Reading and Reading Tests Summary of Literature Review . III. METHODOLOGY . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Site, Population, and Selection of the Sample . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Procedures . . . . . . . Statistical Treatment of Data . . . . Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv Page vi _I .4 _|—.l UT :00 memA _s._| UTU'I IV. PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA . . . . . . ”8 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . 48 Results of Hypothesis Testing . . . . U8 Results of Structured and Unstructured Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 V. SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Findings and Discussions . . . . . . . . 87 Reading Tests and Teachers' Perceptions . . . . . . . 87 Work and Social Habits, and Gender . 89 Listening, Speaking, and Reasoning Abilities . . . . . . . 91 Implications for Curriculum and Instruction . . . . 96 Recommendations for Further Research . . 97 APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 A. Survey Requesting Recommendations for Special Reading Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 B. Survey Requesting Teachers to Rate Selected Students on Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing and Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . 103 C. Survey Requesting Teachers to Rank Factors of Being a Good Student . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 D. Student of the Month Ballot . . . . . . . . . 107 BIBLIOGRAPHY I I O D I I D D I O O O O D I I I D O . 0 109 Table LIST OF TABLES Students Perceived as Superior Readers in Original Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentages of Superior Readers by Gender . Analysis by Gender of Categories SR, NSR, SNR, and NS/NR I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Teachers' Perceptions of Students' Reading Ability and Reading Ranks . . . . . . . . . Relationship Between the number of Boys and Girls Recommended and the Reading Rank of the Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary of Mean NCE Scores Computed by Teachers' Gender and Student Gender . . . . Reading Ranks of Perceptions as Superior by Male and Female Teachers . . . . . . . . Proportions of Boys and Girls as Recommended by Male and Female Teachers . . . . . . . . Means of Ratings of Work Habits of Recommended Students and Superior Not-Recommended . . . Means of Ratings of Social Habits of Recommended Students and Superior Not-Recommended . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentages of Students of the Month Who are Superior Readers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Percentages of Students of the Month by Gender Students Achieving an A or A— for Third Marking Period in Science by Gender . . . . Students Achieving an A or A— for Third Marking Period in Science by Categories of Recommended or Not Recommended . . . . . . . vi Page 2 A9 50 51 53 55 56 57 58 59 6O 61 63 64 20. 21. 22. 23. 2M. 25. 26. Students Achieving a 3.7 or Above G.P.A. for Three Marking Periods by Gender . . . . . Students Achieving a 3.7 or Above G.P.A. for Three Marking Periods by Categories . . Students Achieving Total Battery Scores in Upper Fifteenth Percentile by Gender . . . Means of Reading Scores of all Recommended Students and Superior Not Recommended Students by Teachers' Content Area . . . . Analysis of Variance Summary Table for Mean Reading Scores of Teachers' Perceptions by Teachers' Subject Area . . . . . . . . . . Ranking of Teachers Opinions of Factors of Being a Good Student . . . . . . . . . . . Means of Not Superior Recommended vs. Superior Not Recommended Boys concerning Listening, Speaking, and Reasoning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Means of Not Superior Recommended vs. Superior Not Recommended Girls concerning Listening, Speaking, and Reasoning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comparison of Mean Reading Scores of Students Recommended by Teachers Aware of Reading Scores and by Teachers Unaware of Reading Scores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Comments of Teachers Concerning Rehaviors of Superior Not Recommended Students . . . . Students' Comments on Why Girls are Perceived as Better Readers and Students . . . . . . Summary of Hypotheses and Results . . . . . 65 65 66 67 68 7O 73 7A 75 78 79 85 CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM Background of the Study "Our schools as they now exist are better fitted to the needs and natures of the girl than of the boy pupils" (Ayres, 1909). This statement, made 75 years ago, described a situation that must have been of great concern for both parents and teachers. Does that situation still obtain today? Do our present-day schools (and teachers) somehow favor girls over boys? If so, this situation should also be a matter of concern to contemporary parents and teachers. The present study arose out of that general concern. But the study has a more specific basis. In 1982 the researcher was a member of a committee in charge of a special reading program for gifted students. To implement that program, the committee asked a group of middle school (sixth through eighth grades) language arts teachers to recommend students who, in their opinion, were superior readers and good students. A summary of these teachers' recommendations may be found in Table 1. Table 1 Students Perceived as Superior Readers in Original Survey Grade Boys Girls 6th grade 18 27 7th grade 27 38 8th grade 15 ”5 Totals 60 (35%) 110 (65%) Are girls better readers than boys? Table 1 would seem to suggest that they are. But is this true? Upon examining reading scores (Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test, Levels D and E), the researcher found that, using the upper 15th percentile as the criterion for a superior reader, in a school population of 811 students there were 201 superior readers, 94 (47%) boys and 107 (53%) girls. This proportion is identical to the proportion of each gender within the student body, 379 (“7%) boys and 432 (53%) girls. The converse question might be asked: Are boys worse readers than girls? An examination of the lower 30th percentile showed this comprised of 8A students, with a breakdown of A1 (A9%) boys and H3 (51%) girls. It would appear then that data obtained from reading scores do not support teachers' perception that girls are better readers than boys. Neither do the data support the converse perception that boys are generally worse readers than girls. Further analysis of the data showed that although both male and female language arts teachers recommended more girls than boys as superior readers, the ratio of girls recommended over boys was greater in the case of male than of female teachers. Eight male teachers recommended 25 boys and 57 girls; eight female teachers recommended 35 boys and 53 girls. The preceding findings give rise to the following question: Considering the students who were recommended and those who were not recommended as superior readers, were the superior readers identified by their teachers? Examining the data in light of this question, the researcher found that of the 94 boys who obtained reading scores in the upper 15th percentile, only 40 (R3%) had been identified as superior readers; of the 107 girls, 61 (57%) had been identified. Another way to approach this question is to examine the mean reading scores of the students recommended as superior readers. When this was done, it was found that in all three grades the recommended boys' mean scores were higher than those of the recommended girls. For all of the boys the mean score was in the 90th percentile, and for all of the girls the mean score was in the 82nd percentile. In the middle school in which the original survey was conducted, the reading program is "Reading in the Content Area." All teachers are considered teachers of reading. Since this is the case, it would be appropriate to ask, not just the language arts teachers, but all content—area teachers their opinions of good readers. This was done to determine if there was a difference in the perceptions of teachers in a variety of subject areas regarding which students were superior readers. It is generally supposed that academic success depends on superior reading ability and that a very high score on a standardized reading test is an acceptable criterion of such ability. It would seem appropriate, therefore, to acquire the recommendations of good students and superior readers from various content-area teachers and to compare these recommendations with results of a standardized reading test. It also would be of interest to ask the following related questions: Is it necessary to acquire reading scores in the superior range to be viewed as a superior reader and a good student? Is gender a factor in the identification process? What part do students' work and social habits play in teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities? In teachers' opinions, how important is reading ability as a factor related to school success? Is one group of content- area teachers better at identifying superior readers than other groups? In the cases of those students who attained a superior reading score on a standardized reading test but were not perceived as superior readers by their teachers, what characteristics prevented them from being so perceived? The foregoing considerations gave rise to the present study. Related Research To acquire a better understanding of the problem examined in this research, an ERIC computer search was conducted using terms that apply to this study: teachers' perceptions, predictors, and gender differences. In this search, no study was located that included language arts, social studies, math, and science teachers' perceptions of middle school students' reading abilities and scholarship. One important research project in this area is Krupczak's (1972) study of the relationship among student self-concept of academic ability, teacher perception of student academic ability and student achievement. The study included 520 sixth graders and 35 teachers. Krupczak concluded that both self-perception and teacher perception of student academic ability appeared to be partially limiting factors in school achievement. He called for further research to clarify the observed correlations to determine if they were causal or concomitant. The investigator observes that teachers perceived girls as having more academic ability than boys, although there were no statistically significant differences between the sexes as measured by IQ tests. Krupczak stated that the teacher perception that girls surpass boys in academic ability needs to be clarified in conjunction with grade point average and/or achievement test data. Another study, involving eight teachers (one male, seven female) and 204 students in grades 2 through A, was conducted by Brown and Sherbenou in 1981. The investigators found that the teachers' perceptions of children's reading ability were more closely related to the teachers' perceptions of the children's classroom behavior than to reading performance as measured by tests. Gender differences were not explored. Brown and Sherbenou stated that researchers had not yet fully explored the relationships between teachers' estimate of how well certain students read and the teachers' perceptions of those children's classroom behaviors. Frager (198A) recommended that reading researchers pursue descriptive inquiry into teacher thinking and behavior. He asked, "How does knowledge of reading test procedures and scores affect the teachers' daily classroom observations of students' reading abilities and the accuracy of their judgments of reading strengths and weaknesses?" (p. 405). In their 1983 study, "Teacher and Student Perceptions of Content Area Reading," Smith and Feathers stated that there is a need to learn about the role of reading in a variety of content classes. Finally, Downing (1982) stated, "We need indepth research within each single culture to investigate which sex related reading differences are consistent and valid in that particular culture." Because there seems to be a dearth of research regarding the middle school and no studies were located that involved all the variables included in this study--gender of students and teachers, subject areas of teachers, perceived reading abilities, and reading scores attained on a standardized reading test--this researcher was prompted to conduct a more complete statistical analysis Of the influences of gender, work and social habits, and content area on teachers' perceptions of middle school students' reading abilities and scholarship. Purpose The purpose of this study is to determine whether the gender of the teacher, the gender of the student, and the content area of the teacher influence teachers' perceptions of middle school students' reading abilities and scholarship. The influence of work and social habits was also investigated. Data were collected, analyzed, and compared regarding middle school content-area teachers' perceptions of superior readers and students, reading scores, and work and social habits of students perceived as superior, as well as of superior readers who were not perceived as superior. Research Questions The following questions were formulated to guide the collection of data in this study: 1. Are those students who attain reading scores in the superior range perceived as superior readers and good students by their teachers? Are gender of teacher and student, work and social habits of student, and content area of teacher factors in the identification of superior readers and good students? Are girls better students than boys in middle school? What part do listening, speaking, and reasoning abilities have in teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship? How important is reading ability in teachers' evaluations of factors that contribute to school success? What characteristics do those students who attained superior reading scores on a standardized reading test but were not perceived as superior appear to possess that prevented their being recommended for a Special reading program? Is there a difference between the mean scores of students recommended by teachers aware of reading scores and teachers unaware of reading scores? 8. How do students account for teachers' perceptions that girls are better readers and students than boys? Contributions of the Study This study should add to the basic understanding of the nature of reading and scholarship behaviors of students and of teachers' perceptions of these behaviors. The findings should also have implications for curriculum deveIOpment, instruction, teacher in-service, and counseling. Further, the study findings may help teachers become aware of possible sex discrimination and of any stereotypical behaviors that might deter schools from functioning as institutions that encourage, educate, and guide students' full development. Delimitations and GeneraliZability of Findings 1. The study was limited to lower to upper-middle- class Caucasian students in two schools in a non- industrialized suburb of a large midwestern city. The average reading level of the students in the population was above the national norm. Hence the results are not generalizable to populations with characteristics unlike those of the sample used. 10 This study did not include Specific measures or Special programs of supportive assistance to individual students. However, the findings will be discussed with regard to conditions that appear to affect superior readers who are not perceived as such so that educators might direct their attention to factors under their control that might rectify these conditions. The researcher did not attempt to determine teachers' reasons for not recommending students in specific cases, but investigated characteristics of groups as a whole. Definition of Terms The following terms are defined in the context in which they were used in this study: Superior reader-~A superior reader is one who scored in the 85th to 99th percentile on a standardized reading test or Normal Curve Equivalent (NCE) 72—99 (Rank 1). Non-superior reader-~A non-superior reader is one who scored below the 85th percentile on a standardized reading test, or below NCE 72. 11 Good reader--A good reader is one who scored in the 65th to 84th percentile on a standardized reading test, or NCE 58-71 (Rank 2). Average reader--An average reader is one who scored in the 35th to 6Nth percentile on a standardized reading test, or NCE M2-57 (Rank 3). Poor reader--A poor reader is one who scored in the 0 to 34th percentile on a standardized reading test, or NCE 1-41 (Rank A). Good student--A good student is one who was perceived by his teacher as a good thinker, articulate, and one who applies himself/herself to the assigned task. Teacher'sgperception--Teacher's perception is the teacher's evaluation of students in regard to their reading and scholarship behaviors. Content-area teachers--Content-area teachers are teachers of language arts, social studies, mathematics, and science. 12 Students of the Month-—Students of the Month is a program in one of the two schools included in this study that was designed to let students know that positive behavior is appreciated and noticed. Each teacher selects one student from his/her classes to be a student of the month. Once recognized, the student may not be nominated again in the same school year. The criteria for selection are: maintains high standards of citizenship, helps others, works well in class, demonstrates friendliness, shows respect and care for others, maintains a positive attitude, and demonstrates reSponsibility. (See Appendix D.) Superior Reader Recommended (SR)--Superior Reader Recommended is a student who scored in the upper 15th percentile on a standardized reading test and was recommended for the special reading program at least once by one of the language arts, social studies, mathematics, or science teachers. Superior Reader Not Recommended (SNR)--Superior Reader Not Recommended is a student who has attained a reading score in the upper 15th percentile on a standardized reading test but received no recommendation for the special reading program. 13 Non Superior Recommended (NSR)--Non Superior Recommended refers to a student who attained a score below the 85th percentile on a standardized reading test but received a teacher recommendation for the special reading program. Non Superior Not Recommended (NS/NR)--Non Superior Not Recommended refers to a student who attained a score of below 85th percentile on a standardized reading test and received no teacher recommendation for the special reading program. Team teaching—-Team teaching refers to a group of teachers working together to instruct one group of students in the content areas of language arts, social studies, mathematics, and science. Block teaching--Block teaching refers to one teacher teaching two subjects to one group of students (usually language arts/social studies or mathematics/science). In School B, three teachers teach all content area subjects; Reasoning--Reasoning is the drawing of inferences, thinking with a view to drawing a conclusion believed to be valid, and using induction and deduction or a combination of these in an effort to make a decision or solve a problem. 14 Organization of Subsequent Chapters Chapter I included a discussion of the background of the problem, importance of the study, purpose of the study, research questions to be explored, generalizability of the findings, delimitations of the study, and definitions of terms. In Chapter II, pertinent research and literature related to the subject of this study are reviewed. Chapter III contains a description of the design and methodology used in the study. The data collected and analyzed in the study are presented and analyzed in Chapter IV. In Chapter V, a summary of the study, discussion of the findings, appropriate conclusions, and recommendations for future research are presented. CHAPTER II RELATED LITERATURE Introduction The purpose of this study was to determine whether the gender of the teacher and student and the content area of the teacher influence teachers' perceptions of middle school students' reading abilities and scholarship. The influence of work and social habits was also investigated. The review of literature is organized under three main headings: (1) gender differences in reading achievement and scholarship, (2) teachers' perceptions of students' reading ability and scholarship, and (3) roles of listening, reasoning, and reading in schools. Gender Differences In Reading Achievement and Scholarship Research on gender differences in reading achievement has produced a plethora of sometimes conflicting conclusions. Anderson, Hughes, and Dixon (1957) reported that even though girls in their sample learned to read earlier than boys, once the children learned to read, the rate of subsequent gain per unit of time was as great for the boys as for the girls. By the end of elementary school, the gap had closed. No differences attributable to sex were shown, either when rate of reading development as a whole 15 16 was examined or when rate was classified in terms of different beginning reading periods (p. ”93). No significant gender differences resulted from classifying the children into fast (2.00+), slow (.99-), and residual (1:00- 1:99) slope categories. Shaw and McCuen (1960) reported that girls who are underachievers in high school usually begin to be so at about the onset of puberty, whereas boys Who fall in the same category have been underachieving since elementary school. They linked this finding with the age at which girls assume the adult female sex role. Still another study in this area was conducted by Gates (1961). He reported that girls' reading scores are higher than boy's from third to eighth grades. To explain this phenomenon, he suggested an environmental rather than a hereditary cause and stated that it is possible that more girls than boys pursue a kind of life style in which more respect, more incentives, and more Opportunities for reading appear earlier and persist longer. As a result of an international study, Preston (1962) concluded that gender differences in reading are more cultural than physiological. He compared reading achievement of German and American children in fourth and sixth grades and found that, with American children, the mean scores were higher for girls than boys, but with German children the reverse was true. Preston noted that there were more men teachers in German elementary schools than in 17 American elementary schools but drew no conclusions from this observation. In regard to gender differences in achievement, Maccoby (1966) stated: . . . The pressures on bright girls not to do as well as they can tend to be augmented in adolescence, so that correlations between ability and achievement ought to be higher during the early school years. By contrast, peer-group pressures on boys in the early school years are Often (though not always) in the direction of achievement in sports and other nonacademic pursuits; and the boys of this age are frequently engaged in efforts to achieve autonomy, especially in relation to their mother, with the result that they are less willing than girls to accede to the demands of their predominantly female teachers. In adolescence, however, eSpecially for middle class boys, the pressures for college entrance and professional preparation begin to be felt, with the result that the more intelligent boys begin to buckle down at this time. (p.31-32) In his 1968 study of the relationship between gender differences and reading, Stauffer stated that even though girls begin to read earlier than boys, by the end of third grade the two sexes are nearly equal. He said that when reading is taught as a communication process, boys succeed as well as girls. Traxler (1969) compared eighth and ninth grade boys and girls on untimed paragraph comprehension. He found insignificant the slight difference favoring girls. In a longitudinal study of gender differences in reading achievement in grades A through 8, Dakin (1970) reported no significant differences in mean scores between the sexes and no significant trends. 18 In a study that included eight male and eight female junior high school teachers, half math and half social studies, Sikes (1971) showed that although male and female teachers behaved differently toward boys and girls, they did not discriminate against either. Both groups of teachers treated boys and girls differently but not in ways that could be expected to be detrimental to their learning experience. Almost no differences were found on the teacher gender by student gender interaction. According to Dwyer (1973), the usual explanations for Observed gender differences fall into four categories: differential rate or level of maturation, reader content, negative treatment of boys by female teachers, and cultural expections for gender role. In an international study conducted in 1976, Johnson investigated gender differences in reading ability among elementary school students in four English-speaking countries--Canada, United States, England, and Nigeria. In England and Nigeria, boys scored better than girls on the majority of the comparisons, but in Canada and the United States, the girls scored better. Lahaderne (1976) conducted an extensive review of research concerning negative treatment of boys by female teachers. She stated that the evidence cited in favor of this belief indicated that, compared to girls, boys are scolded more often, receive lower grades, and are perceived as less able and as having more problems. However, these 19 findings came from studies that dealt only with female teachers or did not analyze the data according to the teacher's gender. Lahaderne reviewed the earlier research comparing male and female elementary school teachers and found that, on the whole, male and female teachers did not differ significantly in their perceptions or treatments of boys and girls. Asher (1977), after investigating the hypothesis that the predominance of female teachers in‘ elementary schools is responsible for boys' poorer reading performance, concluded that this assumption was not supported by the data. Gross (1978) stated that the three physiological reasons most frequently given to explain the effects of gender differences on learning to read are maturational lag, crossed dominance, and vulnerability to stress and trauma. In the report of her research she presented a summary of 13 United States sex-ratio studies on reading disability of elementary age students. These studies ranged from 1932 to 197A and reported ratios from 3:1 to 15:1 boys to girls. In her study in Israeli Kibbutzim, where there is no sex differentiation in child rearing, she examined all of these three explanations and diSproved them. In his book entitled Reading and Reasoning, Downing (1979) reviewed the research on sex role stereotypes and standards and concluded that any difference in boys and girls learning to read and in their reading abilities are due to cultural, not physiological, causes. After 2O investigating this question at the high School level, Wirtenberg, Klein, Richardson, and Thomas, (1981) stated that there are few or no gender differences in the student compositions of English, foreign languages, biology, and social studies classes. High school males take more math and physics than girls, and math is considered a crucial filter that historically has excluded women from engineering and physics. In his review of research on language differences between male and females, Fillmer (1982) pointed out that, in English, women tend to avoid aggressive and vigorous language. He reviewed the research conducted in this area over a 30-year span and contended that development of sexism in language affects both children's language and thinking. As children learn their language, they notice that both in spoken and written language males are the vigorous and dominant sex. "Women Speak and are spoken of as if they were docile, passive, and subservient to men" (p. 87). The findings reported in the foregoing studies impelled this researcher to investigate the common explanation that boys' difficulties in school stem from two sources: discrimination against boys by female teachers, and cultural expectations related to the male gender role. Teachers' Perceptions of Students' Reading Ability and Scholarship In a 1972 study that included 520 sixth grade students and 35 teachers, Krupczak found that teacher perception 21 scores were strong predictors of grade point average and Stanford Achievement Test scores. He observed that teachers perceived girls as having more academic ability than boys, although there were no statistically significant differences between them as measured by intelligence tests. Brown and Sherbenou (1981) conducted a study that included eight teachers and 204 students in grades 2, 3, and 4. They found that the teachers' perceptions of children's reading ability were more closely related to how the teacher viewed the children's behavior in class than to reading performance as measured by standardized reading tests. Although these correlations suggest that academic evaluations are more closely tied to classroom behaviors than to test scores, the conclusions are only suggestive because the sample was very small and the study was done in an elementary school and included only one male teacher. Still, these correlations did raise an important question that this researcher would like to pursue with a middle school sample. To investigate the accuracy of 31 English teachers and 22 Social Studies teachers' judgments about the reading abilities of secondary students, Frager (1984) showed the teachers a videotape of three male ninth grade students of "varying reading abilities." These students were reading orally, writing, responding to teacher's questions, and reading silently. Also included in the videotape were some indications of the students' social behavior and vocabulary 22 learning performance. The teachers' judgments of the strengths and weaknesses of the students were compared to a criterion diagnosis established by "four expert secondary reading diagnosticians." Frager reported that the mean judgment-accuracy score of the content-area teachers was 59%. He concluded that content-area teachers' judgments compared favorably to those of other "groups of teachers." He said that regardless of purpose or grade level, teachers used the following criteria to make judgments: listening to students read aloud, classroom behavior, classroom participation, and comprehension behaviors. All of the researchers whose studies were reviewed in this section called for an investigation of teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship in relation to observed behaviors and actual performance. The questions they raised led this researcher to conduct the present study which includes a much larger sample. The Roles of Listening, Reasoning, and Reading in Schools Listening Listening is used to a greater extent than any of the other forms of communication--reading, writing, and speaking. Rankin's study (1929) reported that adults spend 70% of their waking day in communication. Forty-two percent of this communication time is spent in listening, 32% in speaking, 15% in reading, and 11% in writing. In her 1950 study of 530 elementary children, Wilt reported that 57.5% Of the pupils' time was spent listening. Lundsteen (1964) 23 stated, "It is time to begin a more systematic and developmental approach to the teaching of critical listening" (p. 747). She cautioned that such instruction need not be done in isolation but should be an integrating factor in all the language arts. Thirty-two years ago, the Commission on the English Curriculum (1952) noted that listening is "still the neglected language art at all levels" (p. 328). In the study they conducted in New Zealand, Elley and Reid (1972) reported that, in the norming of listening- comprehension tests, small gender differences were found favoring boys. They stated that these findings were consistent with those of research conducted in other countries. However, Hallow (1955) reported that children's gender did not seem to be related to their listening ability. Elley and Reid believed teachers require assistance in identifying students who possess poor listening skills. Whether these deficiences are physiological, emotional, intellectual, or learning-related, it is important that they be discovered so that appropriate treatment can be initiated. They stated that according to previous research, listening Skills can be improved with systematic training and practice. Barker (1971) differentiated between serious and social listening as well as between active and passive listening. He defined passive listening as what people do just because 24 they happen to be present. Such listening is barely more than hearing. Social listening includes appreciative, conversational, and courteous listening, as well as listening to indicate love and respect. Serious listening includes critical and discriminative listening. Barker stressed that classroom listening involves the critical and discriminative functions and takes place on four levels: attentive, retentive, reflective, and reactive. In Human Listening, Weaver (1972) distinguished between listening habits and listening capacity. Even though listening capacity grows as one gets older, listening habits decline. To support his statement, Weaver quoted a study in which school teachers stopped in the middle of a lecture and asked, "What was I talking about?" In the first grade, 90% of the students could answer correctly. In the second grade, 80% could. But only 43.7% of junior high students and only 28% of high school students were able to answer the teacher. The major thesis of the developmental model of reading projected by Sticht, Beck, Hauke, Keiman, and James, (1974) was that a "person comes into the world with certain basic adaptive processes which he uses to build a cognitive content and to acquire language competency" (p. 114). Most of this competency is verbal, acquired by listening and expressed by Speaking. In learning to read, a child uses the same cognitive content he used earlier in listening. The authors' review of literature indicated that "in the 25 early years of schooling, languaging by auding was more effective than languaging by reading for receiving communication, whereas these processes became equally effective sometime around the seventh or eighth grades" (p. 114). Sticht and his co-authors stated that reading comprehension skills do not depend as much on reading as they do on "language and conceptualizing competency developed largely by means of oracy skills" (p. 116). Cunningham (1982) asserted that research and classroom Observation have confirmed that most teachers provide little actual instruction in listening. "In fact, about the only instruction in listening most children get is the vague directive, 'Sit up and listen carefully'"(p. 486). After reviewing some 50 years of research--his own and that of others--Devine (1979) concluded that listening can be measured, can and should be taught, and is related to reading. It is in the higher levels of listening and reading that it becomes apparent that both activities probably have a common thinking base. He stated a need for further investigating of the higher levels of critical thinking. In her 1978 study concerning the teaching of critical listening Skills to remedial students in an elementary school Boodt concluded that the teaching of critical listening significantly improved these students' reading abilities. All of these researchers emphasized the importance of listening in school as well as in other areas of life. 26 However, as Bader (1984) pointed out, listening and speaking are rarely assessed in contemporary schools. Politicians and the public are demanding more "time on task" and "back to the basics," in order to raise the scores on standardized tests. If, in answering the demands to raise pupils' reading scores, educators spend a great deal of time drilling students in reading skills in isolation, using programmed texts and workbooks, such time will inevitably be subtracted from teaching the other components of the language arts, i.e., listening and speaking. Hence, this researcher investigated the possibility that even with high reading scores, students might fail to be perceived as superior readers because they lack listening and Speaking skills. Reasoning As long ago as 1917, Thorndike stated that "reading is reasoning." Stauffer (1975) believed that the teacher's attitude toward reading as a thinking process and the teacher's knowledge of techniques for deveIOping the pupil's reasoning skills are crucial to learning. In 1950, Bloom and Broder conducted an intensive study of good and poor problem solvers. They concluded that the major difference between successful and unsuccessful problem solvers was the varying degrees to which they were active or passive in their approaches to solving the problem. 27 There is general agreement among lay peOple and scholars that reading is related to thinking and reasoning (Spache, 1969; Pearson, 1978). Gagne (1977) asserted, "Regardless of the nearly universal goal of 'teaching students to think,‘ the evidence that this goal can be successfully accomplished when deliberately undertaken is actually quite meager at the present time" (p. 176). In a 1979 study, Kavale and Schreiner found a difference in the reasoning strategies used by good and poor readers. Both groups used similar strategies but the above average readers used them significantly more often than the average readers. The authors concluded that the above- average readers were more active in their attempts to understand. They suggested that teachers should instruct less skilled readers in applying reasoning strategies. Moffett (1968) said that if readers can call words but still cannot grasp the ideas, make inferences, or draw conclusions, they have a thinking problem. Wilt (1970) noted the same thing related to listening and not comprehending. She also asserted that this is a thinking problem. Likewise, Skinner (1968) noted, "Instruction designed simply to transmit what is already known has often neglected the teaching of thinking" (p.116) In the 1967 yearbook of the National Council for the Social Studies, Effective Thinking in the Social Studies, Taba stated that independent thinking has long been among the primary objectives of the curriculum. The main function 28 of education is to teach students to think. However, many factors have hindered the development of programs in the social studies that would help students become autonomous, creative, and productive thinkers. One of these factors is vagueness about what is meant by the term "thinking." In the literature, both educators and researchers have used the term thinking to encompass everything from daydreaming to creating great scientific laws. Taba felt that even the best of educational writing has failed to distinguish between the elements of thinking and the strategies of thought. The styles of thinking (convergent, divergent, productive, and critical) are confused with the fundamental thinking processes (concept formation, inferring, and generalizing). Taba felt that the widely accepted assumption that students cannot think until they have a sufficient body of knowledge with which to think placed an emphasis on factual knowledge. Another assumption that has been unproductive, she said, is the idea that the ability to think is a by-product of studying well-structured content and assimilating the end products of someone else's thought. In the same publication, Taba asserted that if Piaget's developmental sequence were combined with a concept of clearly identified elements of the cognitive processes, then such a combination would provide "a long missing platform for teaching and thinking." With this statement Taba took the stand that not only should thinking be taught but that it could be taught with this combination, and that it must 29 be taught because, as she said, thinking abilities do not simply mature. Bader (1980) stated: Reasoning abilities can be improved if the student is provided with settings rich in Opportunities created by a supportive teacher whose role is to reflect, clarify, and question... Therefore, activities related to logic or critical thinking Should be incorporated whenever possible in instructional situations. (p. 152) This statement, included in her book, Reading Diagnosis and Remediation in Classroom and Clinic, was followed by suggestions as to how this can be accomplished. The instructional procedures she recommended are: awareness of egocentricity, identification of common errors in reasoning, seeing relationships, and evaluating adequacy and accuracy of information. In an article responding to recent national reports, Bader (1984) cautioned against extending present practices of conducting drills of the components of language arts in isolation. She stated that the "sound, practical procedures that have been developed for improving listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, and studying have been largely ignored" (p. 40), and the recommendations of the national reports would only intensify the poor pedagogical approaches to language arts teaching that now obtain throughout many schools in the United States. Bader joined Goodlad (1983) in expressing fear that in response to these national reports the educators will repeat the error of the sixties and succumb to "all those Charlatans who will proclaim for 3O themselves instant competence in whatever teachers are supposed to need" (p. 127). The results of Bulcock, Clifton, and Beebe's (1978) study involving 14-year-old boys in England and India led them to maintain that reading is the "single most powerful mechanism known for determining school achievement" in the sciences. The variables included in their study were father's occupational status, parental education, size of family, vocabulary, reading comprehension, physics, chemistry, biology, and practical work. The authors were careful to define reading as reasoning. Kamii (1982) asserted that too many approaches to mathematics instruction emphasize and focus only on the production of correct answers and neglect the teaching of thinking. She stated that programmed and workbook approaches to mathematics are two causes of this situation. Many of her assertions could well be applied to reading as well. Kamii's assertions concerning mathematics instruction, as well as with the statements of Bader, Taba, Thorndike, and Moffet, led this researcher to investigate the possibility that if a student scores well on a standardized reading test and is not perceived as a superior reader or is not functioning as well as one might expect, the cause might be a lack of reasoning skills. 31 Reading and Readinngests Mikulecky's study (1982) of the relationship between school preparation and workplace actuality suggested that students read less often in school than most workers do on the job. They read less competently, face easier material that they read in less depth, and employ strategies that may be less effective than those employed by workers. In an ethnographic study, Smith and Feathers (1983) investigated the roles of reading and reading instruction in three secondary social studies classrooms. Data gathered through interviews with three teachers and 18 students suggested that reading may not be as important a component of teaching or learning in content courses as is commonly thought. In addition, they found that students perceived the focus of instruction to have been on factual learning, whereas teachers said they had emphasized citizenship training and higher level thinking skills. The students seemed not to be aware of the teachers' stated goals. Preliminary analysis of the observational data suggested that the students' perceptions of instructional goals had been accurate. Smith and Feathers' study has posed some important questions, but their sample was rather small. The researcher addressed the same questions using a large population. Herber (1978) pointed out the weakness of grade-level reading scores which really represent an average of students' performance on the specific reading tasks that 32 comprise the total test. A given student has a range of reading abilities. Performances by the same student may be below, at, or above the grade level indicated by a grade- level score. Readence and Moore (1983) reviewed the development of United States standardized reading-comprehension tests from the early 19008 to the present. They reported that the initial surge in American standardized test production between 1910 and 1918 resulted in at least 84 tests and scales for the elementary grades, of which 13 tested silent reading comprehension. These tests were of three kinds: reproducing a passage, solving written puzzles, and answering questions. The tests commonly used today are of the question-answer variety. The authors stated that there were weaknesses in all of the tests and that these weaknesses had Often been pointed out since the tests first were used. However, although such questions have been raised, these tests have undergone few changes, and the American public, including many educators, continues to put great faith in the testing process (a process that in effect reduces a person to a number). Readence and Moore pointed out the limitations of the question and answer tests. Although they are convenient and objective, they do not test total comprehension, but provide limited information about students' specific comprehending abilities. Crowell, Au, and Blake (1983) examined six standardized reading tests in an attempt to determine if these tests 33 assessed different kinds of reading-comprehension skills and if the various grade levels' forms were designed to detect qualitative development in the ability to comprehend. They felt that tests intended for students in higher grades should contain a greater proportion of interpretative questions than tests designed for students in the lower grades. They found, however, that whereas some tests Showed a desirable rise in interpretative questions, most did not. Summary Of Literature Review Anderson, Stauffer, Dakin, Traxler, and Downing reported that by the end of elementary school the gap 'between boys' and girls' reading abilities has closed. Asher, Sikes, and LaHaderne found no sex discrimination in the treatment of boys and girls on the part of male and female teachers. Krupczak observed that sixth-grade teachers perceived girls as having more academic ability than boys. Brown, Sherbenou, and Frager concluded that teachers' judgments of students' academic abilities are closely correlated with classroom behavior. Frager further concluded that secondary teachers' judgments of students' reading abilities compare favorably with those of other groups of teachers. These researchers' samples were rather small, but they did ask important qustions. Rankin, Wilt, Lundsteen, Devine, and Cunningham stressed the importance of listening and stated that schools 34 have neglected this topic. Moffit, Taba, Stauffer, Bader, and Thorndike stressed the importance of teaching reading as reasoning. Readence and Moore and Crowell et a1. criticized the construction of standardized tests. Based on the review of the literature and her own teaching experience, this researcher decided to study the influence of gender, work and social habits, and content area on teachers' perceptions of their students' reading abilities and scholarship. In addition, she investigated the influence of listening, speaking, and reasoning on teacher perceptions of students who had reading scores in the superior range but were not seen as superior readers. The review of the literature provided an overview of the research that has been done on gender differences in reading and scholarship abilities, teachers' perceptions Of students' reading abilities, and the roles of listening, reasoning, and reading in school. Chapter III presents an explanation of the methodology employed in the study. The population site, population, sample selection, and procedures used in collecting and analyzing the data are presented, and the method of reporting the data is explained. The research questions and hypotheses are also stated. CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY Introduction In this chapter the methodology used in this study is described. The site, population, and procedure for selecting the sample and units of analysis are explained. The process by which the data were collected is described, the design of the study is presented, and the data gathering instruments are described. Finally, the statistical treatment of the data is explained, and the hypotheses are stated. Site, Population,_and Selection of the Sample The investigation was conducted in the two middle schools (grades 6, 7, 8) of a school district located in a suburb of a large midwestern city. Hereafter these schools are referred to as School A and School B. School A had a population of 760 students and was located in the more affluent part of the district. School B had a population of 447 students. This school district began 29 years ago as a result of the consolidation of several rural communities. The district covers approximately 75 square miles and serves five townships. The school system comprises five elementary 35 36 schools, two middle schools, and two high schools. The 1983-84 enrollment (K—l2) was 4,758 students. The community's socioeconomic structure varies from rural farmers to chief executives of large corporations, from unskilled to skilled workers. The major racial composition of the area is white, with less than 1% representing all racial minorities. The reading scores in the district are above the national and state norms as judged by standardized tests. The 45 middle school content-area teachers of language arts, social studies, math and science were all white. Twenty-eight (62%) were male and 17 (38%) were female. Six physical education teachers--three male and three female-- and two counselors were included in the part of the study that concerned characteristics of superior readers who were not perceived as such by their content-area teachers, as well as the opinion survey which concerned factors in being a good student. Among the teachers, no particular religious or ethnic origin group appeared to be predominant. Students who had been labeled learning disabled and emotionally impaired and placed in resource rooms were eliminated from the study. The final population contained 1,155 students--566 boys (49%) and 589 girls (51%). Procedures The principals of both middle schools and the teachers who participated in the research granted permission for 37 conducting the study. The researcher is a reading consultant in this district. Reading scores were obtained for all 1,155 students. Results of the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests (1978) Levels D and E, Forms 1, 2, and 3, were used to establish reading scores. The teachers' manual states that Kuder-Richardson Formula 20 Reliability coefficients were computed for each test level and for the alternate forms. TK-R coefficients ranged from .90 to .95 for vocabulary and from .88 to .94 for comprehension. The 45 vocabulary words in the tests were chosen on the basis of their general usefulness. Nonsense words were not used. The 43 comprehension exercises are intended to represent the kinds of information content area teachers expect students to gain from the materials they read. Passages include natural science, humanities, and narrative material for each test. Results of the tests are given in raw scores, stanines, normal curve equivalents (NCE), percentiles, and grade equivalents. This investigator used NCEs because they represent equal units and are suitable for computing averages. They can also be used for making comparisons across the whole range of the scale and between widely divergent scores. From the population of 1,155 students, the 45 content- area teachers were asked to nominate the students who they felt were superior readers and good students (see Appendix A), for the purpose of implementing a special reading enrichment program for gifted students. Teachers were asked 38 to do this in November 1983, at the end of the first nine- week marking period, while they were making out report cards. Therefore, they had nine weeks to become acquainted with their students. These teacher recommendations became the units of analysis, i.e., teachers' perceptions of their students' reading abilities and scholarship. The nonrecommendations of the superior readers (based on a standardized reading test) also became units of analysis because certain characteristics of these students were to be compared with the characteristics of those students who were perceived as superior. The criteria for being selected for this reading program were achieving a score in the 85th to 99th percentile on a standardized reading test (NCE score of 72-99) and having at least one recommendation of a content— area teacher. The data were coded on a Data Preparation Worksheet and entered into a computer using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. Data were coded by recommendation ID number, teacher's gender, teacher's subject, student's gender, normal-curve-equivalent reading score (00-99), reading rank (1, 2, 3, 4), work habits ratings (1-5), social habits ratings (1-5), grade level, and school number. Teachers' subjects were coded 1-7 in the following order: language arts, social studies, math, science, language arts/social studies, math/social studies, and all subjects. 39 The following categories of students were established: SR Superior Recommended NSR Non-Superior Recommended SNR Superior Not Recommended NS/NR Non-Superior Not Recommended When further delineation was required, the following student groups were established: Superior NCE 72-99 Rank 1 Good NCE 58-71 Rank 2 Average NCE 42-57 Rank 3 Poor NCE 1-41 Rank 4 The nonsuperior not recommended (NS/NR) students were then eliminated from the study. Unstructured interviews were held with SNR readers. These students were told their reading scores and were asked if they could think Of any reasons why they had not been recommended. After the interviews, the researcher recorded their comments. Structured and unstructured interviews were held with teachers of the SR, NSR, and SNR students. The content-area teachers were given names of students from the three groups combined and asked to rate each student on a scale from 1 to 5 on listening, Speaking, reading, writing, and reasoning ability. (See Appendix B.) These ratings were then separated into the three groups, (SR, NSR, SNR) and recorded by gender, to obtain data for proportional random samplings. 40 At the end of the second-nine week marking period, when teachers presumably had had a chance to know students even better, content-area teachers, physical education teachers, and counselors were given the list of superior not recommended students and were told in personal interviews, "These are students who scored in the upper 15th percentile on a standardized reading test but were not recommended for the Special reading program. Would you please consider them and see if you can see any characteristics which would prevent them from being recognized as a superior reader?" The interviewer then recorded the interview comments, later organizing them in terms of gender of student and teacher. Finally, the teachers were asked to fill out a form (see Appendix C) on which they were to rank in order of importance the following seven components of being a good student: listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, compliance with classroom rules, and neatness and organization. They were also asked to agree or disagree with the following two statements: 1. Middle school boys on the whole reason better than girls. 2. Middle school girls on the whole are better students than boys. Teachers indicated on the form only their subject area and gender. To measure work habits and social habits report cards were Obtained for all recommended students and for the 41 superior readers who had not been recommended. These report cards were from the same marking period in which teachers made recommendations for the Special reading program. The students were rated on a scale from 1 to 5 (excellent to poor). The factors of work habits are: comes prepared to work; works independently; completes assignments; makes good use of work time; participates in class discussion; listens carefully to class explanations and discussions; and tries to think and act promptly, effectively, and independently. The factors of social habits are: respects property; respects rules of school; is thoughtful of others; shows self control; and cooperates with teacher and group. For additional data on work and social habits, names of students in School A who were nominated for Student of the Month were obtained from the school Office and analyzed by frequencies. Students of the Month is a program in School A that was designed to let students know that positive behavior is noticed and appreciated. Each teacher selects one student from his/her classes to be a student of the month. Once recognized, the student may not be nominated again in the same School year. The criteria for being selected are: maintains high standards of citizenship, helps others, works well in class, demonstrates friendliness, shows respect and care for others, maintains a positive attitude, and demonstrates reSponSibility. (See Appendix D.) This award is not given for academic reasons. 42 Names of students in grades 7 and 8 of School A who achieved a grade point average of 3.7 and above for the first three marking periods (September through March) were obtained from the school Office. These were analyzed in terms of gender and categories SR, NSR, and SNR. Grades 7 and 8 in School A had 511 students. Science grades for the third marking period for all eighth grade students (n = 256) in School A were obtained from the team of two teachers who together taught science to the entire eighth grade. These grades were determined by averaging the following: 20%--projects, 20%--daily assignments and lab work, 50%--tests and quizzes (multiple choice, short answer, spelling, vocabulary, matching, essay), and 10%--work habits. The researcher selected this group to analyze for classroom achievement because it was the largest group of students who had the same material introduced, taught, and tested by the same teachers using the same evaluation criteria. The third quarter was chosen to gather these data to test the accuracy of teachers' perceptions as predictors of classroom success. Finally, the researcher went into seventh- and eighth- grade classrooms in School A, explained the results of the first survey, and asked the students to write their Opinions of why middle school girls were perceived as better students than boys. They did not sign their names to what they wrote but indicated their gender. Written Opinions were obtained from 84 boys and 86 girls and were analyzed for frequency of 43 reasons given. The methods used to collect and compile the data were based on the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954), which is described more fully in the next section. In this study, critical incidents were gleaned from two sources: teachers and students. The Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills total battery scores of students who achieved scores in the 85 to 99th percentile were obtained from school offices. These scores were used to analyze gender differences in achievement scores in the superior range obtained by standardized testing. Statistical Treatment of the Data The survey instruments and methods were designed to gather data in an orderly and systematic manner. The units of analysis were the teachers' perceptions, i.e., the recommendations and the nonrecommendations of superior readers. These perceptions were coded and entered into a computer using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) and Minitab. The independent variables were teacher gender, student gender, subject of teacher, reading score using normal curve equivalent, reading rank, work habits of student, and social habits of student. The dependent variable was perceived reading ability. Eight hundred and seventy recommendations as superior and 202 nonrecommendations of students who attained a superior reading score were analyzed. Teachers' subjects were broken uu into seven categories: language arts, social studies, math, science, language arts/social studies, math/science, and all subject areas. Results of the data analysis are reported in the form of T-tests and chi-square tables. T-tests were used in situations in which both a qualitative independent variable and a quantitative dependent variable were present. The chi-square tests were used to examine the relationships between two or more qualitative variables. The level of Significance for all tests was set at_p< .05. A cluster of characteristics was then sought to aid in the formulation of a profile that would successfully discriminate between recommended students and superior not-recommended students. The methods used to analyze the data in the structured and unstructured interviews of teachers and students were based on the critical incident technique. In his article entitled "The Critical Incident Technique," Flanagan (1954) asserted that an incident is critical if it makes a significant contribution, either positively or negatively, to the general aim of a given activity (p. 336). The critical incident technique has two basic principles: (1) reporting of facts regarding behavior is preferable to collecting facts, interpretations, ratings, and opinions based on general impressions; and (2) reporting should be limited to behaviors that make a significant contribution to the activity (p. 355). 45 Hypotheses To guide the statistical analysis of the data in this study, the following null hypotheses were constructed: 1. There is no relationship between a student's gender and that student's superior normal-curve- equivalent score on a standardized reading test. There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and the students' normal-curve-equivalent scores on a standardized reading test. There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and students' gender. There is no significant difference between male and female teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities. There is no difference between the mean scores of boys perceived as superior readers and the mean scores of girls perceived as superior readers. There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and their ratings of the students' work habits. There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and their ratings of the students' social habits. 46 Teachers' perceptions of students' good citizenship, manners, and dependability are independent of reading scores in the superior range. Teachers' perceptions of students' good citizenship, manners, and dependability are independent of students' gender. There is no difference between the classroom performance of boys and girls as measured by grades. There are no differences in the perceptions of teachers from different content areas concerning students' reading and scholarship abilities. Given a list of seven factors in being a good student, teachers in a middle school will not consider reading the most important factor. There is no significant difference between teachers' ratings of listening, speaking, and reasoning abilities of the superior not- recommended and not-superior recommended students. There is no significant difference between the mean scores of students recommended by teachers aware of reading scores and the mean scores of students recommended by teachers unaware of reading scores. 47 Summary The methodology involved in conducting the study was described in this chapter. The population comprised middle school students and teachers in a nonindustrialized suburb of a large midwestern city. The total population of students in the two middle schools, excluding learning- disabled and emotionally impaired students, was 1,155. The number Of students involved in the study was 535, after excluding nonsuperior not-recommended students. Forty-five content-area teachers of language arts, social studies, math, and science, and six physical education teachers participated in the study. The total number of perceptions analyzed was 1072. These perceptions were analyzed in terms of gender, subject area, work and social habits, and performance on a standardized test. Classroom performance Of some students was analyzed. The procedure for obtaining the data were explained, and the data-gathering instruments were described. The methods of reporting the data were delineated and the research hypotheses stated. In Chapter IV, the data gathered in the study are presented and discussed. Findings of the data analysis are included. CHAPTER IV PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA Introduction The purpose of this study is to determine whether the gender of the teacher, the gender of the student, and the content-area of the teacher influence teachers' perceptions of middle school students' reading abilities and scholarship. The influence of work and social habits was also investigated. Data were collected, analyzed, and compared regarding middle school content-area teachers' perceptions of superior readers and students, reading scores, and work and social habits of students perceived as superior by teachers, as well as superior readers who were not perceived as superior by teachers. In this chapter, the results of the statistical analysis of the hypotheses posed in this study are preSented. In the next section each research hypothesis is restated, followed by a discussion of the results of hypothesis testing. Results of Hypothesis Testing In Chapter III, the hypotheses for this study were presented. In this section, each hypothesis will be restated, procedures explained, and results given. To 48 49 determine if there were as many superior boy readers as girl readers in the population of regular classroom students in the two middle schools, reading scores based on a standardized reading test were obtained for all 1,115 students of school year 1983-84. Hypothesis 1 There is no relationship between a student's gender and that student's superior normal-curve-equivalent score on a standardized reading test. Table 2 Percentages of Superior Readers by Gender Boys Girls No. % No. % 1,155 students 566 49 589 51 283 superior readers 140 49 143 51 _Ngtg: Using students from School A, 1982-83, these same proportions were found in the initial study. According to Table 2, the sample contained approximately as many superior boy readers as girl readers as determined by a standardized reading test. This finding is unable to reject Hypothesis 1. In all, 467 students were perceived as being superior readers and good students by one or more of their content area teachers. These figures were obtained from the survey 5O conducted in November 1983. (See Appendix A.) Sixty-eight superior readers were not perceived as such by any of their content area teachers (SNR). These students were one of the main focuses Of the present study. Table 3 shows the breakdown of students into categories by gender. Table 3 Analysis by Gender of Categories SR, NSR, SNR, and NS/NR Students Boys Girls Category No. % No. % No. % SR 215 100 98 46 117 54 NSR 252 100 102 40 150 60 SNR 68 100 42 62 26 38 NS/NR 620 100 324 .52 296 _48 Totals 1,155 100 566 49 589 51 Note: SR : Superior Recommended NSR = Not Superior Recommended SNR = Superior Not Recommended NS/NR = Not Superior/Not Recommended Hypothesis 2 There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and the students' normal-curve-equivalent scores on a standardized reading test. Chi-square was used to statistically test the difference between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and students' normal-curve-equivalent 51 score. Of the 872 students who did not achieve a superior score, 29% were perceived as superior. Of the 283 who scored as superior readers, 76% were perceived as such. The raw chi-square score was calculated as 196.6 with a probability level of .000. The results were statistically significant. Hypothesis 2 was rejected. Percentages are presented in Table 4. Table 4 Teachers' Perceptions of Students' Reading Ability and Reading Ranks Teachers' Superior Non Totals Perceptions Superior No. % NO. % No. % Perceived as Superior 215 46 252 54 467 100 Perceived as Non Superior 68_ 19_ 620 90 688 100 Totals 283 25 872 75 1,155 100 Chi-square : 196.6; df = 1; (p<:.01). When the mean scores of all recommendations were computed (see Table 12), the result was 73.22 mean normal- curve-equivalent. When this score was converted into percentile ranking, it was the 86th percentile, which fell into the superior range. This finding can also be used to support alternate Hypothesis 2--that there is a relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and the students' reading scores. 52 Of the 467 students who were perceived as superior, 322 received more than one teacher recommendation. For this reason, the investigator took individual recommendations as perceptions and used them as units of analysis. By treating the nonrecommendations of the superior readers as perceptions of the students as nonsuperior, one is able to compare characteristics of the recommended students and the not-recommended superior readers. From this point on, all data are based on and discussed in terms of teacher recommendations. Hypothesis 3 There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and students' gender. Chi-square was used to statistically test the relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and students' gender. The raw chi-square score was calculated as 16.63507 with a probablity level of .0008. The results were statistically significant. There was a significant difference between the proportion of boys recommended and the proportion of girls recommended. Hypothesis 3 was rejected. Percentages are presented in Table 5. 53 Table 5 Relationship Between the Numbers of Boys and Girls Recommended and the Reading Rank of the Students Reading Boys Girls Totals Rank No. % No. % No. Superior 212 57.8 269 53.5 481 Good 125 34.1 145 28.8 270 Average 29 7.9 86 17.1 115 Poor .____1_ 94.3. .3. Dig __A Totals 367 100 503 100 870 Chi-square : 16.63507; df = 3; (p<:.01). Of 467 students who were perceived as superior, 139 students were recommended by all of their content-area teachers. Of these 139, 34% were boys and 66% were girls. When all of the content-area teachers were consulted, the prOportionS of boys to girls recommended rose. In the original survey in 1982, when only the language arts teachers were consulted, 35% boys of the boys were recommended as compared to 65% girls. (See Table 1.) Examination of Table 5 shows that more average girl readers were perceived as superior than average boy readers. These perceptions also appear to support the conclusion that there is a relationship between teachers' perceptions and students' gender. 54 Hypothesis 4 There is no significant difference between male and female teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities. The mean normal-curve-equivalent reading scores were computed for all boys recommended by male teachers, all girls recommended by male teachers, all boys recommended by female teachers, and all girls recommended by female teachers. Results are Shown in Table 6. Table 7 shows by teachers' gender the reading ranks of all students who were perceived as superior by their teachers. Chi-square was used to statistically test the relationship between boys' (367) normal-curve-equivalent scores and teachers' gender. The raw chi-square was calculated as 55.91979 with a probability level of .2019. There was no statistically significant relationship between teachers' gender and the boys' normal—curve-equivalent scores. (See Table 6.) Chi-square was used to statistically test the relationship between girls' (503) normal-curve-equivalent scores and teachers' gender. The raw chi-square was calculated as 66.31535 with a probability level of .1865. There was no statistically Significant relationship found between teachers' gender and girls' normal-curve-equivalent scores. (See Table 6.) 55 Chi-square was used to statistically test the relationship between girls' (503) normal-curve-equivalent scores and teachers' gender. The raw chi-square was calculated as 66.31535 with a probability level of .1865. There was no statistically significant relationship between teachers' gender and girls' normal-curve-equivalent scores. Table 6 Summary of Mean NCE Scores Computed by Teachers' Gender and Students' Gender Gender of Gender of No. Of Means sd Range Teachers Students Recom. of NCE 28 Male Boy 213 75.131 12.651 64 28 Male Girl 332 72.729 13.866 68 17 Female Boy 154 74.156 12.862 56 17 Female Girl 171 71.000 15.038 59 These results did not reject null Hypothesis 4--that there is no significant difference between male and female teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities. But these results did show that male teachers were more likely to recommend girls than boys. Chi-square was used to statistically test the relationship between reading ranks of all recommended students (870) and teachers' gender. The raw chi-square score was calculated as 3.01 with a probability level of 56 Table 7 Reading Ranks of Perceptions as Superior by Male and Female Teachers Male Female Totals Reading Rank Teachers Teachers Superior 307 174 481 Good 172 98 270 Average and below pp_ 53_ .119 Totals 545 325 870 Chi-square = 3.01; df = 2; (p<.05). Hypothesis 5 There is no difference between the mean scores of boys perceived as superior readers and the mean scores of girls perceived as superior readers. The mean scores of the boys perceived as superior readers were slightly higher than those of the girls' similarly perceived. To test if there was a statistically significant difference between the mean scores of all boys (74.72) and of all girls (72.14) recommended, a Z test was performed. The results were significant at .05 <£1<.1O. Therefore, Hypothesis 5 was not rejected. Both male and female teachers recommended more girls than boys, but, proportionally, male teachers appeared to have a tendency to recommend girls more than did female teachers (see Table 8). This finding does not appear to 57 support the common belief that female teachers discriminate against boys. Table 8 Proportions of Boys and Girls Recommended by Male and Female Teachers No. Gender of No. % % Teachers Teacher Recs Boys Girls 17 Female 325 47% 53% 28 Male 545 39% 61% Hypothesis 6 There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and their ratings of the students' work habits. The mean differences in the ratings of work habits of those students perceived as superior by their teachers and the ratings of work habits of those students with superior scores but perceived as not superior by their teachers were statistically tested with the t-test. Students perceived as superior (870) were found to have mean work habits ratings of 1.524 compared to mean work habits ratings of 2.158 for students with superior scores but perceived as not superior (202). The t-value of —14.4 with p_<.01 was statistically significant. Therefore, Hypothesis 6--that there is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and their ratings of the 58 students' work habits--was rejected. Means for differences are presented in Table 9. Table 9 Means of Ratings of Work Habits of Recommended Students and Superior Not-Recommended Perceptions Mean S.D. T value W. H. AS Superior (870) 1.524 .556 T:-14.4 As Not Superior (202) 2.158 .722 Note: 1 is high; 5 is low. _Hypothesis 7 There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and their ratings of the students' social habits. The mean differences of the ratings of social habits of those students perceived as superior by their teachers and the ratings of social habits of those students with superior scores but perceived as not superior by their teachers were statistically tested with the t-test. Students perceived as superior (870) were found to have mean social habits ratings of 1.591 compared to social habits ratings of 2.005 for students with superior scores but perceived as not superior. The t-value of -8.85 with p_<.01 was statistically significant. Therefore, Hypothesis 7--that there is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of 59 students' reading abilities and scholarship and their ratings of the students' social habits-~was rejected. Means for differences are presented in Table 10. Table 10 Means of Ratings of Social Habits of Recommended Students and Superior Not-Recommended Students Perceptions Mean S.D. T value Social Habits As Superior (870) 1.591 .574 T:-8.85 As Not Superior (202) 2.005 .695 Note: 1 is high; 5 is low. Hypothesis 8 Teachers' perceptions of students' good citizenship, manners, and dependability are independent of reading scores in the superior range. In order to test this hypothesis, names of students who were nominated student of the month were obtained. Student of the Month is the name of a program in School A designed to let the students know that positive behavior is appreciated and noticed. Each teacher selects one student from his or her classes to be a student of the month. Once recognized, the student may not be nominated again in the same school year. The criteria for selections are: 6O maintains high standards of citizenship, helps others, works well in class, demonstrates friendliness, shows respect and care for others, maintains a positive attitude, and demonstrates responsibility. (See Appendix D.) This list was analyzed for the percentage of such students who were superior readers. Chi square was used to statistically test the relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' citizenship, manners, and dependability and students' reading scores in the superior range. The raw chi square was calculated as 8.78 with a probability level of .005. The results were statistically significant. Therefore, Hypothesis 8 was rejected. Percentages are presented in Table 11. Table 11 Percentage of Students of the Month Who are Superior Readers Category Total Superior Non Superior Readers Readers No. % NO. % Population 760 199 26 561 74 Students of Month 198 78 39 120 61 Chi-square : 8.78; df : 1; (pg<.05). 61 Hypothesis 9 Teachers' perceptions of students' good citizenship, manners, and dependability are independent of students' gender. To investigate the influence of gender on being nominated for this program, the percentages of boys and girls were calculated. Chi square was used to statistically test the relationship between teachers' perceptions of student' citizenship and students' gender. The raw chi square was calculated as 3.484 with a probability level of .0469. The results were statistically significant. Therefore, Hypothesis 9 was rejected. Percentages are shown in Table 12. Table 12 Percentages of Students of the Month by Gender Category Total Boys Girls No. % No. % Population 760 375 49 385 51 Student of the Month 198 77 39 121 61 Chi-square = 3.484; df = 1; (pg<.05). Of the 77 boys who were named students of the month, 34 (44%) were superior readers. Of the 121 girls who were named student of the month, 44 (36%) were superior readers. 62 Hypothesis 10 There is no difference between the classroom performance of boys and girls as measured by grades. To gather data to test Hypothesis 10 grades for all eighth grade science students (286) from School A were obtained for the third quarter of 1983-84. Of the 69 students who achieved an A or A- in science, 28 (41%) were superior readers. Only one of these students was superior not-recommended. All of the rest had been perceived as superior readers and good students at the end of the first quarter by one or more of their teachers. Of these students, 23 (33%) were boys and 46 (67%) were girls. These classes had been team taught by two teachers. Therefore, the students had had the same material introduced, instructed, and evaluated by the same teachers with the same criteria for evaluation. The criteria for grades were 20% projects, 20% daily assignments and lab work, 50% quizzes and tests, and 10% work habits. Chi-square was used to statistically test the proportion of girls who achieved an A or A- in science class for the third marking period of 1983-84 compared to the boys who achieved a similar grade in the same marking period. A total of 69 students had achieved an A or A- (23 boys and 46 girls). The raw chi-square was calculated as 7.66 with a probability of level of .008. The results were statistically significant. Percentages are given in Table 13. 63 Table 13 Students Achieving an A or A- for Third Marking Period in Science by Gender POp. NO. No. (%) No. (%) Students Boys Girls 286 69 23 (33%) 46 (67%) Chi-square = 7.66; df = 1; (p< .01). In this population of 286 students, there were 79 superior readers. Of these students 57 were perceived as good students and 22 were not. Of the 57 who were perceived as good students, 49% achieved an A or A- in the science class. However, of the 22 who were not perceived as good students, only 4% achieved an A or A- in the science class. Of the 69 who achieved an A or A-, 54 (78%) were perceived by one or more of their teachers as good students. Teachers' perceptions were more accurate predictors of classroom success than were reading scores. The data are presented in Table 14. 64 Table 14 Students Achieving an A or A- for Third Marking Period in Science by Categories of Recommended or Not Recommended Pop. No. SR NSR SNR NS/NR Students 286 69 28 26 1 14 Note: SR : Superior Recommended NSR = Not Superior Recommended SNR = Superior Not Recommended NS/NR : Not Superior/Not Recommended In addition, this researcher obtained from the office of School A a list of students in grades 7 and 8 (511) who had attained a GPA of 3.7 or above (out of 4.0) in all subjects for the first three marking periods of 1983-84. Of the 54 students who had achieved a GPA of 3.7 or above, 35% were boys and 65% were girls. Of these 54 students 63% were superior readers as judged by a standardized reading test. None of these students were SNR. All of the students had been recommended as superior readers and good students, and 69% of them had been nominated for student of the month. Chi-square was used to statistically test the proportion of boys achieving a 3.7 or above grade point average compared to girls achieving a 3.7 or above grade point average. The raw chi-square score was calculated as 4.74 with a probability level of .033. The results were statistically significant. Teachers' perceptions that girls 65 are better students than boys appear to be accurate. Percentages are presented in Table 15. Table 15 Students Achieving a 3.7 or Above GPA for Three Marking Periods by Gender Pop. No. No. (%) No. (%) Students Boys Girls 511 54 19 (35%) 35 (65%) Chi-square : 4.74; 1 d.f.; Lp< .05). Table 16 Students Achieving a 3.7 or Above GPA for Three Marking Periods by Categories POp. No SR NSR SNR NS/NR Students 511 54 35 (65%) 19(35%) 0 0 Note: SR = Superior Recommended NSR : Not Superior Recommended SNR : Superior Not Recommended NS/NR : Not Superior/Not Recommended If one is a superior reader, one is more likely to achieve a high grade point average. However, having a superior reading score does not mean that one will be a superior student. (See Table 16.) There were no superior not-recommended students who achieved a 3.7 or above grade 66 point average; however, there were 19 not superior recommended students who did. In order to determine if boys in this population score as well as girls on the total battery of a standardized achievement test, test scores from Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills administered in October 1983 were obtained for 634 students. Results are shown in Table 17. Table 17 Students Achieving Total Battery Scores in the Upper 15 Percentile by Gender Pop. Boys Girls Ach. Boys Girls No. % No. % NO. No. % NO. % 634 304 48 330 52 228 110 48 118 52 Even though boys score as well as girls on the total battery of a standardized achievement test, they are not as good students when one examines classroom performance. See Tables 13 and 15. Hypothesis 10--that there is no difference in classroom performance of boys and girls as measured by grades--was rejected, as the girls had statistically higher prOportions compared to boys in classroom performance as measured by grades. Hypothesis 11 There are no differences in the perceptions of teachers from different content areas concerning students' reading and scholarship abilities. 67 Chi-square was used to statistically test the difference between the mean scores of all recommended students and superior-not recommended students by content- area of teacher. There were seven groups of subject areas by which content-area teachers were categorized. The raw chi-square was calculated as 9.87502 with a probability level of .1300. The results were not statistically significant. Data are presented in Table 18. Table 18 Means of Reading Scores of All Recommended Students and Superior Not Recommended Students by Teachers' Content Area Subject No. of Mean NCE No. of Mean SR and of SR SNR NCES NSR and NSR of SNR LA 124 73.484 28 82.071 SS 121 73.810 28 82.071 Math 210 71.881 49 81.408 So 184 73.375 42 81.500 LA/SS 153 73.699 30 80.000 M/Sc 65 75.446 15 79.733 All .13 68.538 _1_9_ 76.900 Totals 870 73.220 202 81.054 Chi-Square : To determine whether there was a statistically 9.87502; df 6; (p_>.05). significant difference in the perceptions of teachers by 68 content area, an analysis of variance was performed, using the mean scores of all perceptions as Superior or Nonsuperior. The Feratio was .66. The significance level was between .25 and .50, with 1,071 degrees of freedom. Therefore, there were no statistically significant differences found in the perceptions of teachers from different content areas. (See Table 19.) Table 19 Analysis Of Variance Summary Table for Mean Reading Scores of Teachers' Perceptions by Teachers' Subject Areas Due to DF SS MS=SS/DF Factor 6 700.0 117.0 Error 1065 189247.0 178.0 Total 1071 189947.0 Subject N Mean St. Dev. LA 152 75.1 14.6 SS 149 75.4 13.2 Math 259 73.7 13.8 Sc 226 74.9 13.0 LA/SS 183 74.7 12.6 M/Sc 80 76.3 12.2 All 23 72.2 12.8 Note: F-Ratio = 0.66, pooled St. Dev. = 13.3 69 When the recommendations as superior by content-area teachers were collapsed into four categories and calculated by only language arts, social studies, math, and science, the percentages of superior readers identified in each group (by content area) are quite close. The results were: language arts, 54%; social studies, 54%; math, 53%; and science, 55%. Overall the percentage of superior readers for boys was 57% and for girls 53%. The math teachers' percentages of boy superior readers and girl superior readers were the closest-~52% for boys and 53% for girls. The widest discrepancy was found in the language arts teacherS--60% of the boys recommended were superior readers and 51% of the girls. The math teachers did not consider speaking ability to be important in math classes. Therefore, Hypothesis 11--that there are no differences in the perceptions of teachers from different content areas concerning students' reading and scholarship abilities--was not rejected. Hypothesis 12 Given a list of seven factors in being a good student, teachers in a middle school will not consider reading the most important factor. In order to test Hypothesis 12, teachers were asked to fill out a survey ranking factors in being a good student (Appendix C). Considering the emphasis given today on teaching reading, the researcher considered it important to investigate teachers' Opinions regarding the importance of 70 reading as a factor in school success. The results of the survey are shown in Table 20. Table 20 Ranking of Teachers' Opinions of Factors of Being a Good Student Rank Male (32) Female (19) Totals Teachers Teachers 1 Listening 63 Listening 36 Listening 99 2 Reasoning 75 Reasoning 44 Reasoning 119 3 Reading 89 Reading 60 Reading 149 4 Writing 145 Compliance 82 Writing 242 5 Speaking 154 Writing 97 Speaking 263 6 Neatness 183 Neatness 104 Compliance 269 7 Compliance 187 Speaking 109 Neatness 287 Note: Ratings were from 1-7, most to least important. In the second part of the survey, 23 male teachers agreed and 9 disagreed that girls are better students than boys, whereas 10 female teachers agreed and 9 disagreed that girls are better students than boys. In addition, 22 male teachers disagreed and 10 agreed that boys reason better than girls, whereas 14 female teachers disagreed and 5 agreed that boys reason better than girls. (See Appendix C.) These findings also do not support the common opinion that female teachers tend to discriminate against boys. 71 Hypothesis 12--that teachers in a middle school will not consider reading the most important factor in being a good student--was not rejected (Table 20). Hypothesis 13 There is no significant difference between teachers' ratings of listening, speaking, and reasoning abilities of the superior not-recommended and not-superior recommended students. To test Hypothesis 13, a proportional random sample was drawn from the teachers' ratings of SNR and NSR students on listening, speaking reading, writing, and reasoning abilities (Appendix B). T-tests were computed for equality of the means of the two samples on each of the following three factors: listening, speaking, and reasoning. The mean differences between the ratings of not- superior recommended (NSR) boys and superior not-recommended (SNR) boys concerning listening were statistically tested with the t-test. NSR boys were found to have a mean rating of 1.309 compared to a mean rating of 2.88 for SNR boys. The t-value of -10.040 with a probability level of .0000 was statistically significant. Means for differences are presented in Table 21. The mean differences between the ratings of not- superior recommended (NSR) boys and superior not-recommended (SNR) boys concerning speaking were statistically tested with the t-test. NSR boys were found to have a mean rating of 1.809 compared to a mean rating of 2.7646 for SNR boys. The t-value of -5.551 with a probability level of .0000 was 72 statistically significant. Means for differences are presented in Table 21. The mean differences between the ratings of not- superior recommended (NSR) boys and superior not-recommended (SNR) boys concerning reasoning were statistically tested with the t-test. NSR boys were found to have a mean rating of 1.523 compared to a mean rating of 2.58 for SNR boys. The t-value of -6.39 with a probability level of .0000 was statistically significant. Means for the differences are presented in Table 21. The mean differences between the ratings of not- superior recommended (NSR) girls and superior not- recommended (SNR) girls concerning listening were statistically tested with the t-test. NSR girls were found to have a mean rating of 1.177 compared to a mean rating of 3.03 for SNR girls. The t-value of -11.161 with a probability level of .0000 was statistically significant. Means for differences are presented in Table 22. The mean differences between the ratings of not- superior recommended (NSR) girls and superior not- recommended (SNR) girls concerning speaking were statistically tested with the t-test. NSR girls were found to have a mean rating of 1.758 compared to a mean rating of 3.00 for SNR girls. The t-value of -7.289 with a probability level of .0000 was statistically significant. Means for differences are presented in Table 22. 73 The mean differences between the ratings of not- superior recommended (NSR) girls and superior not- recommended (SNR) girls concerning reasoning were statistically tested with the t-test. NSR girls were found to have a mean rating of 1.54 compared to a mean rating of 3.06 for SNR girls. The t-value of -9.515 with a probability level of .0000 was statistically significant. Means for differences are presented in Table 22. Therefore, Hypothesis 13--that there is no significant difference between teachers' ratings of listening, Speaking, and reasoning abilities of the superior not-recommended and the not-superior recommended students--was rejected. Table 21 Means of Not Superior Recommended vs. Superior Not Recommended Boys concerning Listening, Speaking, and Reasoning Null Hypothesis Sample S.D. T-value Accepted or Means Rejected There is no difference 1.309 .468 -10.040 Rejected in listening 2.88 .993 p < .01 There is no difference 1.809 .707 -5.551 Rejected in Speaking 2.7646 .951 p < .01 There is no difference 1.523 .634 -6.39 Rejected in reasoning 2.58 .963 p < .01 74 Table 22 Means of Not Superior Recommended vs. Superior Not Recommended Girls concerning Listening, Speaking, and Reasoning Null Hypothesis Sample S.D. T-value Accepted or Means Rejected There is no difference 1.177 .426 -11.161 Rejected in listening 3.03 .875 p< .01 There is no difference 1.758 .843 -7.289 Rejected in Speaking 3.09 .831 p< .01 There is no difference 1.54 .619 -9.515 Rejected in reasoning 3.06 .772 p< .01 Hypothesis 14 There is no Significant difference between the mean scores of students recommended by teachers aware of reading scores and the mean scores Of students recommended by teachers unaware of reading scores. In order to test Hypothesis 14, the investigator examined separately the recommendations of nine teachers whose students' reading scores were readily available. The reading consultant of School A had administered the Gates- MacGinitie Reading Test to all incoming sixth graders, scored the tests, compiled class lists, and given them to the teachers. When those teachers' recommendations were examined separately, the mean reading scores of the students they had recommended were higher than the mean scores of students recommended by other teachers. 75 The mean differences between the reading scores of students recommended by teachers aware Of reading scores and by teachers unaware of reading scores were statistically tested with the t-test. The mean score of students recommended by teachers aware of reading scores was 77.55 compared to a mean score of 72.35 for students recommended by teachers unaware of reading scores. The t-value of 3.75 with a probability of .0000 was statistically significant. Means for differences are presented in Table 23. In view of these finding, Hypothesis 14--that there is no significant difference in the mean score of students recommended by teachers aware of reading scores and the mean score of students recommended by teachers unaware of reading scores--was rejected. Table 23 Comparison of Mean Reading Scores of Students Recommended by Teachers Aware of Reading Scores and by Teachers Unaware of Reading Scores Knowledge of No. Means S.D. Teachers Aware 9 77.55 20.3 Unaware 36 72.35 20.3 Note: T = 3.75; (p_<.01). 76 Results of Structured and Unstructured Interviews Research Question 6 What characteristics do those students who attained superior reading scores on a standardized reading test, but were not perceived as superior appear to possess that prevented their being recommended for the special reading program? The method the researcher used to analyze the data collected in the structured and unstructured interviews of teachers and students was based on the Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan, 1954). Results may be found in Tables 24 and 25. An analysis of the comments made by teachers concerning behaviors Of superior not-recommended students provided 96 usable comments for boys and 58 for girls. Comments concerning work and social habits were by far the most frequent; speaking, reasoning, immaturity, and "did not know well enough at the time" were other frequently mentioned categories. As might be expected, the comments all had negative connotations and were stated more bluntly than ratings on report cards sent home to parents. Most of the comments made about girls were either that they were quiet and shy or that they were too social. The comments about boys related more to their aggressive behavior, i.e., troublemaker, renegade, rebellious. If the comments about boys concerned speaking ability, they were to the effect that these boys were quiet, inarticulate, or withdrawn. 77 The male teachers' comments were quite descriptive and not stated in academic terms. Some comments concerning boys were: lazy, jerk, goof-Off, hot dog, devious, attention getter, not good in sports, not a leader, fools around, sloppy. Men referred to girls in other terms: shy, boy- crazy, whiner, overactive hormones, blank, not serious, passive. In contrast to the male teachers, the female teachers used the same terms in referring to both boys and girls. Their comments were couched in more academic terms: socially deficient in honesty and integrity, does not tend to task at hand, doesn't apply himself, hastily done assignments, does not present herself as one who thinks, wants others to do her thinking. Reading was referred to Specifically only three times. These comments concerned students' ability to read aloud: not a smooth reader, can't pronounce words, doesn't read aloud fluently. Data also showed that students' work and social habits influence teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship. These data were categorized, summarized, and presented in Table 24. 78 Table 24 Comments of Teachers Concerning Behaviors of Superior Not Recommended Students Categories Boys (96) Girls (58) Social Habits 36% 37% Speaking 19% 19% Reasoning 2% 8% Immaturity 7% 2% Did not know well 9% 7% Research Question 8 How do students account for teachers' perceptions that girls are better readers and students than boys? In order to collect data to answer Research Question 8, the researcher visited seventh- and eighth—grade classrooms in School A, explained the results of the first survey, and asked the students to write their opinions of why middle school girls are perceived by teachers as better students than boys. The students were also informed about the results of classroom achievement as judged by grades of A or A- in science classes and by the grade pointaverages of 3.7 or above attained by students for three marking periods. The students' written comments were quite straightforward. These comments were categorized, summarized, and are presented in Table 25. 79 Table 25 Student Comments on Why Girls are Perceived as Better Readers and Students Gender About Girls About Boys Listen better Supposed to do Sports Result of stereotyping Afraid of being called sissy, smart Participate more Don't care Girls' Like to read aloud Don't have to be better Comments Try to please Don't try Parents expect more Result of stereotyping from them Have to be better Supposed to be better Do their homework Sports take time Men like girls Sports more important Results Of stereotyping Don't try Pay more attention Better things to do Boys' Speak out more Studying isn't cool Comments Better behaved Read better aloud Are free to be smart Can be more open Closer to teachers Boys are rowdy Result of stereotyping 80 With both boys and girls, the words "stereotyped" and "Sports" were used frequently. Girls used the terms "supposed to," "were taught to," and "were brought up to." Boys just made the statements in declarative form, "girls are," and "boys are." For both boys and girls, by far the most common reason given for girls being perceived as better readers and students was that sports take up much of boys' time and are more important to them than to girls. The next most common reason was stereotyping. One boy wrote, "Boys don't have to prove themselves in this world because it is theirs and they know it." One girl wrote, "Boys are brought up to be strong and independent. Girls are brought up to worry about grades and to ask for help. As soon as a boy can understand, he is handed a football and told to stand up for himself." Another girl wrote, "Girls' parents encourage them, take them to the library, whereas boys' parents encourage them to go outside to play or partake in a Sport. Boys' parents would think their sons strange if they sat around the house reading instead of playing football." The students were aware that the sexes are socialized differently. In the discussion with superior not-recommended students about why they were not recommended as superior readers and good students, the girls said, "I don't know" first, then added some possible reasons: "I'm quiet, "I just can't speak up in class," "I'm not a good student and I know 81 it," "Teachers don't like me," "I was new this year; my parents were just divorced, and I was having a hard time," and "I don't like my teachers and they don't like me. They are jerks." Boys were more likely to say, "I'm trying now," or "I'm going to settle down in high school next year." One boy said that girls are seen reading at school but boys aren't. He said that he reads every night, but teachers don't know that. He suggested that maybe teachers think boys don't want to be in a special reading program because they might think it isn't cool. One superior not-recommended boy wrote, "All girls seem to be more outgoing with their thoughts. They don't seem to keep quiet with a thought of their own, but express it more so than boys". Another wrote, "I think that teachers get along better with girls. I think that teachers have more problems with some boys so they don't get along as good with all the boys" In all discussions, the students were the ones who pointed out that boys and girls are socialized differently and felt that they were victims of stereotyping. This could be because units on stereotyping are included in the social studies curriculum. For a brief post hoc analysis, during the last week of school this researcher informally asked 17 teachers to write down the names of students whom they felt were superior in listening, speaking, reading, writing, and reasoning. They listed 196 students--44 % boys and 56% girls, 64% of whom “at 82 were superior readers. They included two superior not- recommended students. These were two boys who, in the structured interviews with teachers, had already been pointed out as ones who had been overlooked because they were quiet. Summary In this chapter, the statistical analysis of the data related to the hypotheses was presented. The hypotheses were restated, followed by a presentation of the results of the data analysis. The major results of the study, discussion, implications for curriculum and instruction, and recommendations for further research are presented in Chapter V. CHAPTER V SUMMARY, DISCUSSION, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS Summary This study explored middle school teachers' perceptions of their students' reading and scholarship behaviors. Answers to the following major questions were sought: 1. Are students who attain reading scores in the superior range perceived as superior readers and good students by their teachers? Are gender of teacher and student, work and social habits, and content area of teacher factors in the identification of superior readers and good students? Are girls better students than boys in middle school? What part do listening, speaking, and reasoning abilities have in teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship? How important is reading ability in teachers' evaluations of factors that contribute to school success? 83 84 6. What characteristics do those students who attained superior reading scores on a standardized reading test but were not perceived as superior, appear to possess that prevented their being recommended for a special reading program? 7. Is there a difference in the mean scores of students recommended by teachers aware of reading scores and students recommended by teachers unaware of reading scores? 8. How do students account for teachers' perceptions that girls are better readers and students than boys? The population comprised 1,155 regular classroom students in grades 6,7, and 8 and 45 content area teachers of language arts, social studies, math, and science. Six physical education teachers and two counselors participated in a portion of the study. Four reading ranks were formed, based on students' scores on a standardized reading test. The ranks were: superior (85-99th percentile), good (65-84th percentile), average (35—64th percentile), and poor(0-34th percentile). Four categories of students were established: superior recommended (SR), non-superior recommended (NSR), superior not recommended (SNR), and non—superior not recommended (NS/NR). The content-area teachers were asked to recommend those students who they felt were superior readers and good 85 students, for the purpose of implementing a special reading program for gifted students. Using these recommendations and standardized reading scores, the 1,155 students were placed into the four categories. Teachers' perceptions of the students in the SR, NSR, and SNR categories were then analyzed in terms of gender of teacher and student, work and social habits ratings taken from report cards, and content area. By means of structured and unstructured interviews with teachers and students, characteristics of all recommended students and of the superior not recommended students were sought. Two sample T-tests for equality of means, chi squares, z-test, and analysis of variance were used to statistically test the hypotheses formulated for the study. The level of significance for all tests was set at 2} .05. A restatement of the hypotheses and the decision to reject or not to reject each are contained in Table 26. Table 26 Summary of Hypotheses and Results Hypotheses Decisions 1. There is no relationship between a student's gender and that student's superior normal- Not curve-equivalent score on a standardized Rejected reading test. 2. There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities Rejected and the students' normal-curve-equivalent scores on a standardized reading test. 86 Table 26 (cont'd.) Hypotheses Decisions There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and students' gender. There is no significant difference between male and female teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities There is no difference between the mean scores of boys perceived as superior readers and the mean scores of girls perceived as superior readers. There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and their ratings of the students' work habits. There is no relationship between teachers' perceptions of students' reading abilities and scholarship and their ratings of the students' social habits. Teachers' perceptions of students' good citizenship, manners, and dependability are independent of reading scores in the superior range. Teachers' perceptions of students' good citizenship, manners, and dependability are independent of gender of student. There is no difference between classroom performance of boys and girls as measured by grades. There are no differences in the perceptions of teachers from different content areas concerning students' reading and scholarship abilities of teachers. Given a list of seven factors in being a good student, teachers in a middle school will not consider reading the most important factor. Rejected Not Rejected Not Rejected Rejected Rejected Rejected Rejected Rejected Not Rejected Not Rejected 87 Table 26 (cont'd.) Hypotheses Decision 13. There is no significant difference between teachers' ratings of listening, Rejected speaking, and reasoning abilities of the superior not-recommended and not—superior recommended students. 14. There is no significant difference between the mean scores of students recommended by teachers aware of reading scores and the Rejected mean scores of students recommended by teachers unaware of reading scores. Findings and Discussion Reading Tests and Teachers' Perceptions According to the findings of this study, it was not necessary for students to have standardized reading test scores in the superior range to be perceived as superior readers and good students by teachers (in this study). In the population studied, proportionately the same percentages of boys and girls scored in the superior range. However, teachers perceived significantly more girls than boys as superior readers and good students. Significantly more boys than girls scored in the superior range but were not perceived as superior by their teachers. Teachers' perceptions of students' classroom success as determined by grades acheived were more accurate than reading scores. Frager (1984) asked, "How does knowledge of reading test procedures and scores affect the teachers' daily 88 classroom observations of students' reading abilities and the accuracy of their judgments of reading strengths and weaknesses?" In view of the findings of this study that there was a significant difference in the mean scores of students recommended by teachers aware of reading scores and mean scores of students recommended by teachers unaware of reading scores, we might conclude that knowledge of reading test procedures and scores affect the teachers' daily classroom observations of students' reading abilities and teachers' judgments of their students' reading strengths and weaknesses. The standardized reading tests might be called to question. If students' learning of thinking skills is to be improved, a careful investigation should be made of the nature of reading as reasoning skills that existing tests claim to measure. The question- and answer-type of standardized reading test are most commonly used today. If reasoning is as important as the literature and findings of this study indicated it is, then publishers of standardized reading tests should develop and incorporate items that test reasoning skills. In this study, the group of students who scored in the superior range but were not identified as superior were rated significantly lower by their teachers on reasoning skills. If the reading test had included items that tested reasoning, perhaps these students would not have scored in the superior range. 89 Frager's (1984) conclusion that content-area (language arts and social studies) teachers' judgments compared favorably to those of other groups of teachers (i.e., reading experts) was supported by the findings of this study which also included math and science teachers and increased the number of students examined from 3 boys to 1,155 boys and girls. This study appears to support Frager's assertion that, regardless of purpose or grade level, teachers use the categories of classroom behavior, participation, comprehension, behavior, and ability to read aloud to make judgments. Work and Social Habits, and Gender Apart from the finding that female teachers recommended proportionately more boys than did male teachers, the findings in this study supported LaHaderne's (1976) conclusion that, on the whole, male and female teachers do not differ significantly in their perceptions or treatments of boys and girls, Teachers' gender and content area had no influence on their perceptions of their students' reading abilities and scholarship. Students' work and social habits significantly affected the teachers' perceptions of them as readers and students. Gender of the student did make a difference in teacher perceptions. Not only did male and female teachers explicitly state that girls are better students than boys in middle school, the number of girls perceived as superior 90 readers and good students was significantly higher than the number of boys. Teachers also perceived girls as being better citizens than boys. Krupczak (1972) recommended that teachers' perceptions that girls are better students than boys, in spite of equal intelligence, should be examined in the light of achievement scores and grade point averages. Findings of the present study indicated that, even with equal total battery achievement scores and standardized reading test scores in the superior range, girls have better grade point averages than boys. Brown and Sherbenou (1981) found that elementary school teachers' perceptions of children's reading abilities are more closely related to how the teacher views the children's behavior in class than to reading performance, as measured by standardized reading tests. This finding appears to be supported by the present study with a middle school population. Superior not-recommended students were rated significantly lower on work and social habits than were all recommended students. Maccoby's assertation that "boys in early years are often pressured to achieve in sports and other nonacademic pursuits" appears to be supported by the students' written opinions (Table 25). However, her assertion that "the boys struggle to achieve autonomy, especially in relation to their mother, with the result that they are less willing than girls to accede to the demands of their predominantly 91 female teachers" would not hold true in this study, in which the majority of teachers were male and the female teachers proportionately perceived more boys as superior readers than did the male teachers. In an unpublished study of causes of stress in a middle school by Smit (1983), it was found that fear of failure in sports was the third highest cause of stress among boys. This fear was not included in the top ten causes of stress among girls. Listening, Speaking, and Reasoning Abilities Students who attained reading scores in the superior range but were not identified as superior by their teachers were rated significantly lower in listening, speaking, and reasoning abilities than students who did not attain superior reading scores but were perceived as superior. Teachers of both genders agreed that listening and reasoning are more important in school success than is reading. Even though teachers on the whole ranked speaking #5, it would seem that students' speaking abilities influenced teachers' perceptions as evidenced by comments of "too quiet," "too social," or "not articulate" concerning the superior not recommended students. Smit (1983) found that both boys and girls ranked giving oral reports as number one in causes of stress in a middle school. The question "What do teachers mean by listening?" arises. Do teachers equate listening with obedience? Do 92 teachers differentiate among levels of listening? It would appear that listening is "still the neglected language art" in the middle school. Findings of this study seems strongly to support Lundsteen's (1964) and Bader's (1984) assertions that there is a need to teach critical listening. In 1973 the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement conducted a survey in which reading comprehension was measured in 15 countries (Thorndike, 1973) and literature interpretation in 10 countries (Purves, 1973). New Zealand students surpassed students from all other countries in comprehension and , interpretation of literature. When this researcher was in New Zealand to investigate the possible reasons for the students' impressive achievement, she found that listening comprehension is part of the annual standardized testing program in all New Zealand schools. It is a separate component with a specific test (published by the New Zealand Council for Education Review) and norms. The test of listening comprehension is given with the stated belief that teachers require assistance in identifying students who possess poor listening skills. According to the Council for Education, "Whether these deficiencies are physiological, emotional, intellectual, or learned, it is important that they be discovered so that a closer, more detailed study may be made of their problems and appropriate remedial treatment begun" (p-4). 93 Many reasons have been given for New Zealand students' high scores in comprehension and interpretation. This researcher would like to add to reasons already given yet another - the fact that the New Zealand schools acknowledge the importance of and pay attention to the testing, teaching, and evaluation of listening.skills. Bulcock, et al.'s (1982) conclusion that reading as reasoning and a "variable manageable by treatment is the single most powerful mechanism known for determining school achievement in the science" (p. 30) was supported in this study by the ranking of such matters as numbers 2 and 3 in teachers' opinions concerning factors in determining school success. However, the findings of this study suggested that his number 1 has been supplanted by listening (see Table 23). Various writers (Lundsteen, Bader, Wilt, Cunningham) have remarked on the scant attention the teaching of listening is given in schools today. However, never before have we had a greater need for efficient and critical listening skills. Teachers in this study indicated the importance of listening as a factor in school success. There is a need for citizens who can listen intelligently, comprehend, interpret, and evaluate what they hear. It is the task of all teachers to systematically introduce and foster such listening skills in each content area and to develop these skills to their highest level by deliberate teaching. 94 Bader's (1980) recommendation that "activities related to logic or critical thinking should be incorporated wherever possible in instructional situations" is justified in the light of the finding that superior nonrecommended students were rated significantly lower in reasoning abilities than were nonsuperior recommended students. This study also appears to support Taba's conclusions that thinking should be taught. Bader (1984) stated that "recommendations to improve listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, and studying abilities of students should reflect the considerable evidence for the need to develop these abilities in conjunction with academic and vocational learning" (p. 47). If students are being evaluated on listening, speaking, and reasoning skills and lack of ability in these skills is affecting their success in school, these skills should be included in the curriculum, introduced, and taught. Even though male teachers ranked compliance with classroom rules as seventh in importance among factors in being a good student (female teachers ranked it fourth), their comments on the superior not-recommended students indicated that lack of compliance may have been the main reason these students were not perceived as superior readers and good students. It is interesting that the number of superior not- recommended students (68) in this population exceeded the number of students (52) in the two middle schools who had 95 been diagnosed and labeled "learning disabled" and "emotionally impaired" and placed in resource rooms. Resource rooms are established to remediate and support students who show a wide discrepancy between ability and performance. The students are mostly low ability children, achieving at more that two grade levels below their grade levels. Five full time teachers, three aides, and two full time social workers work with these 52 students. In the resource rooms and in this group of superior not recommended students, boys are in the majority. The system appears to give support and help to low ability students but none to high ability students who are not performing up to expectation. This study began with a statement by Ayres (1909) to the effect that schools as institutions are better fitted for the girls than the boy students. There may be some truth in that assertion. The middle schools considered in this study are surely different from the public schools in New York in 1909. The question arises, "Is American society still socializing girls to be submissive, thereby fitting them into an authoritarian structure?" The students in this study felt that boys and girls are socialized differently. Smith and Feather's (1983) suggestion that students' perception that teachers focus on factual learning rather than on citizenship training and higher level thinking skills is correct, may be questioned. This study indicated that teachers are aware of citizenship training, social 96 behaviors, and higher level thinking skills, stress their importance, and make decisions based on these factors. Implications for Curriculum and Instruction Purkey (1978) expressed a belief that students behave in accordance with teachers' perceptions of their ability. In Inviting School Success, he stated that an invitation to success "is a summary description of messages - verbal and nonverbal, formal and informal - continuously transmitted to students with the intention of informing them that they are responsible, able, and valuable" (p. 3). Students who have superior reading ability and are not perceived as such should be examined to see if they feel that they lack ability. If these groups of students do possess superior reading abilities and are not performing as expected, they should be counseled and tested to examine the possibility that listening, speaking, and/or reasoning deficiencies might be the cause. Schools do have control of these aspects of students' lives. Current practices of instructing students in listening, speaking, and reasoning skills should be examined. Efforts should be made by curriculum writers, directors, and educational leaders to include such activities in curricula and to make certain that these activities are implemented. 97 Recommendations for Further Research 1. Further research is needed to determine the extent to which listening, speaking, and reasoning skills are being taught in the middle school. 2. A study is needed to assess further middle school teachers' knowledge of the need to teach listening, speaking, and reasoning skills. 3. A study is needed to determine teachers' perceptions of their ability to teach listening, speaking, and reasoning skills in the middle school. 4. Research should be conducted to determine what training should be provided in teacher preparation programs to prepare teachers to teach listening, speaking, and reasoning skills. 5. Research is needed in ivestigating cultural and gender factors that may contribute to teachers' varying perceptions of their students' abilities. 6. Further studies should be carried out to determine students' perceptions of their own listening, speaking, and reasoning skills. 7. Studies of the correlations among higher listening levels, higher thinking levels, and higher reading levels should be conducted. 8. This study should be replicated in high schools to determine if the pattern of achieving girls and underachieving boys still holds at higher grade levels. 98 9. Further investigation should be made of the noted tendency of boys in this middle school sample to state that "boys are" and "girls are," whereas girls tended to use the terms, "boys/girls are supposed to..." or "girls are brought up to..." 10. Standardized reading tests should incorporate items which test reasoning abilities. APPENDICES 99 APPENDIX A Survey Requesting Recommendations for Special Reading Programs 100 TO: Staff FROM: Committee for Special Reading Program for Gifted Would you please look at your class lists and write down the students who in your opinion are superior readers and good students. We are interested in all teachers‘ perceptions of good students. (Please mark male and female. Do not try to balance the number of your recommendations. We'll balance the groups.) Do not let our numbers guide you. List however many you think there are in each class. lST HOUR — SUBJECT Grade 1. 6. 2. 7c 3- 8. 4. 9. 5- 10. 2ND HOUR — SUBJECT Grade 1. 6. 2. 7. 3- 8. 4. 9. 5. 10. 3RD HOUR - SUBJECT Grade 1. 6. 2. 7. 3- 8. 4. 9. 5. 10. 4TH HOUR - SUBJECT Grade 1. 6. 2. 7. 3. 8. 4. 9. 5. 10. 5TH HOUR - SUBJECT Grade 1. 6. 2. 7. 3. 8. 4. 9. 5. 10. 101 102 6TH HOUR - SUBJECT Grade mtwmé o o n . 7TH HOUR - SUBJECT -—|K000\10\ O. o o I - Grade knerN—I o n o AKOCDKIO‘ O. o o o APPENDIX B Survey Requesting Teachers to Rate Selected Students on Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, and Reasoning 103 Teacher Would you please rate the following students on the various components of language. 1 is the strongest and 5 weakest. Thank you - Edna Smit Student Student Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Student Student Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Student Student Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Student Student Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Student Student Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Student Student Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Listening 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Speaking 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Reading 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Writing 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 Reasoning 1 2 3 4 5 104 APPENDIX C Survey for Teachers to Rank Factors of Being a Good Student 105 Please fill this out for me. I am interested in your opinion. Do not sign your name. I would like your subject area and gender. Edna Smit Please rank these in importance in your opinion for being a good student. 1 is the most important. Listening Speaking Reading Writing Reasoning Compliance with classroom rules Neatness and organization Middle school boys on the whole reason better than girls. agree disagree Middle school girls on the whole are better students than boys. agree disagree Subject area taught Gender 106 APPENDIX D Student of the Month Ballot 107 TO: Staff FROM: Vice-Principal DATE: 1983-84 RE: Student of the Month BALLOT Please place your nomination in the "Student of the Month" ballot box in the main office. You may nominate only pp; (1) student. Once recognized, the student may not be further nominated in that school year. Please remember that if all forty-two (42) staff members submit nominations, as many as forty-two (42) different boys and girls (Grades 6-8) may be recognized each month. CRITERIA . Maintains high standards of citizenship Helps others Works well in class Demonstrates friendliness Shows respect and caring for others . Maintains a positive attitude . Demonstrates responsibility NONU'IJZ'WN—A DEADLINE NOMINATION GRADE TEACHER (SPONSOR) 108 BIBLIOGRAPHY 109 BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, I. H., Hughes, B. 0., & Dixon, W. R. The rate of reading development and its relation to age of learning to read, sex, and intelligence. Journal of Educational Research, 1957, 59, 481-494. Arnold, R. D. The achievement of boys and girls taught by male and female teachers. Elementary School Journal, 1968, pg. Asher, S. R. Sex differences in reading. Reading Education Report #2, Urbana. 111.: Center for the Study of Reading, University of Illinois, October 1977. (ERIC Document Reproduction No. ED 146 567) Austin, D. E, Clark, V. B., & Fitchett, G.W. Reading rights for boys: Sex role in langpage experience. New York, N.Y.: Appleton Century Crafts, Meredith Corporation, 1971. 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