The use of any experimental data in this project, however, may be misleading.
There are many variables impossible to control which are important factors in such a
study, as Dr. Bolger suggested in his evaluation and in private discussions with Dr. Nadler. These include:
1. The background and training of the teachers
2. The number of years of experience of each teacher
3. The ethno-linguistic backgrounds of the children
4. The classroom methodology employed by the teachers
5. The amount of time devoted to the specific program by each teacher
6. The amount of supervisory assistance available
a) from the Board of Education
b) from the District Superintendent’s office
c) within the school itself
7. Pupil mobility
It will be seen that the data for these factors vary within each experimental group. Needless to say it would be difficult, if not impossible, to establish equivalents with the control groups as well.
The effect of the school strikes at the beginning of each of the first two years of
the projects can never be measured. Though one can assume that the effect within a
school would be the same, the same assumption could not be made on an inter-school
basis.
The evaluation was to be based on interviews (with all classroom teachers, their
principals and the person in charge for the program in each school), questionnaires for the teachers a “Teacher Observation Checklist” and a Student Observation Checklist”, containing built-in cross-referencing to the teacher Checklist, and a linguistic analysis of the materials (Merrill and Miami) with attention directed to 1) the number of new words (lexical, function); 2) an analysis of the sound system reflected in the text (with reference to initial, medial and final sounds consonant and vowel and clusters); 3) an analysis of the problems which might arise in sound versus spelling conflicts; and 4) an analysis of the grammatical patterns used in the texts.
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