Recommended Reading
A Teaching Aid Study
(Learning Outcome 4.1, 4.3)
(QTS Stds: 8, 29)
Introduction
A responsible teacher will plan lessons well in advance of presenting a lesson. During this period of advanced planning, the teacher will identify areas or sections of the content that will cause pupils some difficulty. These regions of ‘pupil-learning difficulties’ are often identified or made known to the teacher through consultation with other teaching colleagues or within a well documented school ‘scheme of work’ (SoW). The teacher will also have to consider the actual pupils being taught; as ‘pupil-learning difficulties’ will vary between specific teaching groups, especially if the groups are ‘ability set’ or individual pupils have been identified as having ‘special educational needs’ (SEN), highlighted within individual educational plans (IEPs).
Once these ‘difficulties’ have been identified, the teacher will select appropriate resources and activities, in order for the pupils to grasp the required concepts or ideas, whilst causing the minimal amount of anxiety and confusion. In some cases it may be necessary to use a ‘teaching aid’ to help pupils achieve this.
This assignment will evaluate the effectiveness of one such ‘teaching aid’ and its ability to combat a ‘pupil-learning difficulty’. A small scale research experiment was conducted on a Year 9 science group from an inner city school.
What is a Teaching Aid?
A teaching aid is a tool used by teachers or tutors to; illustrate or reinforce a concept, fact or idea, help the learners improve a particular skill or relieve boredom, anxiety and confusion; since most teaching aids provide a more engaging and interesting means of improving leaner understanding/knowledge.
Teaching aids are of particular importance in science, as a significant part of the content of this subject cannot be witnessed in a classroom/laboratory environment.
“Models are often constructed when the object or phenomenon may be too small, too large, too fast, too old, too distant, or too complex.”
(Cullin and Crawford - 2002 cite Jungck and Calley - 1985)
Teaching aids can exist in a variety of different forms (Justi and Gibert – 2002). Some examples of teaching aids that are commonly used within science education include; 3-deminsional models, posters and charts and a range of different kinaesthetic card activities. The rise of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), in education over the past 25 years, has revolutionised the classroom teaching aid. A wide range of interactive and visual activities are now available, using specially designed hardware and software for classroom activities and lessons.
Most science departments will have a wide selection of teaching aids and associated resources for the respective topics being taught. A lot of teaching aids will be recommended through a schools scheme of work (SoW). In some in cases it may be necessary for the teacher or tutor to make a teaching aid if one is not already available. Making a teaching aid provides the opportunity to personalise it for the use of the specific learners, and hence maximise its benefits towards learning.
Rationale behind Teaching Aid
The research element of this assignment was conducted during my second teaching practice period, in the spring of 2008. One of the groups I was teaching was a high-ability year 9 set; which were focussing on revision in preparation for their ‘standard assessment tests’ (SATs) in May. I had just taken over from their usual classroom teaching following the completion of their ‘mock science’ SAT examination, which was held in February. The rationale behind holding examinations early in the spring term is to determine the areas of ‘strength and weakness’, and organise the proceeding revision sessions in accordance to the assessment of pupil performance.
Several areas of ‘pupil-learning difficulties’ were identified via the results of this mock examination and the class teacher and I set about devising a scheme of work with appropriate activities and resources to tackle this. In most cases the science department was well equipped with appropriate resources and ‘teaching aids’ in order to conduct revision activities that would improve pupil knowledge and understanding. However this was not always the case, and on a few occasions ‘teaching aids’ had to be designed and created as no suitable alternative existed. The following few paragraph describe one such occurrence.
According to the National Curriculum for Science, key stage 3 pupils should be taught ‘how metals and bases, including carbonates, react with acids, and what the products of these reactions are (KS3.Sc3.Patterns of behaviour (3).e). At this stage of their science education, pupils’ have had limited exposure to specific chemical reactions and only recognise and express such reactions in word equation form. In order to construct a word equation, pupils must have some understanding of both the reactants and products. Often information about the reactants will be supplied and the pupils will have to deduce the products. When this topic is taught in lessons pupils will learn and memorise the general ‘rules’ associated with these reactions, for example;
acid + metal → salt + hydrogen gas.
Whilst most pupils can remember these general ‘rules’, given a specific example pupils’ appear to struggle when naming the ‘salt’ reactant. The difficulties lie with the selection of the correct information from the reactants presented and then the construction of the name of the salt following the conventions we use in chemistry.
The existing resources and activities that were used by this school were either not suitable or too vague in order to aid pupils with this concept/skill. It was therefore necessary to create a new teaching aid that would help pupils name the ‘salt’ that is produced when an acid reacts with a metal compound. The final design consisted of a ‘flash card activity’, which compromised of a series of specially designed ‘chemical reactant cards’; which when selected and combined (as would occur in a chemical reaction system), enabled the user to deduce and construct the name of the ‘product salt’. This activity presented a kinaesthetic, self-discovery means of reinforcing the principles of salt produced and the conventions used in chemistry in naming these salt products.
Experimental Research
In order to evaluate the ‘effectiveness’ of this teaching aid a small scale piece of experimental research was carried out. The ethical guidelines that are associated with a piece of educational research of this sort were followed; preserving the individual’s (participating pupil’s) anonymity and confidentiality.
The form of research that was carried out was based around a ‘Single-Group design’ (SGD) (Verma, Mallick – 1999), as such, a ‘reliable form of pre-and post testing’ was necessary. The pupils were therefore subjected to a ‘subject knowledge’ test before undergoing the teaching aid activity, also referred to as the ‘experimental treatment’. Following administration of this experimental treatment, pupils were then subjected to a final subject knowledge test, in order to measure the effect the teaching aid has had on pupil knowledge and understanding.
Although this form of experimental research fails to reach some of the ‘requirements for ‘scientific’ experimental methodology’ (Verma, Mallick – 1999); the major reason being the absence of a control group, it does allow for some preliminary observations of the effectiveness of the teaching aid and hence pave the way for more comprehensive experimental procedures in the future if necessary.
Analysis of the pre- and post-tests results
Including the pre- and post-tests, this teaching aid and associated activity took one complete science lesson (lasting 50 minutes) and the start of the following lesson. The initial subject knowledge test took place as a starter activity lasting for 5 minutes at the beginning of the first lesson. As this was a ‘revision lesson’, it was considered not necessary to present an introduction of the subject, especially as the topic had only recently been taught to this group.
As this group is particular large and space within the laboratory is limited, two different pre-tests where designed, in order to prevent pupils who were sitting in close proximity from influencing each other. All tests were carried out under examination conditions; with no form of communication between pupils being tolerated. The two pre-test (Test 1 and Test 2 in appendix), were both in the identical format of short ‘multiple-choice questions’ (MCQ) and were designed to be of the same (or as close as possible) level of difficulty.
After completion of the pre-test, test manuscripts were collected in and pupils were organised into specific groups and set the ‘teaching aid activity’. As well as consisting of the ‘teaching aid’ (which was designed to improve pupils understanding of ‘salts’ and how to name them); the final activity incorporated an aspect of team work and emphasized on group communication skills. Pupils were given 25-30 minutes to complete the activity and pupil worksheet (see appendix) within their groups, whilst the teacher circulated between the groups providing an element of direction when necessary.
The lesson commenced with a review of the concepts and ideas that were brought up during the activity and a ‘pupil’ analyse of the ‘usefulness’ of the flash card resource (‘Name that Salt!’ cards). The post-test (Test 3 in appendix) occurred at the beginning of the following lesson a day later. The format of the post-test was somewhat different from that of the pre-test. The post-test consisted of several parts, including sections which required short and long answers, as well as MCQ’s. However, for purposes of the statistical analysis of the experiment, a series of six MCQ’s of identical nature to those presented in the pre-test, were used for analysis. The rationale behind this was that if the pre- and post-test were too similar or identical, the validity of the experiment would be diminished, as there would be no means to determine whether there has been an improvement in subject knowledge or whether pupils have become accustom to the correct answers through familiarity. Never-the-less, in order to present data of statistical value, the ‘variables’ of testing style and level of difficulty, remain consistent between the pre-and post-tests.
“… it is a good idea to retain a proportion of the original test material and blend this with new questions, which examine the same, expected learning outcomes...”
(Newton – 1999)
The pre- and post-test were marked and the results were recorded. The final marks for each test were analysed and the results showed that the majority of pupils improved in terms of test performance, when we examine the mean mark scored in the pre-test compared to that of the post-test. The mean scores and mean percentages can be seen in Table 1 below.
The mean pre-test score was 1.6; however following ‘treatment’, we can see that the mean percentage score rose to 4.5 (seen within the post-test results). This is an average increase of 42.3% per pupil score, suggesting that the ‘experimental treatment’ or teaching aid activity has been effective.
Table 1. Pre- and post-test results
pre-test(s) mark (max.5)
post-test mark (max.6)
Test 1
Test 2
Test 3 (final)
3
3
4
5
1
0
5
5
2
1
4
3
2
1
5
2
3
1
4
5
2
1
6
4
0
1
6
5
2
1
3
5
3
2
5
5
0
1
5
5
3
0
3
4
2
0
5
3
3
2
5
4
2
3
5
5
1
3
6
4
1.9
1.3
4.5
Average pre-test score 1.6 Average post-test score 4.5
Graph 1. Graphical representation of pre- and post-test results
This of course is an average. When considering the post-test marks, in particular the range of results across the whole class we can see that some pupils outperformed others. Out of the class of 30 individuals; approximately 2/3 scored a post-test percentage of greater than 80%. However there were minority of pupils who were less successful, in particular one individual who had a score in the post-test of just 2 (see graph.2 above). The significance of this result is that it is almost as low as the mean score of the pre-test, which was 1.6. Such ‘performances’ from specific and isolated individuals will have interfered with the final percentage mean that was determined for the whole post-test group.
The pre-test, as mentioned earlier, was split into two tests of identical format and difficulty. However, the data from Table.1 (see above), suggests that these tests were perhaps not of equal difficulty. Pupils who took test 1 seem to have outperformed those that took test 2. The mean average score for test 1 was 1.9, whilst for test 2 it was 1.3; a discrepancy in excess of 10%. Every effort was made to make these two short MCQ test equivalent, however, it would seem that even the smallest change of structure or language can determine the success rate of a specific question.
Having experienced this phenomenon within the ‘pre-test tests’, we must assume that an event of this sort could have equally occurred during the post-test; which once again was designed to as similar as possible in structure and difficulty as the previous tests. If this is the case, any relationship determined from these tests would not necessarily relate to the ‘experimental treatment’, but influenced by the specific questions asked during the test.
Impact of Teaching Aid on pupil understanding/knowledge
Even with the limitations imposed with this form of experimental research (SGD), we can assume that the teaching aid and associated activity were successful in their objective to improve pupil knowledge and understanding. Even after scrutinising the research method and data obtained, an increase of over 40% in the mean test performance of pupils, suggests that the teaching aid activity was a positive influence on pupil learning.
The magnitude of the ‘teaching aids’ responsibility for the improvement in results is much harder to determine. Without having some means of measuring the influences of other variables such as; pupil interaction, behaviour between tests and the actual act of performing the pre- and post-tests’, we cannot conclusively assign the performance improvement to the teaching aid alone.
That does not mean that this small-scale research experiment fails to inform. As well as illustrating the ‘causal’ effect of the experimental treatment on pupil performance, we can observe other more subtle relationships. From table 1, it is evident that the majority of pupils across the ‘range of abilities’ that are expressed in the year 9 group, have in the most part made an improvement following treatment. Pupils who are at the higher end of the ability spectrum can be identified, as those who scored 100% in the post-test. The highest pre-test score was 60%, so we assume that the pupils from this ‘100% group’ have at the very least made a ‘performance improvement’ of 40%. This pattern of improvement seems to be the case for the majority of pupils within this group, regardless of ability. This is positive news, if assuming that the teaching aid was the main cause of improvement. This observation suggests that this teaching aid and related activity, has a significant element of ‘differentiation’ associated with it. We can even be so bold as to assume that the pupils from a range of abilities benefit in terms of subject knowledge and understanding, from exposure to the teaching aid treatment.
There is nothing to suggest at this early stage of experimental analysis to suggest that the teaching aid – ‘Name that Salt!’ flash cards’ in its current format is unsuitable for pupils outside key stage 3. The concepts and conventions of ‘salt’ naming are relevant into key stage 4 and beyond. The dynamic nature of this teaching aid would suggest it would be ‘of use’ if not beneficially for older groups.
We should not though completely ignore, the small minority of pupils who appeared to make little if any progress following the teaching aid treatment. This teaching aid must possess an element of discrimination to present such cases, however rare. On closer analysis of test manuscripts a possible explanation was exposed. In general, pupils who appeared to have made limited progress (including the pupil highlighted earlier for having a significantly low result), were labelled as having ‘English as an Additional Language’ (EAL).
It was hoped that the introduction of the ‘groups’ into the teaching aid activity, would limit the effect that pupils with SEN such as EAL would have on the statistical data. However, it would appear that despite these efforts, the literacy requirements of the teaching aid activity, in particular the pupil worksheet, was too great for this ‘minority’ of predominately EAL pupils.
Review of research methods
Cohen, Manion, Morrison (2000) expresses that an essential feature of experimental research is that the ‘investigator’ deliberately controls the conditions which determine the event(s) in which they are interested in. Every effort was made within this investigation to regulate and control the classroom activity in order that the necessary observations could be made in reference to the effectiveness of a ‘teaching aid’.
In this experiment the ‘independent variable’; the variable that underwent a change, was the introduction of the teaching aid into the ‘learning scenario’. The observation and measurements of the teaching aids’ effects were considered to be the ‘dependant variable’.
At first glance it would seem that the effect of the teaching aid on pupil performance (assuming this is directly related to pupil knowledge and understanding), was positive. However the situation is far more complex. The degree of ‘control’ that is available with this form of research; situated in the classroom environment is extremely limited. There is significant array of possibilities or factors that could influence the result, which exist outside the control of the experimenters’ in single-group (pre- post-test) designs. Such threats limit the validity of this educational experiment type (Cohen, Manion, Morrison - 2000).
In order to restore experimental validity, researchers will often include a control group, which will undergo the pre- and post-test analysis in the absence of the treatment; not being exposed to the teaching aid activity. This method; ‘Two-Group Design’ (TGD), would enable the detection of the ‘teaching aid effect’, whilst having the potential to highlight any external interfering ‘variables’, they may have otherwise gone unseen.
“…Thus, the control group provides a good estimate of the counterfactual – of how the treatment group would have fared in the absence of treatment.”
(McEwan, McEwan – 2003)
An additional concern (possible limitation) with the adopted research method for this investigation exists in the procedure of how the evidence for evaluating pupil knowledge and understanding was obtained. Teachers can assess pupils through a varieties of means; verbal conversation, pupil demonstration, modelling and written manuscript testing, to name a few. Now while each form of assessment has its benefits; it is also exhibits some limitations.
It is therefore necessary to question whether having written MCQ tests’, was the most pragmatic and accurate form of pupil assessment. Did such procedures allow; pupils to be ‘suggested’ or influenced when presenting answers, was the resulting data prone to misrepresentation, or did the procedure(s) exclude those with limited literacy skills? It is quite possible that many of these questions cannot be answered; such is the complexity of the ‘learning arena’. There can be no definite conclusions when conducting the form of experimental research witnessed in this investigation. The data obtained can therefore only ‘suggest’ or be used to ‘suggest’; in the situation, where the experimenter has limited or no control of the testing conditions/environment.
Future work
Despite all of the concerns and issues discussed above, the development, implementation and impact of the ‘teaching aid’ was impressive. In order to reinforce this, it would be suitable to conduct a series of follow up experiments, this time including multiple groups and controls.
In an ideal situation, it be beneficial to conduct the sort of experiment describe by Verma, Mallick (1999) as the ‘Solomon four group design’, which consists of two control groups and two experiment groups. The benefits of such of an experimental system is that the effects of the pre-test can be measured, hence determining (if any) interference with the experimental treatment.
On a final note, in order to appreciate the effectiveness of a ‘teaching aid’, it would be sensible to compare a series of different teaching aids’, consisting of several different formats and types. It would then be possible to identify from my future observations as to which of the different teaching aids was the most effective and suggest reasons why it was so.
(WORD COUNT: 3152)
REFERENCES
Cohen, Manion, Morrison (2000). ‘Research Methods in Education’. Routledge; 6 edition (15 Feb 2007), Chapter 8 pp.165-179
Cullin, B Crawford (2004). ‘Supporting prospective teachers’ conceptions of modeling In science’. International Journal of Science Education. 26 (11), 1379-1401.
Justi, Gilbert (2002). ‘Science teachers’ knowledge about and attitudes towards the use of models and modelling in learning science’. International Journal of Science Education. 24 (12), 1273-1292
McEwan, McEwan (2003). ‘Making sense of Research – What’s Good, What’s Not, and How to Tell the Difference’
Newton, (1999). Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative, Pre and Posting Testing. Available from: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/ltdi/cookbook/info_pre_and_post//
[Accessed 27 February 2003]
Verma, Mallick (1999). ‘Researching Education, Perspectives and Techniques’. Routledge Falmer. pp.102-107
References from Journal Articles:
Cullin, B Crawford (2004). ‘Supporting prospective teachers’ conceptions of modeling In science’. International Journal of Science Education. 26 (11), 1379-1401.
Justi, Gilbert (2002). ‘Science teachers’ knowledge about and attitudes towards the use of models and modelling in learning science’. International Journal of Science Education. 24 (12), 1273-1292
References from edited Books:
Cohen, Manion, Morrison (2000). ‘Research Methods in Education’. Routledge; 6 edition (15 Feb 2007), Chapter 8 pp.165-179
McEwan, McEwan (2003). ‘Making sense of Research – What’s Good, What’s Not, and How to Tell the Difference’
Verma, Mallick (1999). ‘Researching Education, Perspectives and Techniques’. Routledge Falmer. pp.102-107
References from the Internet:
Newton, (1999). Learning Technology Dissemination Initiative, Pre and Posting Testing. Available from: http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/ltdi/cookbook/info_pre_and_post//
[Accessed 27 February 2003]
Supported reading:
Justi, Gilbert (2003). ‘Teachers’ views on the nature of models’. International Journal of Science Education. 25 (11), 1369-1386
