TEAC 888
Fall 2008
Assignment: Data Collection Instruments
Your assignment for Data Collection Instruments is to submit a draft of each instrument you will be using. This means:
- Personal weekly journal prompts/set up
- Student interview questions
- Survey(s) if you are giving them
- Rubric(s) if you are using them
- Anything else you are going to use to collect data that is not part of your normal classroom routine. We are NOT asking for copies of homework assignments, quizzes, tests, or other class activities that you will be doing with your students.
A draft of your data collection instruments is due November 17, 2008.
You will get feedback on these instruments. In this case, please consider the feedback more directive than just suggestions. In most areas of this course, you have discretion to take our suggestions under consideration. Here, you just don’t. We (your instructors) pretty well know what IRB will and will not allow. So, if we tell you that you cannot ask certain questions or that you need to rephrase certain items, you just need to do it. We’ll be happy to explain why we are asking you to make specific changes.
Below are the instructions you received on campus in September about data collection, just as a reminder. Also, refer to the guide to reading chapters 3 and 4 of your textbook, for more on data collection.
In order to streamline the IRB process, we will be submitting an “umbrella” IRB protocol to get permission for each of you to conduct your research. We STRONGLY suggest you limit your data collection of the five forms listed below. While we aren’t saying that you absolutely cannot collect other forms of data, know that choosing different forms of data will entail more work for you (submitting separate IRB forms), and may involve delay in getting approval for your project. Any forms of data collection you wish to pursue that are not covered in the chart below MUST be approved by instructors. Additionally, please note that we are requiring you to collect data in 3 specific forms.
Required /- Selected student work (journals, classwork, homework, quizzes, and/or tests)
Required /
- Personal weekly journal (to document your observations)
Required /
- Student interviews (individual or small group)
Optional /
- Students mathematics survey, pre and/or post
Optional /
- Student attitude survey, pre and/or post
While this list may appear to be very restrictive, this actually allows you to collect a lot of data. For instance, by collecting student work, you could decide to collect all quizzes and tests, homework once a week, classwork once a week, and weekly student journals. This also can include products of group work and taking pictures of student work on the board. Student interviews are a powerful tool for data collection—getting at student thinking in their own words. You can interview students more than once (we suggest at the beginning and end of your project, but some have also chosen to do a third interview in the middle). Interview questions range from having students solve problems and talk through their reasoning, to asking them about their attitude toward math, or what they think about the changes you’ve made in class. Your personal journal will be extremely valuable to you when you are writing your action research paper next spring… We all know how hard it is to remember specifics of what happened last January by April.