Classroom control and reading achievement in grade two and grade five

Brooker, G. M.(Gwendolyn May) (1983) Classroom control and reading achievement in grade two and grade five. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (18MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

This study is concerned with decisions the teacher makes in the classroom regarding classroom control, and the effects these decisions have on reading achievement. The teacher is seen as a manager, responsible for deciding how to control the transactions in the social system of the classroom so that learning tasks are accomplished efficiently and effectively. Data used to test the hypotheses in this study were gathered as part of a study of elementary classroom teaching entitled the Teaching Strategies Project, and conducted by the Institute for Educational Research and Development, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Classroom process data were collected during approximately thirty hours of observations in each of 75 classrooms. During this period the Gates-MacGinitie Reading Tests were also administered as pre-test and post-test. -- This study used the conception of classroom control developed by Morrison (1974) which defined control as consisting of three dimensions: warmth, boundary control and response to deviant behavior. To determine if these dimensions are important predictors of reading achievement a two stage analysis was conducted. The first stage involved the association between the dependent and independent variables. A correlational analysis was first used to determine if a relationship exists between the independent variables (warmth, desk, task, talk, mild reprimand, severe reprimand, threat, punishment and other) and the three composites (boundary control, response to deviant behavior and total control). Total control consisted of the composites of warmth, boundary control and response to deviant behavior, and a regression analysis was used to determine the contribution of each of these composites to total control. -- The second stage of analysis examined the question of whether the independent variables have a linear or a nonlinear relationship to the dependent variables of reading. In order to test this, teachers were divided into groups on the basis of the independent variables. An analysis of variance was applied, followed by tests for linear and nonlinear trends. The computing procedure used was SPSS BREAKDOWN, using the ANOVA option with separation of trends for linear and nonlinear regression. The significance of the linear and nonlinear relationship was determined by the F test. All tests of significance used in this study were at the .05 level of probability. -- Based on these tests it was concluded that warmth was significantly associated with reading achievement in grades two and five and therefore the first hypothesis was accepted. A significant linear relationship was also found for warmth and reading achievement in grade two. The second hypothesis, that high boundary control is significantly associated with reading achievement was supported for grade five, but not for grade two. The test for linear relationships showed that only the task variable in grade five had a significant linear relationship. The third hypothesis, that low response to deviant behavior is significantly correlated with reading achievement in grades two and five was rejected because of an insignificant correlation in grade two, although grade five was found to have a significant correlation. Also a significant linear correlation was found for mild reprimand in grade two. Hypothesis four involved a composite of the dimensions of warmth, boundary control and response to deviant behavior. It was found that this composite was significantly related to reading achievement in both grades. -- This study shows that the dimensions of classroom control are important for reading achievement, particularly in grade five, and that there are important differences between grades with regard to control.

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