An investigation of the effects of reciprocal teaching on fifth graders’ comprehension and comprehension monitoring.
Leiker, L. (1995). Unpublished master’s thesis, University of Kansas, Lawrence.
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examining39Students, grade5
Reciprocal Teaching Intervention Report - Adolescent Literacy
Review Details
Reviewed: September 2010
- Randomized Controlled Trial
- Meets WWC standards without reservations
This review may not reflect the full body of research evidence for this intervention.
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Please see the WWC summary of evidence for Reciprocal Teaching.
Findings
|
Outcome measure |
Comparison | Period | Sample |
Intervention mean |
Comparison mean |
Significant? |
Improvement index |
Evidence tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Researcher-designed social science comprehension questions |
Reciprocal Teaching vs. Business as usual |
Adjusted posttest mean |
Grade 5;
|
0.50 |
0.47 |
No |
-- |
Evidence Tier rating based solely on this study. This intervention may achieve a higher tier when combined with the full body of evidence.
Sample Characteristics
Characteristics of study sample as reported by study author.
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Female: 49%
Male: 51% -
Urban
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Midwest
Study Details
Setting
The study was conducted in an urban elementary school in the midwestern United States.
Study sample
Random assignment was used to form the treatment and control groups. Thirty-nine fifth-grade students from two classrooms participated in the study. Forty-eight percent of the students were female. The author provided the instruction for both groups. The analysis sample consisted of 20 students in the reciprocal teaching group and 19 students in the business-as-usual control group.
Intervention Group
The classroom teacher introduced four reciprocal teaching strategies (clarification, questioning, summarization, and prediction) and instructed students to practice these strate-gies over a five-day period. For the next 20 days, students were split into groups of three to four and covered four chapters of their social studies textbook. Teaching materials were selected from United States and Its Neighbors in the Macmillan/McGraw-Hill Social Studies Series. Both the experimental and control groups studied the same social studies content on the American Revolution; however, the experimental group read two more chapters than the control group did. The experiment took place over a six-week period (25 school days).
Comparison Group
Students in the control group covered two chapters about the American Revolution in their social studies text book. Activities that occurred during this time included students reading and then discussing the material in small groups of three to four; outlining a lesson together as a group with the teacher modeling the procedure; using a cooperative learning strategy called the “jigsaw” (in which each student in a group of four seeks to become an expert on an issue, and the group members then come together to teach one another what they have mastered); and silent reading followed by answering comprehension questions.
Outcome descriptions
During the pretest and posttest periods, students were asked to read ten short social studies passages and answer ten comprehension questions about each passage. The passages included in these assessments had not been seen or discussed by students before the tests were administered. For a detailed description of these researcher-designed measures, see Appendix A2
Support for implementation
The study author, who taught both groups of students, studied the reciprocal teaching method in graduate school. No further information on training was provided in this study.
An indicator of the effect of the intervention, the improvement index can be interpreted as the expected change in percentile rank for an average comparison group student if that student had received the intervention.
For more, please see the WWC Glossary entry for improvement index.
An outcome is the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are attained as a result of an activity. An outcome measures is an instrument, device, or method that provides data on the outcome.
A finding that is included in the effectiveness rating. Excluded findings may include subgroups and subscales.
The sample on which the analysis was conducted.
The group to which the intervention group is compared, which may include a different intervention, business as usual, or no services.
The timing of the post-intervention outcome measure.
The number of students included in the analysis.
The mean score of students in the intervention group.
The mean score of students in the comparison group.
The WWC considers a finding to be statistically significant if the likelihood that the finding is due to chance alone, rather than a real difference, is less than five percent.
The WWC reviews studies for WWC products, Department of Education grant competitions, and IES performance measures.
The name and version of the document used to guide the review of the study.
The version of the WWC design standards used to guide the review of the study.
The result of the WWC assessment of the study. The rating is based on the strength of evidence of the effectiveness of the intervention. Studies are given a rating of Meets WWC Design Standards without Reservations, Meets WWC Design Standards with Reservations, or >Does Not Meet WWC Design Standards.
A related publication that was reviewed alongside the main study of interest.
Study findings for this report.
Based on the direction, magnitude, and statistical significance of the findings within a domain, the WWC characterizes the findings from a study as one of the following: statistically significant positive effects, substantively important positive effects, indeterminate effects, substantively important negative effects, and statistically significant negative effects. For more, please see the WWC Handbook.
The WWC may review studies for multiple purposes, including different reports and re-reviews using updated standards. Each WWC review of this study is listed in the dropdown. Details on any review may be accessed by making a selection from the drop down list.
Tier 1 Strong indicates strong evidence of effectiveness,
Tier 2 Moderate indicates moderate evidence of effectiveness, and
Tier 3 Promising indicates promising evidence of effectiveness,
as defined in the
non-regulatory guidance for ESSA
and the regulations for ED discretionary grants (EDGAR Part 77).