The Effects of Instructional Practices on the Reading Comprehension Achievement of Middle School Black Male Students

Gracie Allen Robinson Porter, Tennessee State University

Abstract

A quantitative ex post facto causal comparative research method was used to investigate and analyze the reading comprehension achievement of middle school Black male students in two middle schools. Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) reading scores of students in grades five, six, seven, and eight from school years 2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2008-2009 were utilized in this study. The independent variables were the instructional practices of teaching reading using the traditional model versus the Paideia model. The dependent variables were the TCAP Reading test scores for both groups. Reading achievement was examined by comparing the results of TCAP Reading Language Arts scores of both groups from school years 2006-2007, 2007-2008, and 2008-2009 using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Data were collected from a sample of 416 students in grades five through eight from two middle schools for the three school years. One middle school used the Paideia model of teaching reading and the other used the traditional method. Independent samples t-tests were used to determine whether there were significant differences in the mean percentages of reading scores in the Proficient and Advanced categories between School A and School B. The performance of students in School A and School B in grades five through eight during the three-year period remained relatively consistent. There was an increase, from 91.1% to 96.4% in the percentage of Proficient and Advanced scores in both groups. Interestingly, by seventh grade, this group continued to build on its performance with increases in the advanced category. In the seventh grade, 54.2% of Black male students were scoring at the Advanced level. School B, using the traditional model of instruction, increased the students’ Proficient percentage to 68.4 while the Advanced category was only 8.8%. Over the three-year period, more than 60% of Black male students in this sample scored Proficient.

Subject Area

Educational leadership|Middle School education|Educational administration

Recommended Citation

Gracie Allen Robinson Porter, "The Effects of Instructional Practices on the Reading Comprehension Achievement of Middle School Black Male Students" (2018). ETD Collection for Tennessee State University. Paper AAI13420872.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI13420872

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