Application Week 3: Writing the Research Questions

If a school district implements a Civic Education program into its 8th and 11th grade social studies curriculum throughout the entire year, does that program improve the students’ writing scores on standardized tests.

Who: High school students.
What: Implementing a civic education program in the curriculum throughout the school year.
Why: To evaluate 8th and 11th grade writing scores on standardized tests.

Since I will be evaluating statistical information from a quasi-experimental design, secondary data analysis, a case study, and cause and effect relationships, both qualitative and quantitative methods are employed which seems to point to the mixed method research design. Inexperience is revealed with appropriate knowledge in the area of denoting a mixed-method explanatory approach or the combination of the aforementioned, which is more appropriate?

I plan to also examine:
1. What content does the program introduce?
2. What strategies of instruction are implemented in the program?
3. What role does technology play in the classroom instruction around program?
4. Will teachers need training to implement the program?
5. Will the program offer similar or different writing prompts than previously employed?
6. Does the program develop civic awareness as well as affect student scores on standardized tests?

These are some of the questions that I plan to look for in the research. Please feel free to offer any advice. Since the program is called Civic Education, it is difficult to explain what it does differently than an ordinary social studies curriculum. Basically it augments basic curriculum by learning the processes of government from the local level, through the state level and eventually the federal level through social networking. Students investigate local political issues, local history, Constitutional awareness, as well as civic awareness and conflict mediation. They participate in debates; write editorials, persuasive and informative essays, participate in group projects to promote local historical topics and public events National Constitution Day. There seems to be a movement by the National Council for the Social Studies and the Pennsylvania Council for the Social Studies to promote these programs to districts across Pennsylvania and to other states. I am also interested to see if this is an effective way to increase students writing skills while developing civic responsibility.