Before the change “I gave students a piece of paper and I told them to write what happened the previous class, I did that in Spanish so all of them had the same chances to express their ideas. These were my findings: 23 did not remember; 3 did not answer; 8 answered correctly.” After the change “I repeated the same procedure from the first observed class, I asked my students to write on a piece of paper (in Spanish) what they remembered from the previous class. Their answers were: 30 of them remembered the previous class (most of them remembered the activity of the map); 4 of them did not remember.” Using this information alone, ask yourself the critical
question we have suggested – in other words, what else
(other than Andrea’s new ideas for wrapping up lessons)
could have influenced the change that we’re noticing
in the data?
Commentary If Andrea relied on this data alone, the difference could
be explained by any of the following:
1. Coincidence – there are always variations between
lessons in how much students remember;
2. They may have found the second lesson topic more
interesting, or it may have been easier;
3. Andrea may have been better prepared for the
second lesson;
4. Andrea may have been trying harder for the whole
lesson, and not just changing the way she ended it;
5. The students may have tried harder, especially if they
knew that Andrea was hoping for success;
6. It may be because the wrapping up activity was new
that the students remembered much more. If she does
the same activity every lesson, the novelty may wear
off and they will remember less.
Luckily, Andrea collected much more data than this. After
introducing a range of wrapping-up activities, she also
asked students to choose their favourite ones, and she got
a colleague to observe her lessons before and after
implementing the change. Thus, we can again see the
importance here of triangulating. After she carefully and
critically interpreted all of these different sources of
information, and considering other things that could have
influenced the findings, Andrea was confident that her new
strategies for wrapping up lessons were helping learners to
remember more.
