Differences in Student Achievement in Comprehension as a Result of the Use of a Probing Technique

Abstract

The problem. The problem was to determine whether a specially designed probing technique had an influence on student achievement scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Procedures. Data were gathered on the types of questions teachers asked students. From these data teachers were selected to participate in an inservice on probing techniques and the use of these techniques in their teaching strategies. The purpose of this data was to ascertain whether there was significant mean growth in student achievement scores on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills with students who received instruction from teachers utilizing the probing technique. The data gathered from this comparison was used to test the hypothesis. Additional analyses were completed by using t tests to test for differences between means and a two-way Analysis of Variance. The analyses were to determine if the means of the control and treatment groups were significantly different. Findings. There were significant differences between the mean scores in the control and treatment groups. Teachers who participated in the probing technique posed higher level questions to students than those teachers in the treatment group. Descriptive statistics further indicated that the mean post-test score was higher for the students who received instruction from the teachers in the treatment group. t Tests indicated that students' post-test scores in the treatment group were significantly higher. Finally, two-way Analysis of Variance revealed that there were no significant interactions between the variables. Conclusions. It was concluded that the probing technique had a significant impact on student achievement scores from pre- to post-test in the treatment group. Recommendations. It was recommended that: (1) additional investigation be conducted using a larger and random sample, (2) further investigation be made of probing techniques as a viable instructional tool in improving comprehension.