understand participants’ perceptions, feelings, attitudes and motivation towards DI.
Edmunds (2000) recommends a full-sized focus group with eight to ten participants when the participants are teens. This size allows interaction while not requiring each individual participant to constantly speak which will create a more comfortable environment and will be more conducive to a successful discussion. Therefore, the researcher conducted three focus group interviews with the interviewees from LPL, IPL and HPL in the experimental group respectively in order to gather data for research question three.
These questions were used as a guide for the interview process (Appendix G).
Based on Hatch (2002), a protocol is only a guide to help you prepare for an interview.
Because a researcher never knows what data a participant will provide, the researcher should allow the participants' responses to guide the interview process. Since this was the basis of the qualitative portion of this research, these questions were a valid way to start a interview. The questions are listed as follows and translated into Chinese version for the subjects. Questions 1 and 2 required the interviewees to describe the process of grammar learning, state their reasons why they can/can't keep up with the process and . Question 3 asked the interviewees whether they liked the process or not.
Questions 4 and 5 focused on realizing the interviewees' opinions about the learning materials. Question 6 collected the data of the participants' learning difficulties in English and question 7 asked if DI was helpful to solve the difficulties they mentioned in question 6. The last question encouraged the interviewees to share their thoughts with others.
3.4 Design and Procedures
A lesson plan was proposed to describe the design for the differentiated instruction. There were three stages in the lesson plan as follows.
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Stage 1: The instruction of grammar rules
In this stage, the instructor explained the usage of grammar rules to the whole class. And the a whole set of tiered tasks were assigned to the three groups of learners.
These tasks allowed different proficiency learners to produce different linguistic output.
Stage 2: Practice for grammar rules
After the arrangement of tiered task, the participants were required to finish the task in their flexible grouping setting. While the students were engaging in their tasks, the instructor worked around within the groups to give additional instruction to the slow learners.
Stage 3: check answers and assign homework
In the last stage, the instructor checked the answers of the differentiated
worksheets with LPL, IPL and HPL respectively. The students who finished the task could review or preview the lesson by themselves. In the end of the class, the instructor quickly reviewed the grammar rules and assigned homework.
In addition to the tiered task, the process for the participants to complete the tasks was differentiated as well. The researcher applied the framework of flexible grouping to ensure the learning process was based on DI. Chapman and King (2007) mentioned that flexible grouping gives students opportunities to learn information in a total class, alone, with a partner or with a small group. Other alternatives include random groupings, peer-to-peer tutoring, multiage teams, or cooperative learning situations. According to Ford (2005), the whole class instruction often meant many students didn't learn the appropriate content for their levels. Thus, in this current study, the researcher adapted Ford (2005) model: Grouping Without Tracking
(Differentiating by Levels of Support) to effectively address the diverse needs of
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learners. The three groups of students were arranged to three group designs respectively. LPL were put in a small group where they can discuss with more partners and the teacher can efficiently provide direct support to a group of low achievers. IPL who needed less support from the teacher were put in pairs and they could share with their partner. HPL who had the ability to learn independently were arranged to complete the task individually. Table 3.4 illustrates the content of 3 tiered tasks and flexible grouping for LPL, IPL and HPL.
Table 3.4
Content of 3 Tiered Tasks and Flexible Grouping
participants tiered tasks flexible grouping
LPL Task A: 10 multiple-choice items small group
IPL Task B: 10 gap-fill pairs
HPL Task C: 10 sentences-making with picture cues individual
Table 3.5 states the design of the experimental group and the control group during the whole study.
Table 3.5
The Operation of the Experimental Group and the Control Group
the experimental group the control group
learning content three differentiated worksheets exercises of the textbook learning process flexible grouping learning traditional lecture method
Besides, the procedure of the study was implemented through eight phases. Each phase was stated in detail as follows (Table 3.6).
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Table 3.6
The Procedure of the Main Study
Phase Time Content
Phase 1 2013.8 The researcher designed the two English Grammar Tests, the pretest and the posttest.
Phase 2 9.2-9.12 After piloting the pre-and posttests, the researcher revised them according to the result of item analysis.
Phase 3 9.13-9.15 All the subjects took the pretest in the formal study. The scores of the pretest were utilized to divided the participants into three subgroups.
Phase 4 9.16-9.20 Two classes of the subjects were randomly assigned to be the experimental group or the control group.
Phase 5 9.16-11.29 The researcher administered DI for 11 weeks to the experimental group.
Phase 6 12.2-12.6 All the subjects took the posttest in the 12th week of the semester. The researcher collected the scores of the posttest for data analysis.
Phase 7 12.9-12.13 The subjects of the experimental group received focus group interview in the 13th week.
Phase 8 12.16- With the data, the researcher made comparisons of the subjects scores between before and after DI. Meanwhile, the research transcribed the focus group interview to do the content analysis.
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The statistical package SPSS was used to compute the data collected from the pre- and post-tests to answer the research questions listed earlier in chapter 1.
This study adopted a quasi-experimental design. Both qualitative and
quantitative analyses were used to answer research questions. The quasi-experimental design is a common alternative to true experimental designs in the evaluation of education programs when, as in this study, random assignment is not possible or practical. Due to the nonequivalent-groups design, analysis included adjusting the pretest scores for measurement error. Otherwise, one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) model may contain bias and may not present the true treatment effect.
To answer the first research question, after adjusting the pretest mean scores, ANCOVA was implemented to compare the adjusted mean scores of the posttest to check if there is a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group.
To answer the second research question which aims at evaluating the effects of differentiated and non-differentiated instruction on high, intermediate and low proficiency learners respectively, descriptive statistics were stated first in order to provide information related to central tendency and dispersion Then ANCOVA was performed to examine if learners of different proficiency level benefit from DI differently.
As for the third question, a focus group interview was employed to explore the participants’ thoughts toward DI. The purposeful sample of participants in the focus group was to better understand the implementation of DI. Data collected from the focus group required that careful notations be made to ensure coding and emerging themes were communicated accurately based on the participants' conversation. The