How can giving ELL students access to learning games on a computer help them learn in the

classroom?

By: Lisa Cruz

• Children aren’t engaged in the classroom• Students aren’t learning• Other sources to help them aren't being taken

Problems

Research Questions

1) How can giving ELL students access to learning games on a computer help them learn in the classroom?2) How can helping ELL children learn using computer games, help them stay focused during class lessons?

Research Questions Method 1 Method 2 Method 3

How can giving ELL students access to learning games on a computer help them learn in the classroom?

Pre and post testing

Observations Interviews

How can helping ELL children learn using computer games, help them stay focused in classroom lessons?

Questionnaires Observations Interviews

Research Process

-Students and teacher will take surveys and be interviewed

-Students will take pre and post test that will be used as evidence of change

-Students will interact with Math learning games on the computer, three times a week for four weeks.

- After experiment teacher will be interview about any changes in students behaviors during class.

Experimental DesignThis is a pre and post test quantitative experimental design. The students will not be selected at random and they are ELL from the same first grade classroom. This experimental design is a four week long experiment, where three times a week 15 students will interact with educational math computer games for 45 minutes each time.

Sample survey questions for students

On a rating form 1- 5 How much do you like math?

On a rating from 1-5 How interested do you think you are in math class lessons

Symbolic DesignO- Test scores prior to experiment

X- Four week experimentO- Test scores after experiment

Threats to Validity

Threats to Internal Validity

1-History: This is a valid threat because I cannot control what video games the children are accustom to playing and how they will react to playing the educational games.

2-Testing/Pre-test Sensitization: This could be a threat do my research due to the fact that I will be using a pre and post test that contain the same questions. Once students have seen the test questions they may have remembered their previous answers and answer the same way without trying to solve it.

3- Mortality: This could be a valid threat to my research because if something occurs and a student or students are not present for the duration of the experiment, it could affect the outcome of their learning.

Threats to Validity Continuation

4- Statistical Regression: This could be a threat based on the fact that the participants are all at different level of learning, and some might have a greater change then others. Also the experiment is being done on a small sample of students.

5- Differential Selection of Subjects: This could be a threat because the participants will all be at different levels when the study starts.

6- Selection-Maturation Interaction: This may be a factor because some students have the ability to learn things faster than others. Since the research is over a short period of time, some students may be able to learn and use what they have learned while other may need more time to successfully put it into use.

Threats to Validity Continuation

Treats to External Validity

1- Generalizable Conditions: This can be a threat because this same research can be duplicated and the results may be different.

2- Selection Treatment Interaction: this may be a major threat because the participants are all English language learners from the same class, and school. They will not be selected at random.

3- Specificity of Variables: I will be trying very hard to not make this a treat. I will try to make sure I do everything I can while creating assignments that are easily measured.

Graphs and charts

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O02468

101214161820

Math Test Scores

pre test scores

post test scores

Students

Test

Sco

res

Students

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O

Pre Test 11 13 9 12 11 11 14 13 10 12 13 12 13 13 11

Post Test 18 18 18 19 20 16 20 17 17 19 19 19 20 18 19

Based on the information from the pre and post test placed in a graph, we can see that all of the students had improvement in there math scores. Some of the scores improved more than others.

Graphs and charts

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.50

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

X- Axis student engagement

Y- A

xis P

oint

s Inc

reas

ed b

y on

test

X- Axis is how engaged ELL students are with Math computer games

Y- Axis is how well ELL students do on Post Math test

Liker Scale Not engaged engaged very engaged

1 2 3 4 5

Students X- Axis Y- AxisA 5 7B 3 5C 5 9D 4 7E 4 8F 3 5G 3 6H 1 4I 3 7J 5 7K 3 6L 4 6M 3 6N 2 5O 5 8

My independent variable (X-Axis) is a rating of how the students feel they rank on their engagement with the math game.My dependent variable (Y-Axis) is the amount of points if any each students improved by on the post test.The data shows a strong positive correlation between my independent and dependent variables. This shows that the more involved students are with the math computer games, the better they do on math test.