Mini Project 3
Personal Choice
Julie Engelhardt
July 1, 2002
Purpose of this project: Create a template for designing a homeroom
(advisor/advisee) curriculum and assessments that focuses on academic aspirations
and academic self-concept.
Overview
Students meet in a homeroom period for 20 minutes once a week. Approximately 18
students from one grade level are assigned to a teacher for all four years of high school.
This time is used for student meetings and for teachers to help students with academic
concerns. As of now, there is no guidance or training for teachers to help them advise
their homeroom students. This summer a group of teachers and counselors will meet to
create a curriculum for homeroom to assist teachers in advising their students.
General timeline for creation and implementation of curriculum:
Summer 2002-Curriculum writing
August 2002- Initial attitudes assessment
August 2002-Analyze attitude assessment.
August 2002-Make minor adjustments to curriculum as needed.
August 2002-Implement curriculum.
January 2002/May 2002-Re-assess students. (New assessment inventory or
sample different homerooms?)
Summer 2003-Adjust curriculum based on data and teacher observations.
Current Affective State
 Future Behavior
1. Start with a clear vision of the affective target. What dispositions/attitudes will be
assessed? Have they been clearly defined?
Locus of control
Academic self-concept
Academic goals/aspirations
Anxiety towards school
Mini Project 3
Personal Choice
Julie Engelhardt
July 1, 2002
2. What instructional strategies will be used to reach targets?
After targets are decided, instructional strategies used to help students reach the target
will be identified. A table like the one shown below can facilitate organization the scope
and sequence of the curriculum. The strategies should be grade level specific since
freshmen will have different needs than senior. Each homeroom teacher would receive a
binder containing all activities and handouts, so that homeroom does not become another
class for which they must prepare. Binders can be turned in at the end of the year, so that
it may be refilled and rotated to a different teacher the next year.
Sample Curriculum design table.
Grade&
Disposition Instructional
Target
Month
Strategy
Taught
Locus of
Have students reflect
9-12
Students will attribute success to
control
on times they were
October/Feb ability and effort.
successful or
unsuccessful and why.
Academic
Identify classes to
9-12
Students will set academic goals
Aspirations meet academic goals.
Aug/Oct/J
and change behaviors to meet
an/Mar
those goals.
Identify strategies
students can use to
organize their time
between school, work,
social, study, etc.
9-12
Aug/Oct/
Jan/Mar
3. Establish a clear reason for assessing. How will the results be used?
Guide instruction/use of advisor/advisee time
Identify needs
Guide school improvement
4. Rely on proper assessment methods. Which method provides the most accurate
reflection?
Create Likert inventory:
1. Generate a series of favorable and unfavorable statements regarding the
affective variable.
 Use equal amounts of positive & negative statements.
 Approximately 10 statements.
2. Have outside group classify statements as positive and negative.
 Toss out ambiguous statements
Mini Project 3
Personal Choice
Julie Engelhardt
July 1, 2002
3. Decide on the number and phrasing of the response options for each statement
Example: Strongly agree, agree, not sure, disagree, and strongly disagree
Example of Likert scale and possible statements.
A
STRONGLY
AGREE
B
AGREE
C
NOT SURE
D
DISAGREE
I do well in school because the work is easy. A
I do poorly in school because I am unlucky. A
I do well in school because I study a lot.
A
When I study, I do well in school.
A
School is too hard.
A
B
B
B
B
B
E
STRONGLY
DISAGREE
C
C
C
C
C
D
D
D
D
D
E
E
E
E
E
5. Sample appropriately. How can sufficient information be gathered to make
dependable inferences about student dispositions?
A random selection of 2-3 homerooms at each grade level will be administered
the paper/pencil survey. (About 50 students from each grade.) Data may then be
electronically collated for analysis.
Note: If Repondus can be used to administer survey, a larger proportion of the
students could take the survey and the data analysis would still be manageable.
*Using Respondus may not be feasible. Getting students to the computer
lab to complete inventory and each homeroom teacher’s comfortability
with the administration of the inventory by computer may cause problems
with test administration.
6. Control for relevant sources of bias. What factors could bias or distort results
and how can these problems be prevented?
Ensuring anonymity of surveys can reduce respondents’ likelihood of giving
socially desirable answers.
Solutions:
 Have teachers “buy in” to the survey. They must know how this survey fits into
the bigger picture of helping students and how the information will be used.
 Clear instructions for the students emphasizing honesty in answering the
questions.
 Administer to a group to test for unclear questions.
 Have students write nothing on survey so that their handwriting cannot be a clue
to who answered the questionnaire.
 Have a “drop box” or have a student collect the surveys and seal in an envelope.
Mini Project 3
Personal Choice
Julie Engelhardt
July 1, 2002
7. Score the inventory
Assign points for each of the student’s response to each item based on the direction of the
statement.
 On positive statements, give 5 points to strongly agree, 4 to agree, 3 to not sure,
etc.
 On negative statements, give 5 points to strongly disagree, 4 to disagree, 3 to not
sure, etc.
 A 10-item inventory will have scores ranging from 10-50. The higher the score
the more appropriate the affective status of student.
8. Review the inventory
Identify and eliminate or modify statements that do not function as desired.
 Compute the correlation coefficient between responses on each item and total
score on inventory. Dump those not statistically significant. (Point-biserial)
9. Review curriculum and instructional strategies based on inventory data.