A COMPARISON OF THE EFFECTS OF USING VARIOUS TYPES OF WORKSHEETS ON PUPIL OUTCOMES

Abstract

The primary purpose of this study was to measure differences in student achievement as a result of using different types of worksheets. The worksheets were designed to incite different ways of processing textual information. Students across five randomly selected fifth-grade classrooms were divided into three equal levels on the basis of reading achievement scores. Within levels, students were randomly assigned to treatments, consisting of different types of worksheets. The treatment was conducted for three days and consisted of students completing one of three different kinds of worksheets following teacher reading of a lesson from the social studies textbook. The types of worksheets included: (1) "drill" designed to elicit recall or recognition of factual information, (2) "comprehension" designed to promote understanding of concepts, and (3) "structuring" requiring students to select main ideas from the textual material. The dependent variables included: (1) an achievement posttest, (2) a follow-up achievement test administered four weeks following treatment, (3) engaged learning time (ELT), (4) allocated learning time, and (5) measures of student attitude toward the worksheets. The posttest consisted of equal numbers of items in four categories: (1) recall or recognition items identical or similar to questions asked on the "drill" worksheets (RN subscale), (2) items calling for recall or recognition of factual information not included on any of the worksheets (RI subscale), (3) comprehension items similar to those on the comprehension worksheets (CN subscale), and (4) comprehension items reflecting material not included on any of the worksheets (CI subscale). The follow-up achievement measure consisted of five items from each of the categories used for the posttest divided into recognition and recall (R) and comprehension (C) subscales. In terms of student achievement, the results indicated: (1) No significant differences were found among treatment groups on the posttest. (2) High and middle ability readers performed better than low ability readers on the posttest (p < .01) (2)High and middle ability readers performed better than low ability readers on the posttest (p <.01). (3) Across students, performance was highest for the RN subscale of the posttest (p < .01). Students also performed better on the RI and CN subscales than on the CI subscale (p < .01). (4) Regardless of treatment, high and middle ability readers out-performed low ability readers on the R subscale of the follow-up test (p < .01). (5) High ability readers in the drill and comprehension groups performed significantly better than low abilty readers in the drill and comprehension groups ont he C subscale of the follow-up test (p < .05). Examination of the time variables revealed that: (1) Students in the structuring group alloted more time to task completion than students in the drill or comprehension groups (p < .01). (2) Low ability readers alloted more time to task completion than high ability readers (p < .01). (3) ELT was least for high ability readers in the drill group, idfferences being significant between that group and: (1)low ability readers in the drill group (p < .01), (2)high and middle ability readers in the structuring group (p < .05), and (3)all levels of readers in the comprehension group (p < .05). One measure of attitude toward the worksheets revealed a significant difference among groups (p < .01). More students int he drill group perceived the worksheets to be of an appropriate or high interest level than did students in the structuring and comprehension groups.