Abstract

In this experimental study, we examined the effects of a technology-mediated intervention to improve students’ understanding of academic vocabulary and its impact on measures of vocabulary and comprehension. The Vocabulators program was implemented in two states involving 24 teachers and 200 third-grade students identified as in need of supplemental vocabulary instruction. Individual students within each classroom were randomly assigned to treatment (n = 100) or typical instructional practices (n = 100) conditions. In the treatment condition, students received, on average, 29 lessons on vocabulary and comprehension. Results of linear regression analyses showed statistically significant and practical effects on experimenter-developed proximal measures of decoding (ES = 0.52), expressive vocabulary (ES = 0.78), receptive vocabulary (ES = 0.51), and near transfer measures of understanding vocabulary in sentences (ES = 0.65), and informational text comprehension (ES = 0.28). Group performance did not differ statistically on near transfer measures of sentence verification with vocabulary and narrative text comprehension as well as distal standardized measures of general vocabulary or reading comprehension. Findings suggest the potential impact of technology-based vocabulary/comprehension lessons to supplement typical instruction.

摘要

在本实验研究中，我们研究了以技术为中介的干预措施的效果，以提高学生对学术词汇的理解及其对词汇量和理解力的影响。Vocabulators计划在两个州实施，涉及24名教师和200名三年级学生，他们被确定需要补充词汇指导。每个教室中的个别学生被随机分配接受治疗（n  = 100）或典型的教学实践（n = 100）条件。在治疗条件下，学生平均接受了29堂关于词汇和理解的课程。线性回归分析的结果显示，对实验者开发的近端解码量度（ES = 0.52），表达性词汇量（ES = 0.78），接受性词汇量（ES = 0.51）和理解句子中词汇量的近似转移量度具有统计学意义和实际意义（ES = 0.65）和信息文本理解（ES = 0.28）。在词汇和叙述性文本理解的句子验证的近距离转移测度以及普通词汇或阅读理解的远端标准化测度上，小组表现在统计学上没有差异。研究结果表明，基于技术的词汇/理解课程对典型教学的补充可能产生潜在影响。