Measuring and comparing academic language development and conceptual understanding via science notebooks

ABSTRACT

The authors of this quantitative study measured and compared the academic language development and conceptual understanding of fifth-grade economically disadvantaged English language learners (ELL), former ELLs, and native English-speaking (ES) students as reflected in their science notebook scores. Using an instrument they developed, the authors quantified the student notebook language and concept scores. They compared language growth over time across three time points: beginning, middle, and end of the school year and across language-status (ELL, former ELL, and ES), and gender using mixed between-within subjects analysis of variance (ANOVA). The authors also compared students’ conceptual understanding scores across categories in three domains using ANOVA. Students demonstrated statistically significant growth over time in their academic language as reflected by science notebook scores, and we noticed conceptual trends in which scores for ELLs, former ELLs, and male students lagged behind at first, but caught up to their peers by the end of the school year.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic language
• conceptual understanding
• economically disadvantaged
• English language learners
• science assessment
• science education
• science notebook

Notes

1. In total, seven ELL students, eight former ELL students, and 10 ES students had scores for the three time points and 14 girls and 12 boys has scores for each of the time points. Therefore the ANOVA was very nearly balanced for language status and gender groups.

2. Partial eta squared (η²_p), or the effect size magnitude, is being gauged according to the commonly used guidelines proposed by Cohen (1988, pp. 284–287): .01 = small effect, .06 = moderate effect, .14 = large effect.