Comparing whole-class discussion and task-based activity

This study examined the participation patterns and effectiveness of two different instructional treatments: Treatment One consisted of a task-based activity; Treatment Two used a whole-class discussion approach (Q/A paradigm). The research investigated which instructional treatment was more relevant and effective. The quantity of information learners could remember immediately after instruction, one week later, and the information that emerged through the interactional formats were measured. Each treatment was carried out for approximately one hour and then participants were asked to write a summary. After a week, students were given a piece of paper to summarise what was carried out the week before to see how much information they could remember. All the interactions were transcribed. L2 learners’ response towards the task based activity showed positive results and the task-based activity treatment was considered a better pedagogical approach.

Comparing the Effects of Four Instructional Treatments on EFL Students’ Achievement in Writing Classified Ads

<p>The current study set out to compare the effect of traditional and non-traditional instructional treatments; i.e. explicit, implicit, task-based and no-instruction approaches on students’ abilities to learn how to write classified ads. 72 junior students who have all taken a course in Reading Journalistic Texts at the Payame-Noor University streamed by performing a TOEFL proficiency test. The selected participants were randomly divided into the following four groups; an explicit group which received direct instruction; an implicit group which were instructed indirectly, and the self-study group with no-instruction treatment in comparison to the task-based group which were asked to prepare a classified ad. A pre-test and a post-test were administered before and after the treatment. The moves in classified ads pre- and post- tests were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. The quantitative analysis of the post-tests revealed that the explicit and task-based groups outperformed the implicit and self-study instruction groups. The findings of this research offer English teachers the chance to reconsider their practices and performances through the advantages and disadvantages of the traditional and new techniques which were employed in the current research and combine them to help learners improve their reading and writing skills.</p>

Causal Inference for Time-Varying Instructional Treatments

The authors propose a strategy for studying the effects of time-varying instructional treatments on repeatedly observed student achievement. This approach responds to three challenges: (a) The yearly reallocation of students to classrooms and teachers creates a complex structure of dependence among responses; (b) a child’s learning outcome under a certain treatment may depend on the treatment assignment of other children, the skill of the teacher, and the classmates and teachers encountered in the past years; and (c) time-varying confounding poses special problems of endogeneity. The authors address these challenges by modifying the stable unit treatment value assumption to identify potential outcomes and causal effects and by integrating inverse probability of treatment weighting into a four-way value-added hierarchical model with pseudolikelihood estimation. Using data from the Longitudinal Analysis of School Change and Performance, the authors apply these methods to study the impact of “intensive math instruction” in Grades 4 and 5.

Prose-Relevant Pictures and Recall from Science Text

The effects of prose-relevant pictures on 42 college students' prose recall were studied. Students were given one of two instructional treatments (prose-plus-pictures, prose-only) which included science content. An immediate- and delayed-recall criterion measure was administered. The prose-plus-picture group's mean criterion test score was significantly greater than that of the prose-only group but only in the immediate testing condition.

The Effects of Three Instructional Treatments on Pain Magnitude and Pain Tolerance: Implications for Theories of Hypnotic Analgesia

Between baseline and posttesting on the cold pressor test, subjects were assigned to four treatments: a) hypnotic analgesia, b) brief instructions to “Do whatever you can to reduce pain,” c) stress innoculation, and c) no instruction control. Participants in the three instructional treatments showed significantly greater baseline to posttest decrements in pain magnitude and significantly greater increments in pain tolerance than controls. However, the instructional treatments did not differ significantly from one another in these regards. Pretested hypnotic susceptibility correlated significantly with degree of pain reduction in the hypnotic analgesia treatment but not in the “Do whatever” or stress innoculation treatments. Theoretical implications are discussed.