- Students had difficulty understanding test questions and being organized for tests, resulting in lower scores. - The strategy taught students to identify key words in questions and rephrase questions in their own words. - Data was collected through pre-and post-tests of test-taking strategies and student work to determine if explicitly teaching strategies improved test performance. - While some individual classes saw significant effects, overall results were inconclusive as to whether the strategies significantly improved test scores across subjects.

1. PHS CARP Stacey, Cameron, Matt, Cat, Brennan

2. Area of Need Students have difficulty taking tests because they don’t understand the language or intent of the questions. “Often students do not know how to devise a plan to use for studying and are unorganized when they come to the test, which can result in lower test scores” (Bass et al. 2002, p. 27)

4. Rationale How does this tie into school improvement? Principal Highsmith identified that interpreting test questions is difficult for students across disciplines Example: Algebra Why is this significant? (“so what?”) Nearly all subjects require some kind of high-stakes test This project can ameliorate test-taking ability across disciplines May lead to improvement of test scores HSA, SAT, AP

5. Population Biology, AP Environmental Science, Social Studies, and English students Beneficial to all students Could help HSA and AP scores

6. Strategy Justification “In order to perform well on a test a student needs to develop effective strategies for reading, learning, and studying” (Bass et al. 2002, p. 27) Peer-reviewed research supports the specific test-taking strategies that we have chosen (Chittooran & Miles 2001)

7. Research Questions Did our strategies help students become better test takers? Do students use the strategies that we suggest?

8. Description of Procedures Administering pre-test of test-taking strategies Teach mini-lesson on strategies (one per week) Post-test to assess effectiveness of lessons

9. Data Collection Plan

10. Observation Guidelines The following will be done at least three times during the study: Look for supplemental marks on tests other than answer indication. Look for student use of test strategy skills without being prompted.

12. Sample question:1. How often do you circle or underline parts of a test question to help you answer that question? 1 – Never 2 – Not often 3 – Sometimes 4 – Very often 5 - Always

15. Class Data – Ms. Meyer 1st period standard biology n=15 Pretest Average = 18.5 Posttest Average = 17.8 p > 0.05 so the treatment effect was not significant This means that implementing implicit and explicit instruction in our two test-taking strategies did not produce a significant effect.

16. Observations/Student Work I observed very few students using the strategies during class work Results were slightly better when I looked at students quizzes and observed students while testing which was encouraging. Ex. Organelle vs. Process

17. Class Data – Mr. Stone Data from 4 Periods of Academic English n = 76 Pre Test Average = 16.50 Post Test Average = 17.42 p = .034034 Since p < .05, this means that implementing implicit and explicit instruction in our two test-taking strategies did produce a significant effect.

18. Observations/Student Work I observed a moderate amount of students using the strategies during daily class work. However, during exams when students were reminded of the strategies and encouraged to use them I observed a greater number of students applying the strategies.

19. Class Data – Mr. Davis Social Studies

20. Class Data – Ms. Holland English

21. Class Data – Mr. Leischer English

22. Overall Results After performing a T-Test using data from all of our students combined we found that our treatment effect was not significant p = 0.0581 n=256 Since our data is approaching significance it may be that with more time and/or more data points the effect may be significant.