Support for this research is provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF), an independent federal agency created by Congress to promote the progress of science. The SLI research team is collaborating with WestEd's Science, Mathematics & Technology Program as well as the UCLA Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) to carry out the study.
High schools that are under mandates to provide literacy interventions for low-performing students often enroll them in discrete-skills-based literacy courses at the expense of their participation in science courses. However, withdrawing adolescents from instruction in science to remediate reading difficulties threatens to further exacerbate historic inequities in achievement for populations of students who are traditionally underrepresented in science. At the same time, literacy interventions that focus on isolated skills may perpetuate low literacy achievement rather than accelerate literacy growth.
To avoid this potentially lose-lose situation and test a promising alternative, NSF has funded SLI to provide high school biology teachers with professional development in content-based literacy instruction. The professional development is offered as part of a randomized experimental study of the following hypotheses:
- Teachers participating in the Reading Apprenticeship professional development will exhibit greater increases in knowledge and skills regarding the integration of literacy and science, and will demonstrate greater integration of literacy into their instructional practice than teachers in control classrooms.
- Students in experimental classrooms will demonstrate greater increases in science understanding, science engagement, and reading proficiency than their counterparts in control classrooms.
The study is being conducted in 60 California high schools that serve high proportions of African American, Latino, and English learner students — populations that are traditionally underrepresented in advanced sciences. Seventy-four biology teachers are participating, half in the experimental group and half in the wait-listed control group. Study methods include multiple measures of students’ opportunity to learn and student learning. A qualitative study of a sample of teachers will be used to validate and explain quantitative findings and to identify factors that influence the success or lack of success of the pedagogical approach. Of special interest are four key dimensions of SLI’s approach to literacy instruction as applied to science content:
- Science reading opportunities,
- Collaborative comprehension activities,
- Metacognitive inquiry into comprehension and problem solving, and
- Practicing strategic reasoning processes.
Year 1 of the study (2005–06) focused on school and teacher selection, development of research instruments, and professional development for teachers in the experimental group. Year 2 (2006–07) is devoted to the year-long study. Data collection includes surveys, interviews, student assignments, classroom observations, and student outcome data. Year 3 (2007–08) is scheduled for data analysis and dissemination of the study findings, as well as professional development for the control teachers.
