The Effect of Morphology Instruction on Performance Growth of Seventh-Grade Students: A Quasi-Experimental Study

The purpose of this quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, nonequivalent control group study was to evaluate the effectiveness of morphological instruction that includes word matrices and word sums with middle school students. This study compared the overall reading performance growth as measured by the Northwest Evaluation Association: Measure of Academic Performance (NWEA MAP) scores of students who received morphological instruction with word matrices and word sums with the growth of students who did not receive morphological instruction that included word matrices and word sums. A convenience sample of 100 students English-speaking students from a rural, public middle school in northwest Pennsylvania was used for the study. Data were collected using the NWEA MAP assessments that the students took during their English Language Arts classes. The treatment group consisted of seventh-grade students who were instructed using word matrices and word sums in the vocabulary lessons they received. The control group consisted of seventh-grade students who received vocabulary instruction that did not include word matrices or word sums. Reading performance results were analyzed using ANCOVAs to compare the treatment groups’ pretest and posttest results with the control groups’ pretest and posttest results. The researcher hypothesized that statistically significant differences would exist in overall reading RIT scores, information text RIT scores, and/or vocabulary RIT scores. Results indicated that a statistically significant difference for all three components as described above did not occur during this study