The effects of two levels of professional development training in analogical reasoning on fourth-grade students' performance of analogy tasks

Typescript (photocopy).It was the purpose of this study to examine the effects of two levels of professional development training in analogical reasoning on fourth-graders' performance of a verbal analogy task. Specifically, this study investigated whether students of teachers provided with two eight-hour training sessions in the component processes of analogical reasoning would perform better on the Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests word comprehension subtest than students whose teachers were provided with detailed training materials. Further, the study tested whether students whose teachers received training and/or training materials would perform better on the Woodcock than students of teachers given no such training or materials. Also of interest in this study was the effect that teacher observation had on student performance at each level of treatment. Student performance on the Woodcock word-comprehension subtest was assessed prior to and following in-class analogy training. Componential analogy training was structured into four 50-minute sessions to be delivered by the classroom teacher during the regular reading period. Nineteen of the 25 teachers participating in the study were observed during the week of componential training by professors and graduate students versed in the analogy training procedures. Pretest and posttest scores on the Woodcock were submitted to a two-factor hierarchical analysis of covariance with treatment and teacher nested in schools and observation condition as the factors analyzed. Planned contrasts and pairwise comparisons were also performed. Results of analysis indicated that there was a significant main effect for treatment, with students in Level II classrooms outperforming students in Level I, and with Level II and Level I students both outscoring students in Control classrooms. It was also demonstrated that overall observation was a significant factor in analysis. Post hoc analysis of treatment levels indicated that observation was important to student performance Level I classrooms, but was not significant for Level II of treatment. Conclusions and implications of these findings for educational practice are discussed, and questions for future research are posed