An Evaluation of An After School Program

Chapter 4

Results and Discussion

The purpose of this quantitative research study was to examine the effects of participation in an After School Program upon student achievement . This investigation was conducted using the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS ) Form A , Levels 9 and 11 Full Battery . Reading and math subtests were used to evaluate student achievement . The examination of academic achievement was addressed in two ways . First , ITBS normal curve equivalence scores were compared between students who had high attendance in the After School Program and students who had low

br attendance in the After School Program . Second , ITBS scores of students who attended the After School Program and students who did not qualify to attend the After School Program were compared . An additional focus of the study was to determine teachers ' perceptions of the impact the After School Program had on students

A letter requesting permission to conduct the study was written to Superintendent of Colquitt County Schools . Permission was granted , and the Assistant Superintendent was deemed the apt contact person to access student records . The Assistant Superintendent , in turn , requested that permission letters be written to all participants ' parents . After this was done , access was granted to the participants ' third and fifth grade ITBS scores . Students ' reading and math normal curve equivalent (NCE scores were used for the study . After student scores were charted , names of individual students were replaced with a numerical code Additionally , levels of participation were coded as 1 ' for students who attended the After School Program for 75 or more of the time , and 0 ' for students who attended the After School Program for 50 or less of the time

Research questions 1-3 examined the effects of attendance in the After School program upon student achievement . Scores for students who had high attendance in the After School Program and students who had low attendance in the After School Program were examined using a two-way ANOVA for repeated measures with reading and math as dependent variables or within subject factors and attendance levels as dependent variables or between subject factors . Prior to running the analysis , the assumption of homoscedasticity (a necessary condition for multivariate normality ) was tested using Box 's Test of Equality (F 1 .24 ,

.05 suggesting that the samples being investigated meet the criteria for normality

The following sections systematically present the results and discussion for each of the research questions investigated in the study

Research Question 1

Do students who attend the After School Program for 75 or more of the time perform better on the reading portion of the ITBS than students who attend the after School Program for 50 or less of the time

Null hypothesis 1 . There is no statistically significant difference between the ITBS reading scores of students who attend the After School Program for 75 or more of the time and students who attend the After School Program for 50 or less of the time

Alternative hypothesis 1 . There is a statistically significant difference between the...