1. DOES THE HAPTIC SENSORIAL EXPERIENCEIMPROVEMEMORY? By: Carly D. Butrum
2. Why? Wanted to make reading more meaningful and memorable for students Mentor teacher had similar activity in place in the classroom I wondered about effectiveness
3. Research Question “What is the effect of incorporating haptic-related activities on recall and retention abilities in the kindergarten classroom?” What is the haptic sense? Refers to the sensation that a person receives when something is pressed against the skin
4. Literature Review Past studies: Gilley and French (1976) found that haptic learning was the most useful/preferred modality for both high and low performing students. Bara, Gentaz, Cole, and Charolles (2004) found that students involved in haptics exploration of letters showed a statistically significant increase of the retention of the alphabetic principle, phonetic knowledge and letter sound correspondence Wiebe, Minogue, Jones, Cowley & Krebs (2009) found that including a haptic element to a lesson did not improve scores, but did improve student involvement and engagement. Nearly every study emphasized then need for more research.
5. Subjects and Setting Setting and participants: Rural elementary school in East Tennessee Kindergarten classroom of 15 students 8 female students, 7 male students Study focused on 6 students: 1 female and 1 male high 1 female and 1 male average 1 female and 1 male low * High,average,and low achieving status’ were given based in the students placement within our class of learners
6. Procedures Parental consent was obtained from all students Research was completed with the whole class, but only the six students mentioned earlier were involved in the assessment portion. 4weeks of research 8 readings total Two stories per week One with a “treasure” One without a “treasure” The term “treasure” refers to a small object that relates to the story being read to the students. Students were allowed to explore and manipulate the treasure after the reading of the story. Treasure was given after the reading Conference sessions to assess the child’s recall of the story took place on the day following the reading of the story.
7. Procedures Data collection One-on-one conferences with students Lasted 3-5 minutes Student was asked to retell the story from the previous day Students had visual access to the cover of the book, but were not allowed to open or touch the book. Prompts were used to encourage students to share: “Tell me about this story…” “What do you remember about this story?” “Who was in this story?” “What happened in this story?” “How did the story end?”
9. Procedures Data analysis A basic 12-point scale was devised to assess the child’s knowledge of the story. The final score was changed to a percentile, giving each student a final percent for their amount of retelling. Percentage allowed for adaptation to different story formats while keeping the scoring consistent between students. Students scores were compared by: Reading with a treasure vs. reading without a treasure Ability group Gender
10. Results Treasure vs. No Treasure No statistical increase or decrease in scores. The same trend holds true when comparing by ability group and gender.
11. Conclusions What does this mean? According to this study, giving kindergarten students a treasure after the reading of a story provides no benefit in the areas of recollection and memory. Ended the study early because no positive results were being shown However, several factors impacted the validity of this data. Time of treasure delivery Design of the research Small number of participants Timing of research implementation and time constraints in the classroom Time of year to implement research in the classroom Acclamation to the process of research
12. References Bara, F., Gentaz, E., Cole, P., & Charolles, L. (2004). The visuo-haptic exploration of letters increases kindergarten-children's understanding of the alphabetic principle. Cognitive Development, 19, 433-449. Gilley, D., & French, R. (1976, April). Personal learning styles: exploring the individual's sensory input processes. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Francisco. Weibe, E., Minogue, J., Jones, M., Cowley, J., & Krebs, D. (2009). Haptic feedback and students' learning about levers: unraveling the effect of simulated touch. Computers and Education, 53, 667-676.
