Ariel is a 7th grade student who has regularly expressed her dislike for writing and writing conventions in particular. Her educational team has noted that she frequently refuses to use capitalization and even basic punctuation including periods and question marks. Ms. Atkins mentions she tried using a reward system with Ariel to challenge her writing in the language arts class. Ms. Atkins tells

Question

the team she designed a rubric to keep score on how Ariel performed on writing conventions. If Ariel met or exceeded the minimum rubric score on an assignment, she was allowed to listen to her ipad during free reading time. Ms. Atkins said her program had worked beautifully. Ms. Palmer (science), Ms. Leslie (social studies), and Ms. Hart (math), all remarked they had seen absolutely no improvement in Ariel's written work. They decided to try the program in all 3 classes beginning the following Monday using the same rubric and same reinforcement program (listening to her ipad at an appropriate point in class). Ms. Atkins suggested just to make sure they are not overwhelming Ariel, that each of the other teachers introduces the program a different week. Ms. Palmer will start this Monday, Ms. Leslie the following Monday, and Ms. Hart on the 3rd Monday. The teachers agreed they would each measure Ariel's performance with the rubric on the Friday prior to the implementation of the program in their class to serve as reference point for Ariel's improvement.

Suppose that Ms. Palmer implements the program on a Monday & Ms. Leslie and Ms. Hart also find Ariel improves in her use of writing conventions in their classes beginning that same week. How would you describe these events in research terminology?

Answer 1

Covariance has occurred. Apparently, the 3 settings were functionally similar, but not independent of one another. That is, as behavior changed in Ms. Palmer's class, it became more likely to change in the other 2 settings. It is also possible the initial effect in Ms. Atkins class also impacted the change in the dependent variable. It is also possible that positive improvements in her writing and perhaps grades as well influenced Ariel to change her behavior in the other settings even in the absence of the ipad reinforcer.