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Article 4:
A Pilot Study to Identify Some African American Boys’ Academic Strengths and Weaknesses
by Evie Adams-Welch, Michael Bowie, and Shirley St. Juste
In an attempt to increase the number of students to graduate from high school with the prospects of enrolling into post secondary education, the University of Florida's College Reach-out Program (CROP) targeted the rural high schools in Alachua County, Florida with an after-school program through the Recruitment, Retention, and Multicultural Affairs Office in the College of Education in order to motivate low-income and educationally disadvantaged students in grades 6-12 (Welch, Bowie, St. Juste, 2004). During the 2002-2003 semesters, the CROP participants' learning and study strategies for academic settings were observed as one component of a pilot study to determine the academic strengths in a rural high school in Alachua County, Florida. At the end of the school year, the CROP participants in grades 9-12 took via the computer the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory-High School Version (LASSI-HS), as the first component of a pilot study. The computer version gave the student the results of each of the ten (10) subscales. The prompt, individualized feedback of the Inventory's results motivated the students to begin seeking ways to eliminate their deficiencies.
The second component of the pilot study was to determine the group's academic strengths and weaknesses according to LASSI-HS' ten (10) subscales: attitudes, motivation, time management, anxiety, concentration, information processing, selecting main ideas, study aids, self-testing, and test strategies. The after-school program director used the Inventory's results as an instructional tool to design the after-school academic program during the school-term in order for all to pass the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT), a requirement for earning a high school diploma. The Inventory's findings were also used to design individualized, on-the-campus summer-school intervention program for students to perform better on their SAT and ACT tests, the prerequisites for enrolling in most colleges and universities.
Of special interest were the African American boys' academic weaknesses on the LASSI-HS' subscales, since historically their enrollment in the University of Florida was less than the African American girls. Consequently, the research team decided to isolate the African Americans' (eleven boys and nine girls) scores for further analysis by gender. Significantly, the findings by gender were different. The African American girls' strengths were in self-testing and test strategies, while their weaknesses were anxiety and attitude. In contrast, the African American boys' strengths were in three areas: concentration, study aids, and time management, with test strategies and information processing as their weaknesses.
Next, the African American's scores for information processing were analyzed. Attention was given to this subscale of the inventory because a score below 50% indicated the students needed to improve their overall studying and learning skills to avoid problems for success with academic work that would prevent them from graduating from high school, as well as a post secondary program (Weinstein, Woodruff, & Await, 2004). Foremost, the results of the second component also indicated that all of the African American CROP students in grades 9-12 needed an intervention program to develop better information processing skills to perform well for a post secondary educational program after high school.
Most significantly, the second component of the pilot study's analyses also revealed that the African American boys' scores in information processing were the lowest of all the students taking the inventory. Their underperformance indicated that they needed an immediate, concentrated one-on-one instructional intervention program to develop pertinent skills for completing high school in general and for performing well on standardized tests in particular.
The third component of the pilot study involved reviewing the ten instructional modules that were designed to complement each of the LASSI-HS subscales to address the students' deficiencies with quality teaching. From the list of skills to be developed, a skillful teacher would tailor a curriculum to teach pupils how to overcome the deficiencies. For example, information processing skills would be developed by using quality children's literature or trade books for teaching reading comprehension (Duffy, 2003). Or, oral pieces such as The Pledge of Allegiance could be written from memory by students for comparative study and analyses to model the mental process involved in critical thinking (Tatum, 2000). In general, African American students tend to have a high-interest level for positive, reading materials, and "easy reading" selections for counseling about Africa, their culture and heritage (Tatum, 2006; Welch, 2007). For example, short biographies about famous African Americans, historical writings about Africa and its ancient world would be most appropriate to teach how to read in order to learn (Tatum, 2005; Welch, 2004, 2007; Priestly-Jackson, 2008). Acquiring literacy skills of this nature would be transferable for acquiring skills embedded in some of the other LASSI-HS subscales. Skillful literacy teachers often used short, high-interest topics like sexuality, race, racism, and politics for classroom discussions, as Beverly Tatum (1992) illustrated to teach higher-level thinking social skills, as well as higher-level reading skills.
The information processing subscale also assessed how well students used imagery, elaboration, organization strategies, and reasoning skills as learning strategies to help build bridges between what students already know and what they were trying to learn and remember (Weinstein, Woodruff, & Await, 2004). The instructional module further emphasized how to develop cognitive skills and study strategies that were also analogous with reading comprehension skills (Duffy, 2003; Pressely, 1993). Hence, the third component of the pilot study revealed that students could acquire both the information-processing skills and the study-strategies from learning reading comprehension skills (Duffy, 2003; Pressley, 2003), if they "read well to learn" (Chall, 1996). Students that read well to learn were often the better test-takers on standardized tests and also performed academically in the upper percentile ranks of their classes (Comer, Joyner, & Ben-Avie, 2004).
By analyzing reader responses to children's literature from African American boys in grades 3, 4, and 5, the researcher determined which information processing skills were being used as cognitive strategies from their cognitive activities when they read for pleasure. A high frequency of strategies indicated the students had acquired the technique of "reading to learn" (Chall, 1996), one of the vital literacy skills for academic achievement and other personal achievement.
The results of the findings from the LASSI-HS inventory and the skills that were embedded in the LASSI Instructional Modules for information processing were most helpful for designing the pilot study, which ultimately provided directions for one of the CROP researchers to study "Cognitive Strategies of Underperforming African American Boys in Response to Children’s Literature" (Welch, 2007).
Conclusion
LASSI-HS is an inventory useful for students in grades 9-12 to identify their learning skills, as well as their study skills' strengths and weaknesses. The Inventory also is an effective planning tool for shaping curricula for individualized instruction. Some children have different learning styles; therefore, methods of instruction should not be "one-size fits all" even in public or private schools' classrooms because children have different learning styles. Therefore, the methods of instruction and academic activities should accommodate their differences (Priestly Jackson & Welch, 2009). Thus, parents engaging in home schooling, as well as other parents, teachers, and academic counselors could benefit from using the results of the Inventory to address revealed weaknesses for individualized instruction and transformation (Welch, 2007). Ideally, students should take the LASSI-HS at the end of the eighth grade, so that they can have three years to eliminate their deficiencies before completing high school. At the end of the third year after initially taking the LASSI, they should take the Inventory again to determine their growth before enrolling in a post secondary education program, so that they can become aware of their personal learning style for lifelong learning (Priestly Jackson & Welch, 2007).
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