Children in publicly funded school breakfast programs often have learning delays. These are not readily attributable to single causes.
Research on learning delays has revealed that family literacy, measured by parental reading level and comprehension scores, is the most powerful predictor of delay in the primary grades. On the other hand, repeated exposure to eyes-on reading, in the company of a trusted non-parent adult, has been shown to over-ride family literacy as a predictor. No research, however, has studied institution of a reading-and-breakfast program, delivered five days a week before school, intended to over-ride the variable of family literacy. Given this problem statement, which of these purposes would be appropriate for the study? (Select all that apply.)
a. The purpose of the study was to determine whether providing volunteer readers during school breakfasts for all kindergarten and first-grade children would result in fewer than anticipated learning delays.
b. The purpose of the study was to determine the lived experience of children with learning delays, against the context of school and home, and to examine the children's peer relationships.
c. The purpose of the study was to determine whether a buddy system of one sixth-grader, and one kindergartner or first-grader, who ate breakfast together and then read together for 20 minutes, was effective in decreasing the anticipated number learning delays.
d. The purpose of the study was to experimentally determine what causes learning delays, by introducing various strategies already in place in community primary schools and measuring their effect, using basic research.
e. The purpose of the study was to measure the effectiveness of using school computers, allowing children to visually scan a story concurrently read by a school teacher over the cafeteria microphone during school breakfast time, in decreasing the incidence and severity of learning delays.
Question 2
Reasons to conduct an exact replication include which of the following? (Select all that apply.)
a. A different sample is used in the replication, because subjects seldom elect to undergo the same surgical procedure twice.
b. The same site is again used, in order to decrease variation.
c. Sample size was adequate, the design was strong, and measurements were robust.
d. Validation of the truthfulness of the original subjects' responses is desired.
e. A similar population is used, in order to verify the findings.