Consequently, the results appear to suggest the student of a given professor, picked up the same philosophy
of that professor. Yet, it was also recognized that the students’ choices of metaphors might also be more reflective of
both the institution that hired the professors and the students who chose to attend the institution.
Furthermore, it was also clear that there were inconsistencies in the procedures. Professor A collected three
metaphors at the beginning of the semester, and then encouraged students to re-pick their metaphors at the end of
the semester; Professor B collected three metaphors at the beginning of the semesters with explanations why they
chose the metaphors, and then encouraged students to collect three new metaphors at the end of the semester and
required students to compose three new reasons for their choices; and Professor C was only able to collect one
stand-alone metaphor per student at the beginning and end of the semester. Furthermore, the metaphor was not
required to be explained.
After analyzing the results of the first study and recognizing inconsistencies in the data collection
methodology, the investigators determined that a follow-up study needed to be conducted where the procedures
were standardized. Then if similar findings were found in the second study, a third long-term study targeting the
growth from a student’s freshmen to senior year could be performed how much variability came via choice of
university and if the program as a whole had an effect.
Methodology Study 2
Participants
University A consisted of 15 preservice elementary education majors enrolled in the class and practicum
“Teaching Literacy in the Primary Grades.” These participants were in their junior year at a large Midwestern
research university. Thirteen were female, all were Caucasian and all but one male was of traditional age (20-22
years). The course met four hours per week—two hours in the university classroom (Monday) to gain information
about assessment and instruction of literacy, followed by two hours (Wednesday) in an elementary school to
implement course learning by working with an individual first-grade student and observing a K-2 teacher.
University B had 10 preservice female teachers of traditional age who attend a Midwestern University.
“Literacy Assessment in the Early Childhood Classroom” is one of six different classes within a “methods block”
semester that proceeded the student teaching semester. For the first five weeks of the reading assessment class, the
teacher candidates were taught the fundamentals of six literacy assessments and practiced them on each other. The
preservice teachers spent the sixth week of the semester immersed in a classroom where they began testing a single
elementary student using six reading assessments and observing the teacher and elementary students within the
class as proscribed by their other methods block professors. During the next four weeks, the preservice teachers
returned to the university classroom to discuss their assessment results, learn a few more assessments, and begin to
“choose the right book” for their child. Finally, for the last five weeks of the semester, the teacher candidates
returned to the classroom to teach the reading, math, social studies, and science lessons they had prepared and to
determine whether the book they chose for their chi