Research Design

Currently, we are conducting a functionality and outcome trial of the intervention in schools in Tampa, Florida. Volunteer teachers have been randomly assigned to two groups. The first group used the intervention in February and March 2009; the second group will serve as a control group during that time. Both groups will take the pre/post test at the beginning of February and the end of March. The original control group will use the intervention in April and May 2009, and the original treatment group will serve as a second control group.

All classrooms will conduct pre/post tests at the end of May. (The pre/post test administered at the end of March will serve as the pretest for both groups in this second test.) In this way, each classroom will serve as both a treatment and a control group (at different times), which increases the statistical power of the study. As part of this study, we will also conduct classroom observations and focus group interviews with selected teachers.

We are focusing our research in three key areas:

Change in civic understanding and motivation. We will document change in civic understanding and motivation to engage in service by analyzing change on pre-post items that includes a bank of civic knowledge and motivation items developed by Joe Kahne at Mills College.

Teacher response to the intervention. We will analyze teacher responses to daily ratings of the curriculum included in the software, and perform a qualitative analysis of teacher responses in focus groups.

Student response to the intervention. We will analyze student responses to the intervention through classroom observations, by analyzing questions about the intervention that are included in the post interview, and by analyzing teacher’s ratings of student enjoyment and engagement collected daily by the software.