Description of the Sample Selection These particular 5 students were chosen for this study because they were representative of the gender and range of abilities in Ms. Penney’s fourth-grade classroom at South Headland Elementary School. I spoke with Ms. Penney regarding the sample selection and explained that it is important that the students chosen for the study represent a fair and accurate cross-section of her class with regard to gender and academic ability in the language arts. Since Ms. Penney is their primary classroom teacher, she could best judge by the students’ records and performance for the first half of the school year, which 5 students would best represent a cross-section of the class regarding ability in vocabulary skills and writing, an Informal Reading Inventory would also be an objective way to choose an appropriate sample for this study, however her specific method of choosing students was not made known to me, other than her overall assessment of their ability based on test scores, work samples, and observed performance. |
