STANDARDIZED TEST AND HISPANIC STUDENTS

Standardized test and Hispanic students

Standardized test and Hispanic students

Since the 1980s, concern about student achievement in public schools has increased. Supporters of standardized testing say that by requiring more testing of public schools, those schools will force to account for how well they teach their students. One controversy with standardized tests is that many factors can affect the results. The purpose of this study would be to explore how social economics, ethnicity or cultural background, language barriers, gender, or teaching strategies influenced students in taking the standardized test. I believe that ethnicity or racial background of a student impact test scores because the test content presume knowledge or skills that are not shared by all social, ethnic, cultural, geographic, or ability subgroups.

Qualitative research approach will be used for this study. The process of research would involve emerging questions and procedures, data typically collected in the participant's setting, data analysis inductively building from particulars to common themes, and the researcher making interpretations of the meaning of the data.

The rationale of my research would be to include exploration, description, and explanation. Nevertheless, would be to collect descriptive, narrative, non-numerical data in order to gain insight into the phenomenon of interest (Smith, 2000).

The researcher plays a pivotal role in the qualitative research process. Data is collected, information is gathered, to review the settings, and realities are constructed through the researcher's eyes and ears and are influenced by his or her experience, knowledge, skill, and background. I know I've said this before, but it is important to remember that the researcher is the primary instrument of data collection and analysis. A bias is a preference that inhibits impartial judgment. Bias is a concept that relates to traditional or post-positivist thinking. The position I take here is that striving for objectivity by reducing bias is not important for much of qualitative research. It is believed that some are hesitant to espouse a qualitative research approach because they consider that the researcher is biased (Haynes & Licata, 1995). Well, of course, the researcher has views on the topic.

This study will be carried out by considering the theoretical sampling method. Theoretical sampling is a method that has its roots in grounded theory, whereby the researcher simultaneously collects, codes and analyses the data in order to make a decision about what data to collect next. In other words, I would initially start with purposive sampling by selecting the sample deemed more appropriate to describe the phenomenon under study at this stage of the research. Then, at a second stage, I would move into theoretical sampling, which involves selecting samples that are more appropriate to understand the theories that emerged from the findings of the first stage. The difference between purposive and theoretical sampling is that the former is determined by a list of variables, whereas the latter is determined by the needs of the emerging theory (Jennings & Rentner, 2006). The sampling is open to those participants and cases that will provide the greatest opportunities ...