Are You A Partier

1
Are You A Partier?

• Evaluation by
• Cathryn J. Watson
• CTER Masters Student
• University of Illinois

2
Program Description

• Title of program Are You A Partier?
• Online program to assist students in determining
  where they fit in today's political spectrum.
• Students completed existing online surveys.
• Students researched political parties online.
• Students interviewed parents about the
  information from the online surveys and the
  political parties.

3
Evaluation Questions

• How knowledgeable are students about political
  parties positions on key issues?
• Do students know enough about technology so that
  they can, on their own, complete assignments that
  require computer usage?

4
Evaluation Questions Continued

• How accurately do students predict their party
  and positions on two different scales?
• How accurately do students predict their
  parents/guardian views on the issues?
• Is this overall assignment beneficial to the
  students understanding of political parties?

5
Participants

• Students
• Sophomores (15-16 years of age)
• Enrolled in Springfield Southeast High School
• Enrolled in my Advanced American Government class

6
Instruments

• 13 question survey issued to 53 participants
• Administered in the classroom during class time
• Administered by teachers in the building
• Evaluator not present during the administration
  of the survey

7
Data Analysis

• Surveys tabulated by myself and data entered into
  Microsoft Excel
• Data for questions 1-12 displayed in spreadsheet
  and bar graph form
• Data for question 13 displayed in spreadsheet and
  pie chart form

8
Results

• Not all students had adequate computer knowledge
  to do all parts of the project
• Not all students had adequate computer access to
  do all parts of the project

9
Results Continued

• Question 13 was the focus question
• Did this project increase your understanding of
  political parties?
• The results were
• Mode (most frequent answer - 24) a lot
• Mean (average 2.89) a little to nearly a lot
• Standard deviation (0.79)

10
Recommendations

• Continue project
• Schedule computer instruction necessary to
  complete all parts of the project before
  beginning
• Schedule more computer lab time to complete all
  of the project in class