Running Head: IDEAL TECHNIQUES TO EDUCATE YOUNG PARENTS

A proposal for Moodle as a way to increase academic engagement and improvement:

Searching for ideal techniques to educate young parents.
Alana Giesbrecht
University of British Columbia

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A proposal for Moodle as a way to increase academic engagement and improvement:

Searching for ideal techniques to educate young parents.
Introduction
Although there are abundant stereotypes about young parents, there are no factual
statements that can be made about how to best educate them, because the research doesnt exist.
Many school districts in North America have a separate class or program to teach the young
parent demographic, but the students have been largely ignored by educational researchers. As a
former young parent and current teacher of young parents, Im intimately aware of their different
needs and challenges, and motivated to ascertain a series of best practices in educating them.
This paper is a proposal for the investigation of effective teaching methods in an
alternate-setting secondary class composed of young parents. By alternate setting, I mean
classrooms or programs that serve only young parents, as opposed to schools where young
parents are integrated into mainstream classes. Young parents refers to secondary students of
any gender, who are either pregnant and/or parenting. The term young parents, for the purposes
of this study, refers both to students who have become pregnant during their regular course of
studies, and to students who have dropped out but later returned to school. It is different from the
term teen parents because it is inclusive of adult parents who are still completing secondary
school graduation requirements. Finally, I use the words parents and parenting to refer to
students who have custody of their biological child(ren) and are responsible for their care on a
daily basis.
Specifically, I am interested in discovering what educational methods work best with
young parents. Educational researchers have discovered several methods that are recognized as

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effective, such as student-centered classrooms and constructivist learning, but there has been no
effort to replicate these results with young parents. Because young parents are significantly
different than their non-parenting counterparts, it is not safe to assume that what works best in
mainstream education will also work best with young parents. Some characteristics of young
parents will be looked at in more depth in the review of literature, but a sample of their
differences should be listed here as support for the claim that they are a unique demographic. My
students have disproportionate levels of learning disabilities, mental illnesses such as depression
and anxiety, behavioral problems, ethnic minorities, and high-risk factors such as family
disruption, low maternal education, and low SES. They often live independently of their families
of origin; this creates challenges such as smaller support networks than most mainstream
students, and difficulties with transportation. They are typically sleep-deprived, have little time
outside of the school day to complete homework, and find their school days interrupted by
medical appointments, breastfeeding, and family court attendance. Because the day-to-day
experiences of these students are so different from that of the mainstream student, the actual
differences in their learning should be researched to ensure that the most appropriate methods are
being used.
Although there are high levels of absenteeism and withdrawal in my young parent
program, because the students have enrolled voluntarily I am operating from an assumption that
they want to be academically successful; it is my job as their teacher to find ways to enable that
success. The teacher is obviously not the only influence in these students complicated lives, but
the teachers best efforts can increase the accessibility of academic success. With young parents,
that academic success has an immediate benefit, not just on the students lives but on the lives of

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their young children, breaking generational cycles of dysfunction and benefiting society overall.
The first step is to determine what those best practices are.
Problem Statement
Two strengths that are recurrent in the most effective teachers of at-risk students are the
abilities to form strong student-teacher relationships and to adapt instructional techniques to suit
the student (Popp & Stronge, 2011). However, when students are chronically absent they cannot
benefit from quality classroom instruction, and it is challenging to create a student-teacher
relationship. To solve this problem, teachers will find the most relevant affordances on the
internet. A high-quality classroom website with ways for students to communicate with their
teachers and peers, as well as to access instructional material, has the potential to keep absent
students connected to learning. Because it is open-source and already proven successful with
mainstream students (Aranda, 2011; Lu & Law, 2012; Zheng & Zhou, 2011), I would like to
investigate the impact of a Moodle website (Modular object-oriented development learning
environment) on the young parents I teach.
Research Questions
The purpose of this study is to investigate how use of a teachers Moodle website with
synchronous and asynchronous communication, assignments, and interactivities impacts young
parents in an alternate-setting English 12 class. More specifically:

To what extent will young parents access their teachers Moodle website in an

alternate-setting English 12 class?

How will access to their teachers Moodle website impact young parents

engagement with their alternate-setting English 12 class?

How will access to their teachers Moodle website impact young parents learning
outcomes in their alternate-setting English 12 class?

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Parameters of Search
I began my research for this literature review believing that I could find peer-reviewed
articles, books, dissertations, or reviews about the efficacy of using teacher websites when
teaching young parents. All combinations of the following terms, as keywords and as search
subjects, were used in Google Scholar and in the University of British Columbias library,
accessing a range of databases such as JSTOR and EBSCO: teen/adolescent/young/early and
parents/moms/mothers, early parenting, website, webpage, Moodle, effective teaching
methods/techniques/practices, education, educating, at-risk students, and high-risk
students. Hundreds of texts were uncovered by these searches, but most were written from a
non-educational perspective: legal, moral, political, social, psychological, or medical. The few
educational articles related to young parents discussed student characteristics and tracked their
educational attainment; none were related to effective teaching practices for young parents. I
scanned their reference lists and continued refining the search terms until I found a scholarly
article categorically stating that between 1972 and 2002, Educational Researcher failed to print
any articles on the education of pregnant or mothering students, a silence echoed in other major
education journals (Pillow, 2006, pp. 59-60). Further research uncovered no directly related
literature since 2002, either.
Consequently, I accepted that there was no previous research on my precise question, and
instead prepared a review of meaningfully related, recent literature. To be included in this review,
the literature had to be culturally relevant to my student population; this means that the work had
to be done in North America within the last two decades and not limited to any particular ethnic
group. Representing the key knowledge in this under-researched field, the following review is
structured thematically around a discussion of historical views of young parents, and predictors

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of young parenthood. The eighth article in the review provides information about effective
teaching for at-risk students, in the absence of specific information about educating young
parents.
Literature Review
Historical Views of Young Parents
In the past, young parents were seen as a social, political, or moral problem, and research
was focused on it as such (Beutel, 2000; Hallman, 2007; Pillow, 2006). Pejorative terms such as
unwed mother showed the moral judgment of society on the young mother, and ignored the
responsibility of the young father (Hallman, 2007). Similarly, policy makers positioned the
young parent as scandalous, or as a cause for social reform (Hallman, 2007; Pillow; 2006), and
that resulted in a plethora of research that did nothing to improve the young parents educational
experience. While it is true that young pregnancy is correlated with many social issues, focusing
on the morality of young pregnancy to the exclusion of other perspectives is harmful to all
persons concerned (Hallman, 2007; Pillow, 2006).
Hallman (2007) calls for the repositioning of young pregnancy as an educational issue,
because the current lens leaves young parents marginalized, segregated, and ignored. The
resulting lack of helpful research leaves educators of young parents basing their decisions on
intuition, and leaves the public to believe that young parents are caught in a cycle destined to
loop. However, through her work as a participant-observer in an ethnography including forty
American teenaged mothers from an alternate-setting secondary program, Hallman has realized
that the reality is more complex than that. She states that the students she observed and
interviewed for over a year were cognitively similar to the spectrum of mainstream students, and
that they had the potential to defy societys expectations if their dual identities as mothers and

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students could be embraced by educational policy. Educators at the site of her study supported
their students through writing assignments that encouraged them to explore the different facets of
their identities, and Hallman assigned the schools success to this practice. She ended her article
with the claim that alternate-setting secondary programs for young parents do not have to be
remedial, reflecting the negative historical view of young parents potential; rather they can be
affirmative places where young parents find success. Hallmans claims would be stronger if she
defined the indicators of success, created a causal link between it and the teachers practices,
and acknowledged research that contradicts her view of young parents cognitive normalcy
(Manlove, 1998; Rauch-Elnekave, 1994).
The historical view of young parents can be connected with a larger context, showing its
evolution in concert with other social phenomenon (Pillow, 2006). Before the civil rights
movement, young single mothers were hidden or scorned, and young fathers experienced few
consequences. Marriage, and an early entry to the workforce, was seen as a viable solution. In
the 70s, the civil rights movement induced legislation and programs to serve young parents, but
the economic crisis of the 80s cemented the publics view of the young parent as a social
burden, and little has changed since then. When research was done on young parents, it was to
determine what was wrong with them, rather than how to educate them. Pillow says that the
dearth of educational research on young parents has been purposely engineered. She
hypothesizes that this may be a result of school ideology surrounding teens and sexuality: those
topics create tension for adult policymakers, and they seek to avoid what they cannot control.
Like Hallman, Pillow concludes by stating that young pregnancy must be recast as an
educational, not moral, issue so that young parents receive the education they are entitled to.

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Although Pillow makes some emotionally-charged and weakly-supported claims, her article is
highly effective as an opening of a discourse and a call for further research.
Predictors of Young Parenthood
Like Hallman and Pillow, Beutel (2000) acknowledges the problematic historical views
of young parents, tying that issue to the complicated matter of the individual characteristics of
the young parents themselves. She notes that previous research implies that young parenthood
causes low educational expectations, but hypothesizes that this is actually a multi-directional
correlation: that low educational expectations may be a predictor of young pregnancy rather than
a result of it. To test this hypothesis, she conducted a longitudinal quantitative study comparing
data from two national, American reports that tested students educational expectations (did they
plan to finish high school? Some college? A four-year degree? Graduate school?). Two separate
cohorts were asked these questions in their grade eight year at school, again two years later, and
then again two years later, in 1980-82-84 and 1990-92-94. Beutel found that, in both time
cohorts, students who already had low educational expectations were significantly more likely to
become young parents. The data also showed that students in the 1990s cohort were less likely
to lower their educational expectations after the birth of their child than those in the 1980s
cohort. From this, she concluded that, over time, young parents educational expectations have
improved, but that low educational expectations continue to be a significant predictor of early
pregnancy. In her discussion, Beutel links low educational expectations with other variables such
as low socio-economic status, learning disabilities, cultural values, and school disengagement,
and she calls for further research to distinguish those variables and provide clarity on the
predictors of early pregnancy leading to live birth.

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Beutel overlooked two previous studies that isolated variables as predictors of young
pregnancy; one, called The influence of high school dropout and disengagement on the risk of
school-age pregnancy (Manlove, 1998) is a key study completed only two years prior to
Beutels work. Manlove used data from a longitudinal, national (American) cohort survey of
eighth graders (NELS:88), and found that, as she had hypothesized, high school dropout and
disengagement levels were significantly more useful as predictors of school-aged pregnancy than
as results of it. Students who stayed in school and reported satisfactory-to-high levels of school
engagement were more likely to delay sexual activity, use birth control, have abortions, or
surrender their children for adoption than were students who had dropped out of school or who
reported low levels of school engagement. From the data, Manlove concluded that young
parenting is an issue of cost-opportunity: students who feel there are few personal costs
associated with early parenting are more likely to have live births and choose to parent their
offspring. Her conclusion that young parents may be choosing parenthood is not fully
substantiated by her data, but is supported by the work of Rauch-Elnekave (1994).
Rauch-Elnekaves work isolating learning problems as a predictor of young pregnancy
(1994) is the second study overlooked by Beutel. Rauch-Elnekave worked with a group of 64
teenaged parents in an afterschool program in California, and hypothesized two points based on
her experience: that undetected learning problems may lead to young pregnancy, and that many
young parents intentionally became pregnant. To test her hypotheses, she accessed students
previous scores from a standardized test called the California Achievement Test, and interviewed
students about their feelings on discovering their pregnancy. She discovered that the young
parents in her study were, on average, one or more years below grade level in reading and
language skills, and that only 43% of them reported negative feelings on learning that they were

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pregnant. To follow up on students feelings about their pregnancy, she administered a standard
instrument for testing self-esteem, and found that of her 64 subjects, only one scored below the
norm for self-esteem, 47 scored within the norm, and 16 scored one full standard deviation or
more above the norm for self-esteem. From this, she concluded that young parents often have
undetected learning problems, may have intended to become pregnant, and may have used
parenting rather than academic success as a way to achieve adult status and self-esteem. These
findings arent generalizable but provide a unique perspective on predictors of young pregnancy.
The emergent themes, of insufficient educationally-focused research on young parents,
and complicated correlations between individual characteristics and young pregnancy, are
repeated in Peruccis review of Luttrells book Pregnant Bodies, Fertile Minds (2004).
Luttrells five-year immersive ethnographic research with fifty young parents in an alternatesetting secondary program lends an authoritative voice to back up results of other less conclusive
literature. Perucci succinctly summarizes Luttrells main findings, that the experiences of the
young parents in the study would remain the same if they had not become parents; their low
socio-economic status, family disruption, limited life opportunities, and poor academic
achievement pre-existed their status as young parents. On a more hopeful note, Luttrell also
found that the participants in her research exhibited strength, resiliency, and talent in spite of
their situations (Perucci, p.239). Many of the young parents spoke of a renewed interest, since
becoming parents, in graduating from high school and Luttrell uses this as a foundation for her
call for the further investigation of effective, sensitive schooling practices for young parents.
Both Peruccis (2004) and Zachrys (2005) work support my assumption that young
parents want to find ways to be academically successful, and require an educational system that
is responsive to their needs. Zachrys work, in particular, helps to reconcile the literature

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claiming that young parents do not value education with the assertion that the experience of
parenting prompts renewed interest in education, because her qualitative study of nine young
parents experiences in an alternate-setting secondary program focuses on their beliefs about
education after having lived the reality of providing for a child without completing high school.
Zachry found that parenthood was a factor that helped her participants re-examine their beliefs
about the necessity of educational attainment, a statement that was true in my personal
experience.
Effective Teaching for At-Risk Students
In the absence of literature related to effective teaching for young parents, it may be
helpful to look at effective teaching for at-risk students since they are a closely related
demographic. Popp and Stronge (2011) identified six teachers from a list of American national
and state award-winning teachers who met their criteria of teaching solely to at-risk students.
They isolated the teachers most effective behaviors through a mix of classroom observations and
interviews. Although their data is limited to two hours of observation and two hours of interview
per teacher, their findings revealed consistent behaviors in all the effective teachers. The first
thing that these teachers emphasized was the need for strong connections with the students, as a
tool to increase engagement and classroom management. Second, the teachers underscored the
need for unique instructional methods they found that, contrary to accepted practice with
mainstream students, teacher-led instruction was more effective than student-centered education.
They also found that at-risk students responded well to the use of educational technology. These
findings inform my belief that the best educational methods for young parents may differ from
mainstream best practices, and that a Moodle site may prove effective in increasing my students
engagement and educational achievement.

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Conclusion of the Literature Review

The literature overwhelmingly supports the need for further educational research with
young parents; existing literature explains who the young parent is, why theyve made the
choices they have, and what they have in common with each other, but doesnt tell educators
how to best serve their unique demographic. Large scale, generalizable studies are ultimately
required, but because the field is still so new, smaller studies like my proposed action research
are necessary to identify the most likely areas of inquiry.
Research Method
Description of the Research Method
Mixed-method action research will be used to address the research questions.
Quantitative data will be collected prior to the beginning of the study and at its end, in the form
of pre and posttests to determine changes in students learning outcomes and engagement. At the
end of each study period, participants will complete a survey to determine their individual
demographics. Also at the end of the study, the Moodle sites automatic log will provide
numerical data on the amount of times participants accessed the site. Qualitative data, via
observation, will be collected throughout the course of the study, and participant interviews to
allow for a deeper understanding of students experiences will be conducted at the conclusion of
each study period. In the report, quantitative results will be presented and analyzed first, and
qualitative results will help to inform the discussion.
Participants
Selection. Participants will be students enrolled in four separate classes of English 12
(Semesters 1 & 2, in both the 2013/14 and 2014/15 school years) at New Beginnings, an
alternate-setting secondary program for pregnant and parenting students in Abbotsford, BC.

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These participants are ideal because they are accessible (the researcher is their teacher) and they
represent the overall population (all graduates must complete English 12, so there are teenagers
and young adults present, pregnant students and actively parenting students, and students from
all family and academic backgrounds). The only exclusion for student participation would be if
they do not have home access to the internet; the number of students excluded on this basis will
be monitored, as high numbers of students without internet access could invalidate the study.
Recruitment. When students enroll for the selected blocks of English 12, they and their
parents/guardians will be advised of the study and given the opportunity to opt out. Participating
students, and their guardians if they are under 19, will be asked to sign documentation
acknowledging informed consent and voluntary participation.
Ethical Issues. Because this study will involve some underage participants and some
vulnerable participants like foster children, survivors of abuse, or students diagnosed with
anxiety, every possible consideration will be given to causing no harm. The researcher will
communicate her steps and intentions to participants at each interval and ensure that students
understand their right to opt out at any point.
Instruments
The materials to be used in this study are as follows:
1. The British Columbia English 12 Released Provincial Exam 2011/2012 (PEa) - Appendix A
This standardized test of literacy achievement in English 12 will be used as a pre-test with
each of the four groups. It has 23 multiple choice questions and 3 written responses.
2. The British Columbia English 12 Released Provincial Exam 2010/2011 (PEb) - Appendix B
This test, the same format as the test above, will be used as a posttest of literacy
achievement with all four groups.

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3. The Student Engagement Instrument (SEI) (Grier-Reed, Appleton, Rodriguez, Ganuza, &
Reschly, 2012) will be used as both a pretest and posttest of student engagement with all four
cohorts. The SEI is an inventory with proven adequate-to-good internal consistency
reliability (.76 - .88) in gauging middle and high school students cognitive and affective
school engagement (Grier-Reed et al, 2012, p.85). It consists of 33 items spanning five
factors Teacher-Student Relationships, Control and Relevance of School Work, Peer
Support at School, Future Aspirations and Goals, and Family Support for Learning.
4. A survey developed by the researcher (Appendix C) will be also be used. It will have a series
of questions about students individual demographics. This information will be used to
compare and group data, controlling as much as possible for external influences on
achievement and engagement data.
5. Another instrument will be the Moodle website itself, also created by the researcher. It will
have affordances for synchronous and asynchronous communication, collaborative learning
and peer assessment via wiki, interactivities, instructional podcasts via embedded video, and
the posting of notes and assignments by both the teacher and students, to support students in
their school absences. Students will receive training in using the site, and tutorial videos will
also be available.
6. The final instrument will be a set of open-ended interview questions developed by the
researcher to allow students to provide narrative feedback about the study (Appendix D).
Procedure
Setting. New Beginnings is a secondary program that takes place on a satellite campus of
its larger alternate school, Bakerview Centre for Learning. Its overall enrollment varies, between
40-60 students. All students are either pregnant and/or parenting, and there is an even mix of
teenaged (aged 15-19) and young adult (aged 20-24) students. The school houses many support
services, including a teaching assistant, full daycare, part-time physician, part-time therapist, and

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support worker. New Beginnings staff also liaison with parents, social workers, mental health
and addictions workers, police, child development professionals, and other community providers
to ensure a holistic approach to each students support. There is a halftime teacher for grade 1012 Math and Science, and a fulltime teacher (the researcher) for all other grade 10-12 courses.
Courses are offered through a variety of self-paced and structured instruction; there is one
structured English 12 class in each of the school years two semesters, for 90 minutes each
morning, Monday-Thursday. Typically, there are 5-15 students enrolled in each structured section
of English 12. There are no academic classes on Fridays, when students have the option to attend
social outings and extracurricular classes such as cooking and budgeting.
Roles. The teacher/researcher will create (where necessary) and administer the
instruments, monitor the Moodle site, collect and analyze data, teach the courses in a way as
consistent as possible with the effective techniques identified by Popp & Stronge (2011), assess
student work, report the findings, and suggest areas for future research. The teaching assistant
will gather informed consent and provide additional academic support to the participants, who
will complete English 12 and participate in all pre/posttests, surveys, and interviews.
Research Design and Analysis
Rationale for the Research Method. Mixed-method action research is the best choice as
a method for this study for many reasons. Because the research questions have not been studied
previously, it is logical to begin with a small-scale study that will allow for emergent themes to
prompt hypotheses and direct areas for future research. Also, a mixed-methods design is
necessary to accommodate the data, which will be both numerical and narrative. And, action
research is applicable because of the researchers access to a relevant population and interest in
gaining insight, developing reflective practice, effecting positive changes in the school

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environment, and improving student outcomes and the lives of those involved (Gay, Mills, &
Airasian, 2012, p. 508).
Data Collection and Analysis
As mentioned previously, participants will be naturally divided into four groups for
comparison purposes. In the 2013/2014 school year there will be two control groups, one in the
first semester and one in the second. These will be called control group one (CG1) and control
group two (CG2), and they will experience traditional course delivery without the Moodle site.
In the 2014/2015 year, the two English 12 classes will form the test groups, TG1 and TG2, using
the Moodle site. Two control groups and two test groups are necessary to negate the influence of
seasonal distractions such as holidays, weather, and impending graduation; see Figure 1 below
for the direction of comparison between the groups.
Semester 1 (Sep-Jan)

Semester 2 (Feb-

June)
Year
2013/2014
(No Moodle)

CG1

CG2
Comparison
Flow

Year
2014/2015
(Moodle)

TG1

TG2

Figure 1. Comparison Groups. This figure shows which groups data will be compared for analysis.
In the comparison groups, both CG1/TG1 and CG2/TG2, pre and posttest data on the Provincial
Exam will be compared to determine differences in literacy achievement outcomes. Also, pre and
posttest data on the SEI will be compared to determine differences in student engagement.
Improvement is anticipated for all students as a result of completing the course; however,

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significant differences between the control groups and test groups data will indicate that the
Moodle site has an impact, either positive or negative.
Additionally, the number of times each student accessed the Moodle will be collected from
the Moodles automatic log and compared against their own achievement to see if
a) students accessed the Moodle site, and b) that access correlated to changes in their achievement.
The survey will provide further information on sub-groups and individuals. Its data will
allow for the exploration of the effects of demographic variables on student achievement and
engagement: the students age, previous school withdrawal, status as pregnant or actively
parenting, number of children, living situation, method of transportation to school, and number
of attempts at English 12. A series of graphs reporting these variables and their interactions with
student engagement and academic achievement will be reported, identifying further areas for
research. For instance, it is a possible finding that the Moodle will have a greater impact on
young parents who walk to school and thus miss more class time in inclement weather; this
might suggest further research into the blended delivery model, or the feasibility of providing
bussing. Future research will be responsive to the themes discovered here.
Finally, qualitative data will be collected through open-ended interview questions of each
participant at the end of their respective semesters. Students will be asked about the strengths and
weaknesses of whichever course they took (control or test). Responses will be coded, and
recurrent themes will be addressed in the reports discussion. The teacher-researchers
observations will also inform the discussion.

Schedule
The following is a timeline of major activities:

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Stage One:

Year One, 2013/2014, Sept: i) Gather informed consent and apply the
SEI and PEa (pretests).
Sept-Jan: ii) Teach English 12 without the Moodle site
Jan: iii) Apply the SEI and PEb (posttests) as
well as the survey and interview
questions. Label all data as CG1.
Feb-June: i) repeat steps i-iii above, but label data as CG2.
Summer 2014: Create Moodle site
Year Two, 2014/15, Sept:

i) Gather informed consent and apply the

SEI and PEa (pretests).

Sept-Jan: ii) Teach English 12 using the Moodle site

Jan: iii) Apply the SEI and PEb (posttests) as
well as the survey and interview
questions. Label all data as TG1.
Feb-June: i) repeat steps i-iii above, but label data as TG2.
Summer 2015: Analyze the data, draw conclusions, identify areas for
further research, and write the report.
Stage Two:

Year Three, 2015/16

: i) Based on study results, continue or

discontinue Moodle usage.
ii) Create and implement new research designs
that are responsive to the results of this study.

Discussion

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If having a way to stay connected and receive quality instruction from home, via Moodle,
during necessary school absences has the positive effects on young parents school engagement and
literacy outcomes that I expect, there will be a significant impact on my students learning
environment due to an increase in instructional quality and blended delivery. Ideally, I could share
my findings and spread that impact to other young parents programs.
Individualized education could become more effective as well, as a result of the comparison
of learning outcomes, teaching methods, and individual demographics. Further research could refine
these results to the point where educators of young parents would know which instructional
techniques would best suit the individual young parent, and would also know which methods to
avoid with particular students. To an extent, this already occurs intuitively but should be supported
by research that is replicable and generalizable.
This study is responsive to the literatures demand for educational research to support young
parents. It is a first step toward the development of a collection of effective teaching techniques to
educate young parents.

References
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educational expectations: A cohort and period comparison. The Sociological Quarterly,
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Gay, L. R., Mills, G. E., & Airasian, P. (2012). Action research. In L.R. Gay, G.E. Mills, & P.
Airasian (Eds.), Educational research: Competencies for analysis and applications (pp.
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Appendices

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Appendix A - The British Columbia English 12 Released Provincial Exam 2011/2012 (PEa)
*this 36 page document can be found at the following URL:
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/search/grade12/english/release/exam/1112en_p.pdf
Appendix B The British Columbia English 12 Released Provincial Exam 2010/2012 (PEb)
*this 33 page document can be found at the following URL:
http://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/search/grade12/english/release/exam/1011en_p.pdf
Appendix C Survey of Individual Student Demographics
Survey of Individual Student Demographics, p1
For each statement below, circle the descriptor that best applies to you:
1. I am currently pregnant:

yes

no

2. I currently have ___ children:

3. I am currently: under 19 years old

19 years old or older

4 or more

4. I live: with both my biological parents

with one of my biological parents
with one of my biological parents and a step-parent
with a guardian who is not my biological parent
independently of parents or guardians, with my childs other parent
independently, with my child(ren)
Survey of Individual Student Demographics, p2
other, please explain: _______________________
For each statement below, circle the descriptor that best applies to you
5. To get to school, I:

walk

ride a bus

receive a ride

drive my car

6. I have never withdrawn from school:

true

false

7. I am returning to school after having withdrawn:

true

false

8. This is my first time enrolled in English 12:

true

false

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Appendix D Open-Ended Interview Questions

Open-Ended Interview Questions

For use with all study participants:
1. What was your favourite part of this course?
2. What do you wish had been different about this course?
3. What, if anything, helped to make learning easier for you?
4. What more could have been done to improve your learning experience?
(These are a starting point; the interviewer may improvise follow-up
questions as necessary or skip questions that would produce repetitive
answers).
Only for use with test-group subjects:
5. Were you comfortable using Moodle? Please explain.
6. In what ways did the Moodle site change your learning experience? Do you
feel that those changes were positive or negative? Please explain.
7. Describe the ways you used the Moodle site during English 12.