Systematically designed literature classroom interventions: design principles, development and implementation: an introduction

Abstract

Intervention studies in L1 language arts and literature classrooms are pivotal to investigate the effects of instructional approaches that have been purposefully designed to achieve certain learning outcomes. Ideally, design principles, design procedures and the resulting interventions (i.e., lessons, projects, materials) would be comprehensively described in research papers. Unfortunately, intervention research in the education sciences are often focused on empirical intervention effects rather than the content and mode of instruction. Even now that journals provide more room for additional digital information about instructional materials and measurement, information on critical design choices made in interventions for reading and literary instruction remains underwhelming (see Schrijvers, Janssen, Fialho, & Rijlaarsdam,2016). Yet, it is important to shed light on the content and structure of evidence based instructional programs for reading and literary instruction, for two aims and audiences: research and practice. First, insight in the key elements of an intervention enhances the opportunities for both theory building as well as conducting replication studies in different contexts. Research that explicitly and coherently reports the theoretical, practical and contextual choices in the instructional design provides a deeper understanding about the relation between basic design principles (the instruction) and the desired and realized learning outcomes. These basic design principles, presented in an argumentative structure, must be judged by the research community from the perspective of construct validity: the perspective is then on the extent into which the basic principles in the study under review do represent the theory. The second layer of the report, on the contextual operationalizations – adaptations to specific aims, age group of students and cultural traditions – provides information that may prove invaluable in the evaluation of content validity: to which extent the operationalizations match the theoretical construct. These theories may serve as the steppingstones for other researchers, in other national, regional and cultural traditions, to establish studies in their particular context to improve literacy instruction. Such studies do not replicate the original study but adapt the theory to cultural contexts and contribute to the generalizability of instructional theories in literacy education. Second, educational studies in the L1 domain do not serve further research only. Intervention studies are mostly set up with the same aim as all educational practices: to change something, somewhere, in someone. Teachers who prepare a literature lesson, considering which story to introduce – or which stories, because different students might be affected by different stories – are driven by a desire for accomplishing change in their students. A lesson is meant to contribute to a student’s new understanding, to new affect, or to check assumptions (De Groot,1980; see for an application Schrijvers, Janssen, Fialho & Rijlaarsdam, 2016, p. 9). According to De Groot(1980), education contributes to several types of learning experiences including the construction of rules and the exceptions to rules as they apply to the inside and outside world. Further, education is about affecting positive change in the life trajectories of students, and the education sciences, through intervention studies, explicitly aim to contribute to the improvement or enhancement of language arts and literature teachers’ daily practices, directly or via change agents like national in-service training institutes. To support further implementation of evidence-based, theoretically underpinned learning programs, mere availability of concrete instructional activities is insufficient. Teachers and teacher educators must understand these activities in the context of the theoretical framework: the design principles, embedded in research literature, in terms of key-learning activities that must take place; the instructional acts to generate these learning activities; and the changes in the learner that are intended. Practice must be fully informed, as providing materials is not enough to change teachers’ understandings and beliefs (e.g., Nieveen, 1999; O’Donnell, 2008). Although design research has built a certain tradition, reporting instructional designs and materials is not an easy task in doing research likely due in part to underdeveloped instructional theories in the literacy domain as well as the lack of generally accepted reporting formats. A research tradition of reporting intervention designs is yet to take hold.