Content area
Abstract
The purpose of this case study was to explore the perceptions of preservice teachers engaged in the P3GRP methodology, a literacy tool designed to foster engagement with and comprehension of expository text. The P3GRP methodology includes the components of prior knowledge, purpose-setting, and personalization prior to reading, guided reading strategies during reading, and a meaningful, practical product after reading.
The setting for the study was a small, private liberal arts university in a rural Midwestern community. Purposive sampling procedures resulted in the identification of three primary informants who represented maximum variation and typical sampling types. The informants were preservice teachers enrolled in a foundational literacy methods course taught by the researcher.
Data were collected from January through August, 2001. Data collection strategies included The Metacognitive Reading Awareness Inventory (Miholic, 1994) supplemented with open-ended questions, documents generated by the informants during the study, and one-on-one interviews with the informants at the conclusion of the semester. The researcher's field notes and instructional plans also were analyzed.
A case study research methodology was employed to provide a holistic perspective of the P3GRP methodology, as viewed through the eyes of the preservice teachers who experienced the process. Data were read in order to achieve a sense of the whole, coded according to 21 categories, and reduced to six major themes: (a) challenges with expository text, (b) perceptions relating to the before reading phase of the P3GRP methodology, (c) perceptions focusing upon the during reading stage of the P3GRP process, (d) perceptions pertaining to the after reading portion of the P3GRP methodology, (e) preservice teachers' perceptions of the P3GRP components, and (f) instructor insights.
Conclusions and recommendations for future research are included in the final chapter.
