Buy essay on Westchester County

Declare your research question in its final form.
Research question: Will teenagers in Westchester County perform better on tests and engage more in classroom participation with a later school start time ?
2. Declare what instrument you have chosen.
For the purpose of exploring learning achievements and student classroom engagement, ordinal and interval scales might be used. Since the most efficient methods for quantitative analysis are those using interval and ratio scales of measurement, I have chosen interval measurements methods, such as Metropolitan Achievement Tests, and engagement scores used at Harkness method of teaching.
3. Discuss the type of validity associated with your instrument.
I will determine validity coefficient by calculating correlation between the different measurements on the same group, and will also use predictive validity for engagement scores in comparison with MAT tests.
4. Discuss what types of studies have utilized your instrument.
MAT tests are widely used when it is necessary to use unbiased, consistent testing procedures for learning assessment; these tests are used in studies related to studying various dynamics of learning achievement, especially in quantitative studies. Harkness scores are more often used to provide quantitative data to serve the basis for qualitative analysis, since they have less standardized base, and present a broader view.
5. Discuss why you have chosen your instrument and why it is essential to your study.
The instruments chosen for my study (MAT scores and learning engagement scores) allow estimating a certain number of skills (measured by the series of MAT tests), which is the purpose of the study. However, the validity of achievement tests such as MAT tests is lowered by the predetermined set of skills covered by these tests. As a method of eliminating this reduction of validity, I decided to use the second instrument – Harkness score of student classroom engagement – which is more subjective, but at the same time covers a broader spectrum of skills that the student possesses.