With all the possible confounding variables of classroom research, the simplest way to get control of some of the differences among students (such as their prior knowledge and general intelligence) is to give a pretest and then subtract that starting score from their posttest final scores. That way students who come in knowing a lot, have to learn even more to show a gain on the posttest, and students knowing just a little at first, have to learn a little to show a similar gain score. What are your initial thoughts about giving pretests and how do you think it might help or hurt scholarly research designed to understand how technology works in schools?

 

(These are just your own initial thoughts, not for public discussion)

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