Queen's University Belfast

Fox, Naoimh

Full time student

Year of Entry: 2010

Email: nfox08@qub.ac.uk

Thesis Title: An evaluation of the effects of a volunteer tutoring intervention to improve the reading fluency and language proficiency of primary school children learning English as an additional language.

Summary of Research: My PhD is focused on evaluating the effectiveness of a student-led volunteer tutoring programme for primary school children learning English as an additional language (EAL). The study will utilise a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. The duration of the intervention will be 12 weeks, commencing in February 2012 and will be delivered by undergraduate student volunteers. Pre and Post testing will occur in January and June 2012.

The study will also use a process evaluation which will comprise qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative method will consist of two semi-structured interviews; one interview for the EAL teachers within the primary schools and another interview for a sub-sample of the students delivering the intervention. The interviews for the EAL teachers will address the attitudes of the teachers towards teaching English as a second or additional language to young children. The interviews for the student volunteers will explore the difficulties/issues experienced by the volunteers during the intervention. The students will also be required to complete a questionnaire after each session throughout the intervention. This will enable the researcher to examine the implementation and fidelity of the programme. Observations by the researcher of several of the intervention sessions will also contribute to the process evaluation.

Research Centre: Centre for Effective Education