Abstract:
A group of middle-grades students served in a Special Education Information Literacy class were
taught a 6-step procedure for completing a research report through the use of an interactive
multimedia instructional unit. The students were surveyed pre- and post-intervention to describe
experiences, changes in learning and increase or decrease in self-confidence with completing
research assignments. A pre-intervention assessment, in the form of a 250-500 word research
project, was scored using a typical middle-grades research grading rubric. The students and the
teachers maintained daily journal entries to describe experiences, learning, and self-confidence
during the intervention. A similar post-intervention assessment was used to determine the
percentage of change in skills possibly attributable to the multimedia instruction. While the
rubric scores of the students increased from 100 to 167% after the multimedia instruction, the
scores remained below the minimum passing score. Students experienced difficulties with the
time allotted for each lesson, indicating they needed more time and practice to internalize the
procedure.