What Underachieving Middle School Students Believe Motivates them to Learn

Chapter 1: The Challenge to Educate Everyone Chapter 2: A Review of Literature Chapter 3: Methods      Overview      Participant Selection        Site Selection        The Challenge        Participant Selection      Data Collection      Data Analysis  Chapter 4: The Results Chapter 5: Discussion References Appendixes Biography

Selection of Participants This section will outline the participant selection process, starting by describing how the sites were chosen, then discussing the challenge to operationalize underachievement and ending with an overview of how this study defined underachievement and selected the participants. Ethical considerations were attended to throughout the study. Typically, they involved topics of informed consent, right to privacy, and protection from harm (Fontana & Frey, 1994; Glesne & Peshkin, 1992; and Bogdan & Biklen, 1998). All participants were informed about the study through the Informed Consent Agreement (See Appendix C for Informed Consent Agreement forms). Only those volunteering to participate were involved in the study. Volunteers knew they could withdraw from the study at any time. There was no risk to participants and the study went through appropriate processes for Human Subjects Review. Names of the sites and subjects have been changed to ensure anonymity, and taped interviews will be kept in a closed box in a locked office. After five years, the tapes will be destroyed.

	Web site created by Mike Muir Send questions or comments to wilder@somtel.com Last updated April 25, 2001	Mike Muir Assistant Professor of Education University of Maine at Farmington 104 Main Street Farmington, ME 04938 207.778.7179 wilder@somtel.com http://violet.umf.maine.edu/~mmuir