The effect of a unit in Chicano literature on ninth-grade students' attitudes toward Chicanos

An exploratory investigation was conducted in an attempt to determine the effect of a unit in Chicano literature on ninth-grade students' attitudes toward Chicanos. Three intact classes of sixty-one ninth graders from the Knoxville City School System were involved in the experiment. None of the subjects were Chicanos and none of the students had experienced personal contact with Chicanos.

The research design used in this study was the time-series design which consisted of the following phases:

1. Three ten-minute sessions for two weeks on students' attitudes toward Chicanos during the spring quarter of 1978 preceding the unit in Chicano literature. The instrument used was the Ansusa Attitude Scale.

2. Two weeks of participation in the Chicano literature unit. The selections coincided with the twenty items on the Ansusa Attitude Scale.

3. Three ten-minute testing sessions for two weeks on students' attitudes toward Chicanos during the spring quarter following the Chicano literature unit. The Ansusa Attitude Scale was again administered to the students.

The Ansusa Attitude Scale was utilized to assess students' attitudes toward Chicanos during pretesting and posttesting. Since the test was constructed by the researcher, content validity and test-retest reliability were established for the scale.

vi Fisher's t-test was employed for each item on the Ansusa Attitude Scale in order to determine any significant difference in two sets of pretest scores and two sets of posttest scores. No statistically significant difference was found between the two sets of pretest scores and the two sets of posttest scores. Fisher's t-test was then computed to ascertain whether a significant difference existed between the pre/posttest scores. Frequency and frequency percents were also computed for each item on the AAS. The AAS was analyzed concept by concept.

Additional sources of data which consisted of students' written and verbal responses to the activities included in the Chicano literature unit served as secondary sources of information.

The first research question posed for investigation was as follows:

Is a statistically significant attitudinal change toward Chicanos evident among students who complete the Chicano literature unit?

In the main, there was no statistically significant difference in attitudes toward Chicanos from pretest to posttest in students who completed the two-week Chicano literature unit. Only Item 20 was found to be statistically significant at the .Ol level. This item stated that Chicanos had made jobs harder to get for other people by accepting lower wages. It is interesting to note that students, in general, exhibited positive attitudes toward Chicanos.

Additional sources of data suggest that a comparison between students' descriptions of Chicanos, prior to and after the Chicano literature unit, indicate a change in some students' concepts of Chicanos.

The second research question posed for investigation was as follows:

If there is a statistically significant attitudinal change, will the same change be evident in the delayed posttest, i.e., the posttest administered two weeks after the first posttest?

There was no statistically significant difference in attitudes toward Chicanos from the first posttest to the third posttest in students who completed the two-week Chicano literature unit. Students' positive attitudes toward Chicanos did not change between posttests.