I will be conducting a quantitative experiment to help me learn about the impact that technology has on a middle school student’s ability to understand math concepts.

Search 1

• Education> Professional Development Collection> Search: covid19 AND virtual learning
• Results: 36
• Article of Interest: We Love Virtual Learning: Students, Parents Explain Why.
• This article talks about how the majority of students are doing worse during virtual learning than they were before. The exception is a small group of children who are generally more introverted and may have some socialization issues. This article will be helpful when choosing my study participants and creating unbiased groups.

Search 2

• Education> ERIC (via EBSCOhost)> Search: STEM AND middle school AND virtual learning
• Results: 5
• Article of Interest: Nurturing Middle School Students’ Interest in STEM Careers During COVID-19.
• I think this article is a great read because it talks about helping students develop an interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) during virtual learning. I might use this information when surveying my participants before conducting my experiment. A student’s performance may depend on their teachers’ encouragement and enthusiasm for STEM subjects.

Search 3

• Education> Education Full Text> math AND learning loss
• Results: 8
• Article of Interest: What Research Says About COVID-19 and Math Learning Loss.
• Children seem to be doing worse in math than in reading during virtual learning. This is a great read because it gives me ideas for future research on my topic. Not only can I learn about whether or not students’ grades are impacted by virtual learning, but I can also find out what may be causing a decline in understanding.

Search 4

• Education> Education Full Text> online learning AND student achievement AND math
• Results: 26
• Article of Interest: MOMENTUM FOR MATH: HELP STUDENTS BECOME ACTIVE LEARNING PARTNERS IN ONLINE CLASSROOMS.
• This article discusses how teachers can help students engage in their work through virtual learning. This is another great resource for creating my survey that the participants will take before the experiment. I can compare the techniques of teachers whose students are successful with online learning to those who are not.

Search 5

• Education> Education Full Text> learning strategies AND online learning> student success
• Results: 56
• Article of Interest: Online Mathematics Achievement: Effects of Learning Strategies and Self-Efficacy.
• This article highlights how important self-motivation and self-efficacy are to students who are learning virtually. It gave me a lot to think about. I wonder how I can look into a students’ learning strategies to determine how self-efficacy affects their learning. This is another great article for future learning in this subject area.

Final Thoughts

I feel that I’ve reached saturation and do not feel that I need to make any additional searches. I am, however, open to suggestions if there is something I am overlooking. Each time I conduct a search, an article I read triggers something that I haven’t thought to research yet. As someone who is new to research like this, I realize that there is probably a good deal that I am not thinking of searching for.