R code and analysis for a doctoral dissertation examining the impact of culturally relevant project-based learning on middle school students' perceptions of school racial climate.
This quasi-experimental study compared three groups of middle school students:
- Culturally Relevant PjBL Group: Received project-based playwriting instruction with culturally relevant pedagogy
- Standard PjBL Group: Received standard project-based playwriting instruction
- Control Group: Received traditional writing instruction
Research Question: Is there a difference among culturally relevant project-based writing instruction, standard project-based writing instruction, and traditional writing instruction in middle-school students' perceptions of school racial climate when controlling for prior English language arts achievement?
- Design: Quasi-experimental posttest-only nonequivalent control group design
- Participants: 83 middle school students (grades 6 and 8) from urban Pennsylvania schools
- Analysis: One-way MANCOVA with planned contrasts
- Instruments:
- School Climate for Diversity - Secondary Scale (SCD-S; Byrd, 2017)
- Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) ELA test (Pennsylvania Department of Education)
analysis.md- Start Here GitHub-rendered analysis with full output and explanationsanalysis.Rmd- Annotated R Markdown fileanalysis.R- Raw R code without annotations- Data files are not included to maintain participant privacy
The omnibus MANCOVA found no statistically significant differences between groups (p > .05). However, planned contrasts revealed that combined PjBL groups showed significantly higher scores than the control group on:
- Promotion of cultural competence (p = .015, d = 0.65)
- Critical consciousness socialization (p = .022, d = 0.62)
- R (version 4.5.1 or later)
- Required packages listed in the R Markdown file
Some portions of the R code were developed with assistance from AI tools including Claude.ai and Gemini for coding assistance and troubleshooting.
If you use this code in your research, please cite:
Aungst, G. W. (2025). Culturally relevant project-based learning analysis code [Computer software]. GitHub. https://github.com/geraldaungst/pjbl-dissertation
For the full dissertation, cite:
Aungst, G. W. (2025). Culturally relevant project-based learning: A quasi-experimental study of the effect of playwriting instruction on student perceptions of school racial climate [Doctoral dissertation, Liberty University].
Byrd, C. M. (2017). The complexity of school racial climate: Reliability and validity of a new measure for secondary students. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 87(4), 700-721. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjep.12179
Pennsylvania Department of Education. (n.d.). Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA). Retrieved from https://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/Assessment%20and%20Accountability/PSSA/Pages/default.aspx
Gerald W. Aungst
Liberty University
[email protected]
This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.