Material and methods

Participants

Participants were students (11) and their teachers (5). A total of 11 adolescents (4 female and 7 male) ages 13-16 (M- 15.18 years) who met DSM-V (American Psychiatric Association, 2013) criteria for HFASD agreed to participate in the study (Table 10.1). Diagnoses were confirmed by the school, as the school only accepts applications to the special classes within the school from those who already have a diagnosis established by a

Table JO. I Participating students

medical specialist and also have an IQ > 70. The students’ school is a Swedish compulsory secondary school (grades 7 to 9).

The 5 teachers were 4 females and 1 male (Table 10.2), with teaching experience of between 7 and 21 years (M= 12.8 years). The study followed the ethical guidelines from the Swedish Research Council. All parents and students were informed about the study in both verbal and written form, and the parents also gave written consent.

Procedure

This study has a multiple case design (Stake, 2006), with two lessons conducted in an iterative process in two different groups of students as a twofold ‘two-case’ study (Yin, 2009)). A mixed methods approach (Creswell, 2014) was used, following the convergent parallel mixed method, as both qualitative and quantitative date were collected on the same occasion. In some ways, it can also be claimed the mixed method approach combined the convergent parallel mixed method and multi-phase mixed method approaches, as the results from the first case (lesson A) informed the next lesson (B). This resulted in the twofold (two different groups of students) two-case (the same two lessons in each group) study. During the 2014 spring term, the team (the teachers and the researcher) had eight meetings that lasted two hours each. During the meetings, the teachers were informed by the researcher about how to use variation theory as a guiding principle for analysing learning and designing lessons in relation to the students’ needs. All meetings, except the last, were in a classroom at the school where the teachers work, and were held immediately after they had ended their school day. The last meeting was held at the university. During the first meeting, before this study started, the students’ responses on the national tests were discussed as a baseline for the design of this study, as the teachers claimed

Table 10.2 Participating teachers

that their students interpreted the tests differently than students without HFASD who took the same tests. It was decided the teachers should conduct talk-aloud interviews with three students while they completed the tests. The interviews were recorded. An earlier study (Holmqvist Olander, 2015) presented results about how different question designs affect the students’ ability to answer, Students had difficulties understanding the meaning of the questions and for that reason they gave an unexpected response even if they verbally showed knowledge in the area being assessed. A screening test with four written questions with different designs, each used frequently in regular Swedish school contexts, was given to all of the participating students, as a pre-study (see Table 10.3) to find out the best way to design the pre- and post-tests in the study presented in this chapter. The next step in the study was to design lessons (one each for the two groups of students with HFASD and in each Learning Study cycle), including pre- and post-tests. Groups 100 and 200 were taught at the same time, as were groups 300 and 400. All students participated in two different Learning Study cycles, meaning that each student participated in two lessons. The lessons were video-recorded and analysed at the meetings after each lesson when teachers and researcher met. The results were used as the basis for revising the lesson in each of the two groups, and new pre- and post-tests were also designed, in a formative process. Finally, a delayed post-test was taken by the students one month after the post-test for both lessons. Table 10.3 shows the outline of the activities for the students participating in the study.