Week 3: Action Research Topic and Plan

   

1.     Examining the work: Setting the Foundation – The need to increase parental involvement and student motivation, which ultimately will increase student performance and involvement in extra and co-curricular activities.

2.    Analyzing data – Examine student quantitative data to analyze areas of strength and weakness through report cards, core GPA, and TAKS test results. 

3.    Developing deeper understanding – Use qualitative data such as student, teacher, and parent surveys, behavior reports, and interviews

4.    Engaging in Self-Reflection – What can the school do to involve more members of the community and parents in the education process? What can the school do to encourage more parental involvement and access to school functions? What staff developments may be needed to inform and train teachers on the possible findings and solutions from the research?

5.    Exploring Programmatic Patterns – Is low motivation and performance a result of low parental involvement or could it also be caused by poor instructional strategies and/or irrelevant curriculum? Is parental involvement a cultural aspect, geographic aspect, generational aspect?

6.    Determining direction – I have discussed concerns unique to my campus, teachers, and students with my site supervisor. I initially had a fragmented version of a research idea and my site supervisor helped me to sharpen and articulate a vision that combined multiple concerns. I will work closely with my site supervisor and other teachers and administrators as necessary to gather and analyze data.

7.    Taking action for school improvement – This plan was developed by following the steps outlined in the Tool 7.1 Action Planning Template (Harris, et al) in order to guide me through the process for successful action research.

8.    Sustaining improvement – My action research project will help to improve my understanding of factors outside of the school campus that have an impact on the campus itself, and through the process of sharing information I will help to inform other educators of the findings and applicable solutions. The research will be an ongoing process since cultural and individual students traits constantly change, and can be used and applied by other educators on different campuses. Results, findings, and solutions will be posted to my Blog and open to others to continuously improve the research process and add new and changing dynamics.

Goal: To examine and understand cultural and community factors that affect student motivation and performance in order to change negative aspects and improve positive aspects.

Action Steps	Person Responsible	Start/End	Needed Resources/Tools	Evaluation
1.    Examine quantitative measures	Intern	March 2012 / August 2012	2008-2009 AEIS 2009-2010 AEIS 2010-2011 AEIS Core GPA records	Will identify individual students and student groups in order to begin to draw a correlation with survey results
2.    Examine Behavior and attendance reports	Site supervisor (Ast. Principal)	March 2012 / August 2012	School behavior report and attendance records	Quantitative data will be used to examine whether behavior and attendance has a correlation with parental involvement and student performance.
3.    Conduct student survey	Students	March 2012 / May 2012	Student sampling	Will be used to draw a correlation (if one exists) between qualitative data, parental involvement, and student involvement in school activities.
4.    Examine correlation between quantitative data (TAKS scores, core subject grades) and qualitative data (parental involvement, behavior reports, attendance records).	Intern, Site Supervisor	March 2012 / December 2012	AEIS data results Behavior reports Attendance records Survey results	Process of identifying similarities between quantitative data and qualitative data in order to show a correlation if one exists.
5.    Analyze data	Intern, Site Supervisor	March 2012 / May 2013	AEIS data results Behavior reports Attendance records Survey results	Examine the individual student’s and student groups’ results for each report. Once results are examined for each report avenues for correlations between quantitative results and qualitative results can be seen, if any exist.