I need help in Writing a Complete ACTION RESEARCH DESIGN on Elementary Students Lacking Foundational Math Skills

Research Plan

for

[Insert brief, informative title]: An Action Research Study

by

[Insert your name]

A paper in partial fulfillment

of requirements for EDD8040

Instructor:

Date:

INSTRUCTIONS

This project is a hypothetical action research design based on the issue at the organization you chose to focus on in this course. Use the literature you selected about the issue, your assignment in Unit 8, and the knowledge gained in the course to develop a well-aligned research study design.

Because you have not conducted a needs assessment or otherwise collaborated with stakeholders at your site about this issue (except, perhaps, informally as part of your job), you may need to make assumptions about some of the elements of the design. Please note where you are making these assumptions and provide the basis for the assumptions. For example, you may not have access to all the information about your problem but can identify the data you would, ideally, consult and/or collect. Include that data and note that you assume it exists and that you would have access to it.

Delete all instructions, including these, when you have completed the paper, except for the heading of each section and the research data table, with the legend beneath it. (Delete “INSTRUCTIONS” above).

PRELIMINARY INFORMATION

Please provide a brief overview of the organizational issue you have chosen to study in this course.

Include a short description of the organization where the issue exists with pertinent contextual information (such as type of organization, purpose of organization, number of personnel, teachers, students, and other pertinent demographic information). In this paper, use a pseudonym rather than the actual name of the organization.

This section should be no more than one to two paragraphs. The purpose of this background information is simply to orient the reader to the remainder of the paper.

SECTION ONE

Problem

Define the problem as it exists at your organization. The “problem” in an action research study is an organizational situation, or the cause of an organization issue, that needs to be improved. Carefully consider the scope of your problem. The problem should not be a Key Performance Indicator (KPI).

If the organizational problem of interest to you is a large problem with multiple causes that would require a multifaceted approach from different areas of the organization to improve it, it may be possible to delineate a particular aspect of the problem that you will address. Remember that you cannot address the problem by implementing an intervention if you have no authority in the organization to do so. Your ability to collaborate with others and exercise influence in your organization will also help determine the scope of your project. Your study should address a problem of importance and substance, and be one where an intervention could result in improvement to measures that matter to your organization.

FOR THIS PAPER: Begin with the statement, “The problem at [insert organization] is…” The statement should be one or two sentences at most.

Then, provide evidence to support your problem statement. Supportive evidence may be:

· Records data to which you have access: persistence or survey data (surveys that have been conducted in the past by the organization), teacher observations, and do on;

· Information or knowledge you have about the problem through firsthand experience (such as from staff meetings, informal conversations, or review of student work.)

· Evaluations or results of past efforts to address the problem.

· Other

Please be specific. It is not necessary to have reviewed or analyzed the data for the purposes of this assignment, but you must be specific about the evidence you have or would have available to analyze in support of the problem. For example, if student test scores are one source of evidence that supports your problem statement, include type of test(s), which grade levels and subject areas, and the actual findings or the expected findings in terms of the test scores that support your statement of the problem.

Avoid stating your opinions. Do not make assertions without supporting examples, evidence, explanation, or additional information. (Consult The Craft of Research on making and supporting claims.)

THIS SECTION SHOULD BE NO MORE THAN TWO TO THREE PARAGRAPHS. Be concise in your description of the problem that needs to be addressed.

This section does NOT contain a solution or description of an intervention.

Topic

Every local problem has a larger context. The topic provides the broader context within which your organizational problem is situated.

For this section: Write no more than one or two paragraphs about the topic or issue that provides a larger context for your local problem. Provide citations. (You may use material from your Unit 8 assignment as appropriate.)

Do not write about your own research setting or problem here.

Intervention

A differentiating factor for action research is that it merges action and research.

For this section: Describe what the organization is doing now to address the problem you have identified (if anything). Then, describe the intervention you might envision implementing to address the problem. Cite support for your approach in the literature.

Be concise and provide details in no more than two to three paragraphs.

Research Questions

Provide at least one research question. You may use the following formulation:

How will [the intervention] bring about a change in [the problem] at [a specific organizational site]?

A broad research questions such as the sample question may have one or more subquestions about specific aspects of the intervention.

The how in this formulation refers to two things:

a) The process by which the intervention does its work (known as process tracking or monitoring); and is answered by telling the story of how the intervention works and

b) The ways in which the problem is changed or improved (known as the assessment of outcomes) when using qualitative data.

If the outcome is assessed by quantitative data as well as qualitative data, then a question such as To what extent will the intervention result in change? may be used as a research question. The phrase to what extent implies a causal effect.

Purpose

For this section: Provide a statement of purpose. You may use the following formulation and add a few sentences of clarification if desired:

The purpose of the study is to implement [insert your intervention] to improve [insert area to be improved; be sure it aligns with your problem statement and research questions].

Existing Research

For this section: Include a synopsis of literature you reviewed for Unit 8. Do not copy and paste your Unit 8 paper here. Provide a synopsis of the literature of about one page that includes existing research that is relevant to your issue, the problem, and/or your proposed intervention.

Participants

Change and improvement in organizations are collaborative efforts. Describe who the participants will be in your action research study. Before designing any improvement project or action research study, you would also need to collaborate with a variety of stakeholders as you explore the actual causes of the problem and preferred ways to address it.

Stakeholders and participants are not necessarily the same people, but they could be. Stakeholders have a stake in solving or improving a problem situation, provide the necessary shared input needed to define a problem, and consider ways to address it. This happens before beginning the implementation of the intervention and is an essential part of change management.

It is possible for stakeholders to later become participants in the study. It is also possible that some stakeholders may not be study participants. For example, a school principal may be a stakeholder in a process to define a problem with student achievement or teacher performance but would not be a participant in a study that provides instructional coaching for teachers. Both teachers and a school principal, however, could be stakeholders with whom you collaborate in the planning stages of the study.

For this section: Provide the roles of people who would be stakeholders and study participants in your study, and approximate number.

Collaborating stakeholders:

Study participants:

Describe how study participants would be selected.

Data Collection

Action research studies involve two types of data collection. First, data are collected throughout the implementation of the intervention to monitor the implementation and make adjustments in the implementation as warranted by the data and information that are collected. This type of data is important in presenting a process analysis of how the implementation unfolded. Often action researchers keep a journal of reflections as well as informal or unplanned conversations and observations during the implementation.

The second type of data is collected to answer the research questions that correspond to the expected outcomes or objectives of the intervention. These data depend, of course, on the research questions and the intervention and may include interview-perception data, focus-group data, meeting minutes, student work or assessments, or observational data.

Note: some process data may also be used to answer research questions. For example, a staff meeting part way through the implementation may be part of monitoring data that result in changes to the implementation. These data may also be used to answer a question such as How did staff perceive the [insert intervention] implementation?

For this section: Complete the table.

TIPS:

· Note which data will be useful for the process analysis.

· Be as specific as possible in describing the data.

· Be realistic. What is feasible?

· Try to identify actual data that would be available or possible to collect at your organization. But, remember that this is a hypothetical study. You may include relevant data even if you are unsure it would be possible to collect it at your organization.

· The key is to identify data that are aligned with your research questions and the purpose of the research.

Research Question*	Data to be Collected**	Data Source+	When Collected++

Notes

* Research Question: State research question(s), one per row

** Data Collection: Which data will be collected to answer the research question? (survey, interview, tracking data, and so on). Is it qualitative or quantitative?

+ Data Source: Who will provide the data or where will you find it? (such as students, faculty, counseling records, or records database.)

++ When Collected: When will the data be collected? (prior to implementation of the intervention, during the intervention, week X of the intervention, after the intervention).

Data Analysis

For this section: For each data source mentioned under Data Collection, explain how you would analyze the data. You are not expected to provide detailed descriptions of data analysis, but refer to the readings in course or external sources for information about basic qualitative and quantitative data analysis.

Discussion

For this section: Write a reflective essay that responds to the following questions. Cite sources to support your writing as appropriate.

How would this research be related to the specialization of Educational Leadership and Management?

What are possible ethical or regulatory considerations for the study you have designed?

What are potential weaknesses of the study as you have designed it? What are some ways you might overcome these weaknesses under ideal circumstances?

This is a hypothetical problem, intervention, and research design. Explain how you would collaborate with stakeholders in identifying a problem, designing an intervention, and conducting a study in preparation for an actual action research study.

References

For this section: Provide a list of all works cited in the paper, formatted according to current APA guidelines.