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Impact of Poverty on the Education Success of Children

A Doctoral Study

Presented to the Faculty of the College of Educationof Trident at American InterContinental University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Education in (PK12 Leadership or Higher Education Leadership)

JAMES NEWTON

Lawton, Oklahoma

2021

Defended mm dd, year

Approved by:

Office of Academic Affairs

Mm dd, year

Dean: Heidi Linn Smith, Ed.D

Director: Heidi Linn Smith, Ed.D

Committee Chair: Dr. Nicole Fredirck

Committee Member: Dr. Allison Deagon

Committee Member: Dr. Heidi A. Schmidt

[NOTE: no indent on the first paragraph of the abstract]

Abstract

Impact of Poverty on the Education Success of Chldren

Trident University International [2021]

Limit 350 words. There is no indent on the first paragraph of the abstract.

Acknowledgements

TABLE OF CONTENTS

iiAbstract

Acknowledgements iii

List of Tables vi

List of Figures vii

Introduction to the Problem 8

Background 8

Statement of the Problem 8

Purpose of the Study 8

Conceptual Framework 9

Research Questions 9

Significance of the Study 9

Definition of Key Terms 10

Summary 10

Literature Review 11

Methodology and Findings 12

Research Methods and Design 12

Research Questions 12

Research Hypotheses (Quantitative study only) 13

Research Site 13

Population and Sample 13

Instrumentation 14

Data Collection 15

Data Analysis 16

Trustworthiness and Credibility (Qualitative study only) 16

Limitations 17

Delimitations (optional) 17

Results 17

Evaluation of Findings 18

Implications 18

Recommendations 18

Conclusion 19

Application to Practice 20

References 21

Appendix A: Title of Appendix 22

Appendix B: Title of Appendix 23

Appendix C: General Guidelines and Helpful Resources 24

List of Tables

3Table 1. Caption for Table 1

3 Table 2. Caption for Table 2

List of Figures

3Figure 1. Caption for Figure 1.

3 Figure 2. Caption for Figure 2.

Introduction to the Problem

(8 – 15 pages)

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Background

Education is one of the most fundamental rights across the world. However, access to education continues to vary across different communities, cultures, and ethnic backgrounds. Numerous studies have attempted to explore the causes of variations in access and successful educational outcomes across different groups of people. Nonetheless, the success rates of learners from low-income backgrounds continue to be lower than their wealthy counterparts. While the dropout rates have reduced phenomenally from low-income neighborhoods, children from wealthy families still register the lowest dropout rates. Level of income coupled with gender factors may also play a role in school dropout rates or low academic performance for children from poor backgrounds. Also, studies have shown that parents with poor backgrounds find it challenging to provide not only a consistent and authoritative parenting style, but also support fortheir child’s intellectual development, through ensuring a home environment conduciveto learning (Vincent, 2017).

Furthermore, with the rising desire for the girls’ educational and career goals, parents often encourage girls’ agencies to communicate openly both at home and in school. Children from poor households are also less motivated to work harder in school compared to their contemporaries from wealthy backgrounds. Scholars have tried to make efforts towards exploring the influence of poverty on student success. According to Licursi and Pascuzzi (2019), a materially deprived family background, often correlated to or overlapped with disadvantages in many dimensions, for example, in the educational one, is, therefore, a favorable condition to the reproduction of poverty, as well as a very reliable predictor of a future condition of this kind.

For instance, African American children from low-income neighborhoods continue to face challenges such as low classroom attendance and dropout rates compared to their peers from financially stable backgrounds. In addition to that single-parent families have been shown to have low incomes in previous researches and this has ended up affecting a child’s education. For a child to be successful in education, his parents should be able to have some sort of well-being so that their children can have things important in their education such as emotional and cognitive wellbeing, school performance, school–family balance, and health, as well as economic wellbeing.

When it comes to poverty, single-parent families face challenges that are constantly evolving, and in relation to these challenges they are more likely to experience impaired wellbeing compared to, for instance, coupled-parent families (Nieuwenhuis & Maldonado, 2018). It is important that society realizes the significance of poverty in a child’s success. Currie and Goodman (2020) state thatinvestments in education pay off in the form of higher future earnings, and differences in educational attainments explain a significant fraction of the adult variation in wages, incomes, and other outcomes. In light of the above, this qualitative study will investigate the effects of poverty on educational success in children.

Statement of the Problem

Strengthening and improving the quality of education is not an issue for the government and teachers alone. Other stakeholders such as parents and students must provide their inputs. Important, it requires a commitment of involvement from the aforementioned parties for it to happen. In their search for approaches to improve the quality of education, educational experts have proposed policies aimed at promoting parental involvement in their children's education (Li & Qiu, 2018). Parents play a significant role in their children's educational development and their involvement in their children's is beneficial to not only a child and school but to them as well. A study by Rafiq et al. (2017) found that children from parents who actively participate in imparting educational knowledge were more successful in their career and productive compared to those whose parents do not participate in their educational achievement.

Parents who participate in their children's schoolwork are more knowledgeable about learning institutions' goals and procedures. Moreover, they communicate the benefits of education to their children and help them learn strategies aimed at enhancing their perception about competence as well as control over academic achievements (Machebe, Ezegbe & Onuoha, 2017). Families affect a child's learning behaviors and academic performance in vital ways since they are the main and important environments they are exposed to. Families even play more significant roles in a child's academic performance than learning institutions and communities (Li & Qiu, 2018). With appropriate care, active participation, as well as tutelage of parents in their children's educational activities such as monitoring of homework and parent-teacher association a child is more likely to gain courage and perform well at school.

Thus, school administrators and academicians continuously encourage parents to not only support their children's academic pursuits in a classroom but at home as well. Researchers continue to prove that there is a direct relationship between higher parental involvement levels and a student's academic success. Parental involvement is an integration of learning institutions and home. This practice allows parents to attend to their children's learning at home and participate in various activities in school (Rafiq et al., 2017). Educators and policymakers believe that establishing a community of students, school administrators, and parents as well as teachers can provide extra support for students' learning. Moreover, there is sufficient evidence that academic performance depends on the quality of these relationships (Li & Qiu, 2018). Casual observation indicates that children from affluent families are more likely to succeed in life compared to their counterparts from poor parents. The difference arises because middle and high-income parents spend more than their poor counterparts on their children. These investments result in a better outcome for children from rich parents (Machebe, Ezegbe & Onuoha, 2017). The relationship between a person's income level and education is closely intertwined.

The advancement of parental involvement in education matters raises equity issues because the level of parental involvement is significantly lower among low-income families than in middle and high-income households. Researchers acknowledge that parental involvement rates are high in high-income communities than in low-income ones (Machebe, Ezegbe & Onuoha, 2017). Thus, learners from high-income families experience more academic benefits than those from lower-income families. Consequently, students from high-income families receive more attitudinal as well as academic benefits of high parental involvement levels than those from low-income families. Children of low socioeconomic status are at higher risk of poor academic achievement (Rafiq et al., 2017). For these children, lack of parental involvement leaves them behind their counterparts from high-income families instead of acting as a benefit.

The widely acknowledged definition of parental involvement also addresses behaviors that can only be accomplished by parents from middle and upper socio-economic classes. Most parental involvement policies, which are anchored on the accepted definition, do not take into account the needs of low-income parents and their children. This widens the academic achievement gap between those from low-income families and their counterparts from middle and high-income families. Few researchers have explored problems that low-income parent encounter when attempting to involve themselves in school activities (Smith, 2006). These researchers advocate for further studies regarding parental involvement in their children's academic life, especially among low-income families and other underrepresented groups.

Despite the numerous perspectives on how social-economic status affects parental involvement in their children's academic performance and school activities, there is less information about their challenges. In essence, there is insufficient information about how low-income parents describe the problems they encounter concerning their children's education and the kind of support they require to overcome such challenges. Theoretical perspectives such as the human capital theory emphasize the significance of a family's economic resources and educational investment in a child's education. The social capital and cultural capital theories, on the other hand, focus on the role of a parent's level of education and involvement in a child's academic performance (Li & Qiu, 2018). The effects of low involvement among poor parents cannot exist independently. The fact of the matter is that some factors hinder their participation in their children's academic performance and school life.

Purpose of the Problem

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to explore how parents who live under the poverty level status describe the challenges they face concerning their children's education. Various studies have explored the relationship between parental income and involvement in school activities and found low involvement among low-income parents. This qualitative descriptive study will gain insights into the issues hindering low-income parents from getting involved in their children’s education. Semi-structured interviews will be used to collect data from low-income parents because they are the ones facing numerous challenges that hinder their involvement in school activities a daunting task. While these hindrances exist in all communities, some are more common in low-income families. They include unemployment and underemployment, family demographics, poor school-community relationship, lack of stable housing, and lack of transportation.

As of March 2021, the unemployment rate in the United States was 6.0 percent (BLS, 2021). Being unemployed for a long time often poses negative implications on a person’s mental wellbeing. A 2010 survey by the Pew Research Center found that 40 percent of adults who were jobless during the time reported strained family relations, 40 percent lost friends, and nearly 50 percent had insomnia. Nearly 20 percent sought help for depression and 5 percent admitted to abusing substances while unemployed (Morin & Kochhar, 2010). These findings show the negative impacts of unemployment on families. The mental issues associated with unemployment can interfere with a child’s academic performance and prohibit parents from involving themselves in their children’s school life.

The National Center for Children in Poverty, in 2010, reported that more than 18 percent of children in low-income households moved more than once in the previous year compared with 9 percent of children from high-income households (Shakur, 2012). This instability can decrease the level of parental involvement among low-income families. Families who lack stable housing conditions are more likely to invest their small resources and time into other basic needs rather than into their children’s education. Even poor neighborhoods can influence a parent’s living situation. Generally, living in a poor neighborhood is associated with anxiety, depression, as well as feelings of distress (Shakur, 2012). These issues can lead to hopelessness and a lack of interest in a child’s schooling.

Family demographics of some low-income households can also hinder parental involvement in their children’s education. The 2010 data by the National Center for Children in Poverty found that 52 percent of children living in low-income households live with single parents, while 5 percent do not have parents. The Administration on Aging reports also shows that many homes are managed by grandparents. For instance, almost 2 million elderly people in the United States lived in families with more than one grandchild in 2010. Nearly 50 percent of these grandparents acted as their grandchildren’s primary caregivers (Shakur, 2012). In these instances, the probability of low parental involvement in their children’s academic performance is very high. Mental and physical health problems can arise to create hindrances to academic success. Moreover, grandparents are at higher risks of having health problems that could affect their ability to participate or get involved. Cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, for instance, are prevalent in low-income families and can affect an individual’s mobility as well as a willingness to travel to learning institutions for involvement activities.

Education stakeholders, policymakers, and the government can ensure an increase in the number of low-income parents participating in their children’s education only by understanding their challenges. The benefits of parent involvement in school activities and the challenges that hinder the involvement of low-income parents are important for school administrators and teachers to be aware of. The knowledge can inform the allocation of resources such as staff assignments and space. Equally, significant is the recognition of strategies that can help in overcoming the barriers to parental involvement, especially low-income parents. Such strategies can help school administrators and teachers to strengthen relationships between schools and low-income parents.

Conceptual Framework

The study will be guided by concepts from the human capital theory. For a long time, the human capital theory has been the overriding paradigm for socioeconomic progress that is placed on education progressively as a major sector to promote growth. Education plays an important role in promoting growth, socially and economically, which consequently reduces poverty. By improving children’s skills and capabilities, education becomes the privileged investment that can provide private and social returns. Therefore, increasing access to education for children from low-income families is a means for attaining economic growth in the future and poverty reduction.

Research Questions

The research questions will be developed in order to provide guidance on hypothesis formulation and assessment of the variables. In so doing, the research questions will be instrumental in providing guidance to the study in ways that can generate a valid and reliable finding. More importantly, the research questions will be formulated as part of the ongoing phases of the research, including the unfolding lives and points of view of others on the area of knowledge that should be investigated. In light of the above, the list of research questions that will guide this study include:

i. How do parents who live under the poverty level income status describe the challenges

they face in regard to their children education?

ii. How do parents who live under the poverty level income status describe the support they would need to overcome challenges?

Significance of Study

This study will play an instrumental role in understanding the problem of poverty and educational performance. The problem is not just with children in school but also when they are out of school. Summer holidays are supposed to help children develop essential social skills to help with their education by engaging in various activities. However, due to poverty, unequal access to and limited participation in such engaging activities means that many children miss out on interesting educational and developmental opportunities otherwise enjoyed by their more affluent peers (Stewart et. al., 2018). In particular, the qualitative study will provide insights into the perceived ways in which poverty deters children from generating their desired academic potentials. The study not only contributes to the understanding of this problematic area of research, but it is also going to be beneficial to educational leadership, students, and policymakers.

At the educational leadership levels, the study can guide school administrators on developing interventions that can promote effective performance and success for low-income learners. For instance, educational leaders who understand the income dynamics of educational success can use such knowledge to promote parental involvement in order to increase success. Moreover, educational leaders can focus on programs that are geared towards improving equity in school, because the rates of teacher-school collaborations and involvements are significantly among middle- and upper-class parents than in low-income families.

The results can also be used by practitioners and educational leaders to explore how engagement can be increased among low-income learners. In an education context, in theory, and application processes, human psychology must be taken into consideration (Hol&Yavuz, 2017). Low-income families are more likely to struggle with engaging in their children’s education compared to familieswith high-income. This problem is especially linked to issues such as poor health and nutrition, low vocabularies, and efforts put into learning among children. Also, poor learners are less likely to engage in physical exercise, access healthy diets, and get appropriate and prompt medical focus.

Moreover, such learners are less likely to be administered appropriate medications and interventions. When such problems are compounded, they result in an overall reduction in engagement for learners. Educators and school administrators can address this problem by providing feeding programs in school and health services such as putting up school dispensaries, clinics, and health facilities to support the health and nutritional needs of students. Addressing such challenges can significantly bridge the nutritional and health gaps that generate a lot of disparities in the performance between rich and poor students.

The proposed qualitative study can also support students to attain their desired learning outcomes in various ways. As the number of learners from low-income households increases significantly, the achievement gaps between them and their richer peers increase. For example, parents with low-income cannot afford to make provision of technology and other learning materials at home to enhance the academic performance of their children (Kapur, 2018). Understanding students’ perception of poverty and its impacts on their performance and educational success can help educators to design proper interventions to address their learning needs.

Williams et al. (2018) state that understanding the major perceptions and themes that are common among students on the issue of poverty can help to improve their learning environment. For instance, the most commonly mentioned issues that affect low-income students include: establishing a culture of optimism, designing relationship networks, and putting in place meaningful and productive parent-to-school collaborations (Williams, Greenlaf & Barnes, 2018). Thus, the outcomes of such programs can encourage school instructors and counselors to work with students in serving them to gain a positive attitude, optimism, and the spirit of hard work.

Further, knowledge on the relationship between poverty and educational success can help to identify resources that are critical in bridging the performance gaps between these two groups of learners. One such resource that is instrumental in bridging the performance gap is technological infrastructure. When children from low-income neighborhoods are given access to technologies as learning resources, they can be able to use such systems to access learning materials online, which they were otherwise unable to owe to the inability to afford such books and contents. Rideout and Katz (2016) state that computers and online connectivity are increasingly becoming significant in ensuring that academic opportunities are open to all children, irrespective of their socioeconomic backgrounds. Thus, technological resources can enable learners to keep up with school homework and assignments and track and improve their grades.

Finally, the results of this study will be insightful to policymakers to develop both local and nationwide interventions to improve educational success for low-income learners. For instance, the focus of policymakers can be on strategies that can be employed to reduce poverty. Anti-poverty policies can go a long way in reducing neighboring poverty. Examples of such policies may include reducing disadvantages stemming from income and racial segregation, extending employment opportunities to low-income earners, and tackling problems such as exclusionary zoning (Quillian, 2017). These policies can significantly improve the quality of life of students and their performance and productivity.

Definition of Key Terms

Summary

Literature Review

(20 – 35 pages)

Inadequate education is one of the most powerful determinants of poverty, and unequal access to educational opportunity is a strong correlate of income inequality (Malick, 2021). In Oklahoma state, for example, the majority of the children in public schools live in poverty. As a matter of fact, the state’s 61 percent student poverty rate has been ranked as the fourth-highest percentage in the country. A growing body of evidence indicates that poverty is highly comorbid with adverse childhood experience exposure and that children living in poverty are more likely than their peers to experience frequent and intense adversities (Hughes & Tucker, 2018). These adversities include things such as, poor performance coupled with school dropout rates; often affect students’ success in their adult periods. For instance, children who drop out of school are less likely to secure well-paying professional jobs during their adulthood. In addition to that, populations, including parents with children who are of school-going age and are living around the poverty line, usually face challenges not only in laying a foundation in their children’s education but also in continuing their education further. Poverty power makes it difficult for parents to satisfy the basic needs of their children, for example, health and education. These are necessary ingredients of maintaining standards of living. As a result, it ends up affecting children throughout their life as learners because lack of the necessary resources, and in this case, funds needed to educate them affect their opportunities and educational success both when they are young and older. In addition, structural and other barriers exist to these students pursuing higher education, such as the realities of financial aid and the shadow of debt (Baugh et. al., 2019).Apart from that, the success rate of children from low-income families is likely to be much lower than those of children from well-off families. This is because they are usually in one way or another, for example, these children usually suffer adversely from things such as physical, psychological and educational health. Living in poverty is associated with poorer outcomes attributable to a wide range of interrelated and mutually reinforcing factors, for example, quality of parental care (Fernald et. al., 2017). Besides, previous studies have found out that young children that have low-income parents and are below the poverty line mostly face challenges when it comes to cognitive and literary ability and sometimes begins school both academically and socio-economically far much behind their peers who come from families with high-income backgrounds.

Nevertheless, prior literature has stated that the socio-economic characteristics of the individual such as gender and age, as well as those of the respondent when a child is a teenager, for example, education level of parents, socio-economic status, adults and siblings at home, affect the success rate of children in their education. Besides, it is clear that the transfer of material disadvantages from parents to children is a significant factor in all countries, and chronic poverty is identified as one of the main sources of inequality when it comes to education (Duarte et. al., 2018).

Parental role has got a huge relevance in a child’s education and his success. Therefore, parents who have low-income earnings in most cases do not really involve themselves in their children’s education, for example, supervision and making sure they attend classes, because they are normally occupied to make ends meet.A large body of research has demonstrated that poverty, low income, and low socioeconomicstatus are linked to behavioural problems in children and adolescent (Kaiser et. al., 2017). When it comes to cases such as children internalizing their surroundings and the world in general, they not only do that based on their families’ social space but also assign the same colors as their parents. When defining early childhood development, it is the stage in a child’s life where his neurological and psychological development is influenced by his social surroundings and in this case the parents.

However, it is also important to not forget that attending school is also essential in terms of a child’s socialization agent. Therefore, when the parents are poor it deprives the children of these fundamental requirements in their development and also their education and success in general because the parents do not have the time and ability to help their children learn them or give them the required education. Many factors contribute to poverty among parents which in the long-run impacts their children’s success, they include, the inability of the education system to counterbalance initial inequalities, work opportunities, and the opportunities for economic autonomy of the youth. Besides, according to Morris et. al. (2017), early trauma and family stress have damaging consequences on development via physiological adaptations that impair neurological, metabolic, and immunologic systems. Poverty is the number one factor contributing to family stress among children which in the long run affects their education.

In addition to that, some literature has linked the impact of poverty on parents who have school-aged children to the lack of inequality when it comes to the distribution of resources in rural America and other developing countries. Rural-urban disparities are a huge problem to parents in ensuring that they provide their children with education. This adds to the parents’ burden of meeting the costs for them to be able to educate their children. According to Hassan and Rasiah (2017), while some parents may have to bear the total cost of schooling, some poorer parents may have gotten financial assistance through educational support programs such as subsidies, scholarships, text books-on-loan and hostel facilities. However, this does not usually help much because it is usually not all the time that they get assistance as a result of many measures that are usually put in place. Poverty supersedes all other characteristics as a predictor of learning disparities (Alcott & Ross, 2017). This deprives children academic success because of their parents’ backgrounds.

Methodology and Findings

(25 – 30 pages)

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Research Methods and Designs

A qualitative case study design will be used to explore the impact of poverty on the educational success of children. In particular, Geronimo Elementary in Geronimo, Oklahoma will be used as a case study to explore the ways in which poverty affects children’s education. The descriptive case study will focus on describing how the phenomenon exists in different aspects of children’s life. As such, the case study will provide a comprehensive description in order to ensure that there is a better understanding of the phenomenon. The outcome of the study will provide a ‘thick ‘description of the relationship between poverty and education success for children.

‘Thick’ description is a concept that refers to the holistic literal description of the research problem that is being explored. The case study approach is appropriate for this study since the research is exploratory in nature. More precisely, the case study design is appropriate for exploratory assessments when exploring contemporary issues, within their real-life contexts. The proposed design is especially appropriate when boundaries between the phenomena and the context are not clear. Moreover, the case study approach is recommended when seeking to understand the dynamics presented within single settings, and when existing theories seem insufficient (Marshall & Rossman, 2014). Furthermore, the case study approach provides room for flexible and opportunistic information-gathering tools that allow additions to questions during interviews more than any other model. As such, a case study offers the greatest potential for revealing richness, holism, and complexity in events.

Research Questions

i. How do parents who live under the poverty level income status describe the challenges they face in regard to their children education?

ii. How do parents who live under the poverty level income status describe the support they would need to overcome challenges?

The study will be conducted in Geronimo Elementary School in Geronimo, Oklahoma. Geronimo Elementary School is a public learning institution that has approximately 183 learners in grades PK and K-6. Being a public school, Geronimo has learners drawn from different demographic groups, including blacks, whites, and Latinos. The school comprises populations that will be ideal for this study because some learners are from wealthy backgrounds while others are from poor households. Teachers also have a record of learners, their socioeconomic backgrounds, and individual performance. Therefore, Geronimo has been selected as an ideal site for the study.

Population and Sample

A total of 20 people will be selected to participate in the study. The main sampling procedure that will be used to select participants is stratified random sampling. The significance of stratified random sampling rests in its generality. For many important categories, approximate answers whose errors are small in statistical perspectives can be effectively gathered through the execution of the query over an appropriately derived random sample. Stratified random sampling offers the flexibility to emphasize some strata over others through controlling the allocation of sample sizes.

The target population will be subdivided into groups, after which random sampling approaches will be applied to each subpopulation to form a test group. Examples of such subgroups will include boys, girls, teachers, rich children, and poor children. The random sampling of each population will be done on the basis of representation within the population as a whole. Stratified random sampling accurately reflects the population that is being studied, since the researchers are categorizing the whole population before applying random sampling procedures (Nguyen et al., 2019). Therefore, stratified random sampling provides effective coverage of the study population because it enables the researcher to gain control over the subgroups. This step ensures that all groups are well represented in the sample.

Instrumentation

Interviews will be used as the main research instruments for the study. The process of administering interviews for the study will include drafting the interview, piloting the questions, selecting the interviewees, and conducting the interview. The interview development process will begin by widely indicating the questions that should be asked. In particular, semi-structured interviews will be developed to guide the process of gathering data.

Semi-structured interviews will have structured elements accompanied by sufficient flexibility to provide the respondents with the opportunity to share the flow of information. The interview questions will undergo a piloting process in order to identify and rectify potential imperfections. For instance, the questions will be carefully tested with a few people in order to determine their levels of clarity. For instance, the interview questions will be carefully crafted by structuring the instruments around key themes or subject areas, such as absenteeism and lack of learning materials. Piloting will be significant in eliminating ambiguous questions and generating useful feedback on the structure and flow of the intended interview. Thereafter, a group of interviewees will be selected to participate in the study.

Document Analysis: The data gathered will be analyzed using the thematic analysis technique. The document analysis will be undertaken through systematic coding and grouping of different themes for easy assessment of a large about of textual data. Thematic analysis can help to understand key themes and issues that are relevant to the research topic (Vaismoradi, Turunen & Bondas, 2013). The outcome of the document analysis process will include unobtrusive determination of trends and patterns of words utilized, their frequency, their relationships, and the structures and discourses of communication.

The objective of document analysis will be to describe the nature of the document’s content by assessing who said what, to whom, and with what impact. The document analysis will be suitable in answering questions such as what are the education issues that affect children from poor backgrounds. In particular, document analysis will be well-suited to assess the multifaceted, important, and sensible phenomena related to poverty and education. Therefore, the document analysis method that has been selected will be suitable for undertaking simple reporting of common issues that have been mentioned in the data.

The analysis process will contribute to the central understanding of the phenomena. The document analysis will illuminate this problem by identifying relevant themes related to structural challenges such as poverty. Moreover, Ellis et al. (2018) state that researchers often overlook teachers’ perceptions of the influence of poverty on academic achievements. The documentation analysis will help explore this issue by understanding the key themes that will emerge as a result of the data collected. There are various ways in which validity and reliability will be addressed through document analysis. For instance, a team-based instrument will be developed, followed by a pretest. Additionally, pretesting the document analysis process increases validity by ensuring that the questions and analysis make sense. Validity and reliability will also be increased by transcribing data using transcription protocol. The transcription process provides a verbatim account of data gathering events, hence improving validity.

The utilization of a transcription protocol goes a long way in ensuring that the transcription is undertaken consistently and is of the appropriate form for the analytic purposes (Guest et al., 2011 Further, validity will be enhanced during analysis by putting in place translation expectations at the start. Translation approaches and styles often differ significantly. Therefore, putting in place a translation approach before the study commences increases the possibility that the data will be important for the analysis plan

Data Collection

Recruiting Participants

Participants will be selected and recruited using stratified random sampling procedures. The potential participants will include children from different socioeconomic levels, teachers, and their parents. Therefore, a total of 9 of 20 participants will be selected for the study. After identifying the potential participants, they will be taken through a screening process. The screening exercise will determine if they fit the specifications and are able and willing to attend the research sessions. Thereafter, they will be recruited for the study. If needs be, they may be given an incentive to encourage them to participate in the study.

Obtaining Informed Consent

Informed consent is a legal and ethical standard that researchers implement when using human subjects. The principle of informed consent is founded on the resolutions of the Nuremberg Code, The Declaration of Helsinki, and the Belmont Report. Participants will be made aware of all aspects of the study and no one will be forced to participate in something he or she does not feel like being part of. Thereafter, they will be required to voluntarily decide after examining all the processes of the study and its trials. Should they accept to participate, an informed consent form will be provided to them to fill and append their signatures accordingly. However, the participants will also be given the opportunity and liberty to opt-out of the study at any given stage of the data gathering process.

Protecting Participants’ Identity

The participants’ identities will be protected through an anonymization process. Anonymization is one of the major forms of privacy and confidentiality because it protects participants from psychological harm associated with marginalization and stigmatization. Concealing the identity of participants will be undertaken in various ways. First, the interview sessions will be held privately for each individual. Besides, the names of each participant will not be recorded in the interview sheets. Furthermore, the information that will be shared by participants will not be disclosed to unauthorized parties. The protective approach to anonymization will also entail concealing the data within the interview transcripts. The personal data of participants in the study results will also be concealed. Such personal data will include names, physical addresses, as well as their level of income.

The Interview Site

The interview will be conducted within the premises of Geronimo Elementary School in Geronimo, Oklahoma. An interview date, time, and site will be arranged with the participants. The data collectors will seek permission from school administrators, to interview them within its premises. The school adminis5trators will provide the room or conference facility for the interview. Geronimo Elementary School comprises students from different ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds. As such, the selected site is projected to provide sufficient data for undertaking the interview process.

Collecting Data

The participants’ responses will be collected and recorded using both tape recorders and note-takers. These data gathering tools are traditionally ideal for qualitative interviews. The tape-recorded conversations will then be transcribed and coded, thereby converting the conversations into texts. The written notes, taken together with the transcripts of the conversations, will be treated as the data that will be utilized for analysis. Additionally, these data gathering and recording tools provide flexibility on the format, thereby enabling clarification of issues and perspectives to b both challenged and accepted.

Protecting and Storing Data

The collected data will be protected from unauthorized use. To achieve this objective, the collected data will be copied to an external storage device that is not permanently connected to a computer. Such a device will be kept in a secure location and will have password protection. This approach is sufficiently secure for most qualitative studies. Moreover, the storage device will not be left connected to a computer since it can be easily accessed by unauthorized parties. Additionally, it can be vulnerable to malicious software such as viruses and other hazards such as physical damages and theft (Jensen & Laurie, 2016). Antivirus software will be installed on all computer devices that the recorded data will be kept. Further, the stored data will be safeguarded through encryption

Data Analysis

Analyzing Transcripts from Interviews

The transcripts will be analyzed by examining the recurrent patterns in the texts or themes that are assessed and reported. This will provide a comprehensive interpretation of the data. The process of analyzing the scripts primarily entails interpretation on the part of the researcher. It also acknowledges the important role that the researcher does in the selection and interpretation of the themes (Fernandez, 2018). To attain reliability and rigor in the analysis process, there is often a need to design codes that represent identified topics, issues, or themes. The codes can then be applied to the data that is then checked for inter-coder agreement (Fernandez, 2018). The assessment of narratives and conversations can also be treated as a qualitative approach that is increasingly gaining popularity.

Coding Process and Identifying Themes

The process of coding and identifying themes will involve examining excerpts that present thematic progressions with instant themes. In such cases, the same themes may not necessarily be in exact similar words as others. However, they appear in a series of utterances. Different themes may also be linked up to them. In case there is another question or comment from the respondents and a theme changes, the new theme will become a constant again throughout the clauses. Determining new elements in the analysis is very important. Since the genre of a particular text is an interview, most of the clauses may have unmarked themes that refer to the interviewee's first-person pronoun. In light of the above, the thematic analysis process will go beyond merely counting phrases or words in the texts to include exploring explicit and implicit meanings that have been extracted from the data (Fernandez, 2018). The coding process will serve as the main process for designing themes by identifying items of analytic focus or interest and tagging them with coding labels.

Software/ Analysis Procedures

The main software that will be used to undertake data analysis is NVivo. NVivo is an effective tool for undertaking thematic analysis because it makes it more compatible with grounded theory and thematic analytic approaches (Zamawe, 2015). Additionally, the nodes offer easy work with structures for developing codes and discovering new and existing themes. The software also has the potential to increase the level of creativity of the analysis process. Manual qualitative data assessment is a demanding and overburdening process. However, NVivo simplifies this process by removing workload.

Trustworthiness and Credibility

One method that will be sued to increase the validity of the study is triangulation. The triangulation process includes using multiple methodologies to study the same phenomenon (Heale & Frobes, 2013). This process can involve the use of different analysis or data collection approaches within the same study (Abdalla et al., 2018). The main objective of using triangulation is to eliminate or minimize biases and increase the reliability and validity of the study. In cases where a study is unable to acquire the estimated sample size, triangulation can be employed to improve the overall study’s validity by confirming analysis findings with other methods

Limitations

When it comes to any influences that are unable to control for this particular study, one would have to consider the responses of the one being interviewed. Another factor would be if the individuals being interviewed are not completely honest about their responses which in turn creates potential weaknesses in the information gathered. For example, the present pandemic COVID 19 VIRUS has caused all school functions to be altered which has affected all educational leaders and those they teach. This pandemic has caused and the issue of not having a site to work from in regard to the study at hand. These are some potential limitations that might have a bearing on the study at large. Nevertheless, as the impact of COVID-19 unfolds, pandemic-related trauma and economic instability will disproportionately impact children in poverty, who most heavily rely on school-based services for nutritional, physical and mental health needs (Masonbrink&Hurley, 2020).

Evaluation of Findings

This section is used to briefly report what your findings mean. The discussion will be expanded in the Application to Pracice. Interpret results in light of the theory (or theories) and/or the conceptual framework(s) you have identified. Describe whether the results obtained were expected given the literature and provide potential explanations for unexpected or conflicting results. Take care to avoid drawing conclusions beyond what can be interpreted directly from the study results.

Implications

Recommendations

Conclusion

This study will play an instrumental role in understanding the problem of poverty and educational performance. Academic achievement can be predicted by socioeconomic status (McKenzie, 2019). In particular, the qualitative study will provide insights into the perceived ways in which poverty deters children from generating their desired academic potentials. The study not only contributes to the understanding of this problematic area of research, but it is also going to be beneficial to educational leadership, students, and policymakers.

At the educational leadership levels, the study can guide school administrators on developing interventions that can promote effective performance and success for low-income learners. Having this particular study researched can create new avenues resolve for many educational leaders and create innovative programs. Knowledge is always a great advantage and creates the ability to bring forth a major shift in a problem or issue in any given case. So is the function of this study to make clear the problem and to make the certainty of innovative solutions that promotes positive change.

Application to Practice

(25 – 30 pages)

Consult with your chair about the content of this section. It should include an application to your professional practice that is informed by the findings of your study. The content of the application to practice is based on your findings and is original work that contributies to practitioner knowledge about your topic.

Options include a training, a handbook, a policy initiative, or other application practice. If you develop a training, you can include PPT slides that include notes on the content of the training or what the instructor or trainee should accomplish. Remember to link your application to practice to the findings of your study.

Use appropriate APA heading levels to organize your literature review, APA headings and formatting samples are provided below.

Level 2: Flush Left, Boldface, Uppercase and Lowercase Heading

Level 3: Indented, boldface, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period.Text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text.

Level 4: Indented, boldface, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period. Text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text.

Level 5: Indented, italicized, lowercase paragraph heading ending with a period. Text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text text.

text text text text.

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