Introduction Throughout the past four weeks we have been working on our own action research issue. I choose to research the factors behind why there are less female students taking higher level science courses during their junior and senior years of high school. Each week we added on new elements of action research starting with the questions, research purpose and literature reviews, to methodology, data analysis and communicating our findings. This course really opened my eyes to action research and what it can really do for my personal professional development as a teacher. As teachers, we are constantly looking at data and adjusting to our students’ needs. We are forever learners in this profession and wanting to continue to be better teachers,
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Using action research within our school can improve our school and our individual practices. Action research is done by us, those that are most affected by it and this research main focus is to encourage some type of change. We can do action research as an individual, as a professional learning team (PLT), or as a whole school. This research can be focused on almost anything that we find to be an issue or problem we are facing. It just needs to be a problem we can research and collect qualitative or quantitative data. As a result of the action research, we can create some type of change, whether that be improvement to the school or self-reflection of the teachers and then improved performance within the school or classroom. Scientifically based research and action research have several differences but what they have in common is that they both want to acquire “the most accurate information that reflects the reality of the situation” and the “data collection must strive for the minimal amount of error, bias, or opinion to be most effective” (Hamlet, 2015, Slide 2, Paragraph 2). It is important to understand the differences they have, but also focus on obtaining information that is aligned with our research purpose and result in change of our professional …show more content…
As Locke et al. (2013) stated, “Teacher researchers are already accustomed to framing their actions in terms of the ethics of their profession – subscribing to a discourse that tells a story about appropriate conduct in respect of the rights of the students to whom teachers offer a duty of care” (p. 108). We need to make sure we protect those that are part of the research and they understand the purpose and what will be done with the research. The way the research is conducted should not interfere with the education of the students as well, which I believe may be the biggest ethical consideration coming from the administration stand
Using action research within our school can improve our school and our individual practices. Action research is done by us, those that are most affected by it and this research main focus is to encourage some type of change. We can do action research as an individual, as a professional learning team (PLT), or as a whole school. This research can be focused on almost anything that we find to be an issue or problem we are facing. It just needs to be a problem we can research and collect qualitative or quantitative data. As a result of the action research, we can create some type of change, whether that be improvement to the school or self-reflection of the teachers and then improved performance within the school or classroom. Scientifically based research and action research have several differences but what they have in common is that they both want to acquire “the most accurate information that reflects the reality of the situation” and the “data collection must strive for the minimal amount of error, bias, or opinion to be most effective” (Hamlet, 2015, Slide 2, Paragraph 2). It is important to understand the differences they have, but also focus on obtaining information that is aligned with our research purpose and result in change of our professional …show more content…
As Locke et al. (2013) stated, “Teacher researchers are already accustomed to framing their actions in terms of the ethics of their profession – subscribing to a discourse that tells a story about appropriate conduct in respect of the rights of the students to whom teachers offer a duty of care” (p. 108). We need to make sure we protect those that are part of the research and they understand the purpose and what will be done with the research. The way the research is conducted should not interfere with the education of the students as well, which I believe may be the biggest ethical consideration coming from the administration stand