Action Research Update #2!
During
the month of January, I made the following progress on my action research. One
part of the action research I conducted was that I contacted the school
principals who agreed to be part of my action research during the fall semester
of 2016. After initially reaching out to the principals, we then worked
together to discuss my action research procedure. I informed the principals
that I needed around five to ten participants from each school to participate
in my study. During a scheduled faculty meeting, school principals briefly
spoke to their staff members about the action research opportunity. After
informing faculty of my action research, few faculty members from each school
expressed interest in participating in my study.
Once
I heard that teachers were interested in my study, I contacted the school
principals again to inform them of the consent form process. Since some of the
schools I am conducting my research at are a long distance from my location, I
asked the principals if it would it
be okay if I mailed hard copies of the consent forms to their school offices. I
explained that if faculty members are interested in partaking in the study they
could easily obtain a consent form from the office, sign the consent form and
place it back in the folder in the school office. I would provide postage,
a return address and an extra envelope. When the research deadline approaches I
explained that I would simply need the school to mail the envelope containing
the signed consent forms back to me. I believe mailing the hard copies of
the consent forms would make it easier for the school faculty because they
would not have to print the consent forms, then sign, then scan, then upload
the signed forms and then email them back to me.
After I discovered the schools received the
consent forms, I then started to gather prospective participant’s emails. Once
I obtained the emails, I sent the participants a link to my survey that I
created on Google Forms from my Western State email account.
On the survey, the first question I asked
participants to answer was to include their name so I could match the name on
the survey with the name on the signed consent form. I informed participants
that their name and information would be kept confidential. I will continue to
update the progress of my action research throughout the semester!
Alex,
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you have put a lot of forethought into your research and the procedures for caring it out. It seems like a difficult thing to navigate. That is, contacting the principals, getting them interested, and relying on them to get their teachers interested and get the appropriate documentation taken care of. Kudos to you for making the approach as streamlined as possible for everyone involved by mailing the hard copies and providing the survey through email. How many teachers have you got to participate and how many do you think is necessary to provide you with reliable data?
I will be looking forward to hearing about your results.
Hello Taylor,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your response and question. So far I have been able to get eight teachers to participate in my study. Although I would like every teacher in each school to partake in my study, I feel as though eight to ten responses would be a great number for me to have data to work with. Although the sample size is small, I do believe the responses I receive will give me insight into teachers perspectives on differentiation in the classroom.