Area of focus
The area of focus is integrating technology into middle school curriculum to influence the students’ enthusiasm for learning science (Hollis, 1995).
This area of focus does involve teaching and learning because technology is being incorporated with teaching the students and the students are learning about science. “Uniting the use of technology with academic content enhances the overall learning” (Kelley, Finley, Koehler, and Picard, 2001), so by using technology, the students should benefit greatly. Research questions
In this action research report, the research question(s) “should specify the population of interest, be of interest to the scientific community and potentially to the public, have clinical relevance and further current knowledge in the field” (Farrugia, Petrisor, Farrokhyar, and Bhandari, 2010).
The research questions of this report are: 1. Will the integration of technology into my middle school science curriculum impact my
students’ enthusiasm for learning science? (Hollis, 1995)
2. Can multimedia technology be the conduit that my students need to acquire new
The Research paper on Educational Technology Learning Student Students
... in the implementation of a student-centered learning environment Susan Pedersen, Min Liu. Educational Technology, Research and Development. Washington: 2003. Vol. ... the role of telecommunications in the teaching of science. Teachers interacted with program staff and fellow participants ... staff, and reflected about their teaching in public areas of the network. This telecommunications network created a ...
knowledge, develop new concepts, and express strong understanding? (Hollis, 1995)
These questions will help the researcher with finding out if technology will be bests for their students. These questions were very answerable as the researcher has had a great interest in incorporating technology into their classroom and also has determined the measures needed to be taken in order to make this focus effective.
Locus of control
Locus of control is a “personality construct the deals with the expectancy or belief regarding the reinforcements that follow a behavior” (Haplin, 2003).
With this definition, the locus of control would be to believe that one can control actions that affect them. In this action research report, the locus of control is that the researcher did not understand how the students learned but could present information that will help them to learn and become actively engaged in their coursework (Hollis, 1995).
The area of focus is not really within the researcher’s locus of control because through the use of technology, the researcher wants to present the science lessons and coursework in order to make learning more interesting and active for the students not necessarily proving that it will help the students to learn. Some students may learn differently and there is not sure way of determining if the students will get the needed information and requirements for learning the lessons. Data collection
Data collection for this action research report, will be by “pre- and post-student and parent surveys, student and parent written comments, and teacher observations” were used to document the changes in this research for six weeks (Hollis 1995).
The data collection techniques were basically qualitative data. Qualitative data is “produces large amounts of textual data in the form of transcripts and observational field notes” and there weren’t any major numerical values being analyzed ((Pope, Ziebland, and Mays, 2000).
By using these types of data, the researcher only dealt with a limited amount of people. The researcher’s data was done by comparing the students’ attitudes toward learning science at the beginning of the school year, during the study and at the end of the study period (Hollis, 1995).
The Term Paper on Student Responses to Learning Styles
Method The study involved the use of quantitative data, which was got from questionnaire responses from all the participants into the study which represented the attitudes and perception on the different learning styles. The data, which was used in this study, is as a result of a survey on university students. The main purpose of this study is to be able to identify all the determining factors ...
.
Ethics
The researcher seemed to use their best judgment when conducting the study. Many teachers suffer from ethical concerns in the classroom of today. “Teachers who conduct research in their own classrooms encounter ethical dilemmas in common with external researchers but they also face challenges unique to action research”(Bournot-Trites and Belanger, 2005).
As far as ethical challenges, the researcher needed a way to incorporate parents into their children’s learning. To resolve this situation, the researcher issued surveys to the parents and asked them to write comments on how their children were responding to the technology integration. The researcher also showed that she was very caring and dedicated to her students. Reflective stance
The researcher looks at teaching and learning as being universal. Students all learn differently and because it is not known how a specific student learns, the researcher did not believe that they were a giver of learning, but was thought to be very assertive about pedagogy of the material. The students must be willingness to learn and their “enthusiasm for discovering knowledge and developing understanding” would tell where students are when learning. If students show that they are more interested in learning, then they are more prone to wanting to gain the new information. So by the students showing a positive influence from using technology, it can show that it related to the researcher’ reflective stance. Action
The outcome of the study were that “the level of enthusiasm for learning science was increased through the incorporation of computers and multimedia software into the middle school science curriculum” (Hollis, 1995).
So the integration of technology would be used regularly in the researcher’s classroom since there was a success. Action-data connection
The action and data do coincide with each other as the data showed that there was an increase in enthusiasm with learning with technology. The students were more interested in coming to class, and participation was also increased amongst the parents and students. Not saying that the students will get the needed knowledge, but the increase in wanting to learn with technology can enhance their knowledge on the topic. Self-Reflection
The Research paper on The Impact of Alcohol Sponsorship of Sporting Events on Consumption of Alcohol Amongst High School Students: a Research Proposal
Research Problem This research project is designed to determine the effects on the perceptions of alcohol amongst Australian high school students caused by alcohol sponsorship of sporting teams and events. Aims The aims of this research are to determine: •How young Australians perceive alcohol and what effects sport sponsorship has on these perceptions •Attitudes towards alcohol consumption and ...
In this action research, some take aways would be that instead of only using the last period class to conduct the research, I would use all of my students as better results could be gained. Also, I would take away using comments from students because students do not give the in full detail on what is needed to be recorded and though majority of the researcher’s students responded back, by me having a larger students group, many of the students may not respond back sufficiently. The insight gained from the researcher on the basis on the process of an action research is that much planning and research is needed when conducting my action research. I believe that I will take away the plan to get my research prior to completing the action research. By initially having the research, it can help me to effectively have the proper information and limit the strain on completion.
References
Bournot-Trites, M., & Belanger, J. (2005).
Ethical dilemmas facing action researchers. The Journal of Educational Thought, 39(2), 197-215. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/213797805?accountid=32521 Farrugia, P., B.ScN. Petrisor, Bradley A, M.Sc., M.D., Farrokhyar, Forough, M.Phil., PhD., & Bhandari, Mohit, M.D., M.Sc. (2010).
Research questions, hypotheses and objectives. Canadian Journal of Surgery, 53(4), 278-281. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/749239979?accountid=32521 Halpin, D. (2003).
The Role of Locus of Control in Learning with Technology. from http://www.editlib.org/p/18001
Hollis, J. (1995).
Sample action research report 1: Effect of technology in enthusiasm for learning science [PDF file]. Retrieved from
http://www.sagepub.com/mertler3study/resources/reports/88896_sr1.pdf Kelley, D., Finley, R., Koehler, K., & Picard, K. (2001).
Equal Access: Integrating Technology Into the Elementary and Secondary Curriculum. Review, 33(2), 63 Pope, C., Ziebland, S., & Mays, N. (2000).
The Research paper on Retrieved March Asthma Child Children
Asthma affects approximately 10. 1% of children living in the United States, and continues to be the most common chronic childhood illness ("Strategies," 2002). Some risk factors that account for this startling percentage of children with asthma include age, heredity, gender, children of young mothers under age twenty, smoking, ethnicity (African American are at greatest risk), previous life ...
Analysing qualitative data. British Medical Journal, 320(7227), 114-6. Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/204028425?accountid=32521
