Action Research Plan

Action Research Plan

We all want our students to do their best. In today’s world where standardized testing can greatly impact not only the student’s life, but also the teacher’s job, the question arises concerning the optimal time to teach students reading, writing, language arts, social studies, science, and math. Does the time of day effect how well a student learns? Is morning or afternoon more compatible with analytical thinking? What about creative thinking? To find out these answers, I would look at previous data collected by researching scholarly journals. I would also attempt to collect data within my own school by having students learn math, social studies, and science in the morning. I would have the students learn reading, language arts, and writing in the afternoon during the first semester of school. During the second semester, I would place the students in reading, language arts, and writing in the morning. I would place the students in math, science, and social studies in the afternoon during the second semester of school. Using standardized tests after each semester, I would test the students on what was taught during these semesters. I would attempt to discover which time was optimal for learning these different subjects.

Using scientific research, I would first hypothesize. In this scenario, I would hypothesize analytical thinking would be better done in the morning, whereas creative thinking would be better in the afternoon. Therefore, I would have the students learn math in the morning, and reading/language arts in the afternoon. Then I would do the fieldwork, which includes a literature review of previous scholarly work as well teaching math in the morning for one semester. I would then evaluate how well the students learned through standardized testing. I would then place the students in reading and language arts in the morning for a semester, and then evaluate how well the students learned using standardized testing. I would then analyze the data and develop a conclusion. Wadsworth (1998) states that scientific research “often sees itself as proceeding from point A to point B along a straight line” (p. 5).

Hypothesis fieldwork analysis conclusions

Start Stop

Fig. A Scientific Research

Using action research, I would raise the question, plan to seek the answers, and do intensive seeking of answers by doing fieldwork as well as a literary review on previous scholarly work. I would then reflect or do an analysis of this data. I could then stop and reflect on current actions, which could again raise questions, or I could think of new actions. I would need the collaboration of my fellow colleagues to accomplish this.

Plan to seek answers Raise a question

Intensive seeking of answers Stop and reflect on current actions

Reflection/Analysis Think of new actions

Fig. B Action Research

The difference between these two results is during scientific research you either prove or disprove the original hypotheses and during action research you can think of new actions to take to help seek the answer as well as raise new questions. Action research is not linear like scientific research. Instead,