Sample Action Research Report Evaluation

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

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). .

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

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).
Analysing qualitative data. British Medical Journal, 320(7227), 114-6. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/204028425?accountid=32521