Action Research Report

Executive Summary

            RFK Elementary school, located about 20 miles south of San Antonio Texas, is where this action research on “Data Analysis, is it Really Effective” was conducted.  This campus has been open for over 27 years. It has been the top elementary schools for just as long. During that time teachers have been teaching the core subjects, the state has required, but only recently have teachers been questioning the reasoning behind all the work they have been putting in; the work and effort of data collection and analysis. The S. Independent School District has recently adopted, last three years, the CSCOPE Curriculum. With this curriculum the demand for data analysis has increased tremendously. But teachers are questioning the fact of the data. Is the time and effort they take to collect and generate the data, useful? Are we wasting valuable time collecting data with tests and quizzes when we could be teaching the CSCOPE Curriculum? With the findings this research has shown, it is a wonderful thing to have data collection and analysis on a campus. This information that is gathered is to increase students and district scores and make the information teachers present to the students more rigorous, and effective to support the student’s strengths and weaknesses.

Data Analysis, Is it Really Effective?

Introduction / Background

RFK Elementary is in the urban side of the school district on average attendance of 586 students. The demographic background is AfricanAmerican 3.86%, Hispanic 56.71%, White        35.77%, Asian 1.42%, Native American 0.20% and two or more races 1.83%.  Over 64% are classified as Economically Disadvantage and 14% are Limited English Proficient. These numbers flux yearly, in large amounts to the scores of the low performing schools. RFK has accepted over 100 students as transfer due to low performance in neighboring elementary schools in 2012. 2 out of 7 elementary schools failed to meet AYP for the second year. Mondin is currently a third year teacher within this school. She has seen the numbers greatly increase since my hert year and the demand of the teacher increase with it. Since this project has started they have had 2 new Assistant Superintendents of Curriculum and Instruction and a colossal shift in school moral.
With this shift in moral, they have had a lot of wonderful teachers ask to transfer to other schools. The low morale is due to the stress that the principal has placed on the teachers. The administrative staff has not given the support to the teachers that they are in need of. Teachers are forgetting why they even started teaching in the first place. They now must focus on the scores than rather on the needs of the student’s. Many teachers will say “they are teaching to a test, not to the children”. With the new Assistant Superintendents of Curriculum and Instruction the teachers must now collect data, and analyze it on top of creating lesson plans, with designated TEKS, create pretest and enter the data into the computer for analysis, be scrutinized if the other classes in the same level perform higher than them, put in grades for the demanding parents, while they learn a new software program and have no administrative support on the process. The teachers have all of this to do while still maintaining a normal life that doesn’t require them to come to school on Saturdays. Unfortunately, most teachers spend at least 3 Saturday or Sunday, a month at school putting in test data.
            Teachers are tired of all the demands that have been placed on them and now are wondering if it is all worth the extra time and effort to be a teacher. They have all lost their real reason for becoming teachers. Is the demand for data collection and analysis worth the hassle? The purpose of this action research is to determine just that, is data collection and analysis really worth all that trouble. This action research will involve gathering data from several separate grade levels in the school. Mondin will discuss with teachers and supportive staff, is the data collection process we currently use to the needs of the students

Literature Review

In this era data collection is extremely important to understand and collected in order to measure the student’s performance this is important for the principal and staff to obtain and accomplish the high-stake goals that the state mandates. (Dana, pg72) This is the reason this research. Teachers want to know whether or not it is extremely import to understand and achieve the highest goals possible and Leading with Passion and Knowledge: the Principal Action Research” shows just that.
Principals and staff are sometimes reluctant to the findings, the report say about data collection but there is a great education resource that shows the import steps and analysis that school staff  must look at in order to complete the process successfully. Examining What We Do To Improve Our schools: 8 Steps From Analysis to Action, gives step by step way of using the data collected. If we have the data, we must use it. Although setting the foundation and share vision of the school if the first step in data analysis, collecting and interpreting the data is the next step and it is believe to be the most alarming part of the whole process. Most of the administrator’s and staff can become overwhelmed with the data and not know what to do with it.(Harris, Edmonson, & Combs, 2010)
Every school will use some form of data collecting tools to make decisions with in their school or even in the form of question, everyone will all do it. The Lead + Learn Press designed seminars that help leaders understand a process of data collection. Their first book, Decision Making for Results, is designed to walk leaders through the process of collecting data. It stated that collecting data is easy but collecting the right data is where it counts. In this resource they give you many examples of charts and diagrams that you can use to organize and record data. This is a wonderful resource for leaders that have not found their way of data collection.
Although the administrations are the ones that are held accountable for data collection, teachers are the ones collecting the data. This is a long process that teachers have a struggle with because it can be confusing on how to gather the data and what to do with it next. Data Teams is a great resource for teachers and leaders to use together. With this resource teacher can identify the students’ needs and target those needs.
            When hearing the words data collection teachers cringe. Charity Preston is an author, teacher and parent that supports these thoughts of collection. She like many others lends support to those teachers that are struggling. Preston’s article, Elementary School Data Collection and Analysis can calm some nerves about the collection process. She has created nervous amounts of tools that are essential to the learning of students, she allows public success to these blog and research to help struggling teacher and school staff.

Action Research Design

Subjects
This action research report will be based on the performance for the RFK Elementary school campus where Mondin currently teaches. The group of students and teachers the research will be written on are members of 3^rd grade, 4^th grade and 5^th grade.


Procedures
The Action research plan started out as a way to collect data and turned into more of the benefits of the collecting data. Teachers were really being introduced to the way of collecting data. Most teachers never looked at the data collection. The first step of the process was presenting the new Eduphoria program to the teachers. The teachers would be trained on the basics of uploading the information to the program. The teachers would then give a pretest based on the unit of study, and then scan that information into the Eduphoria program. The second step would be to interview the teachers on whether or not they were able to able to look at the data and understand it once it has been put into the Eduphoria system. The third step would be to use the data to analyze the data to understand their students’ needs. The fourth step would be to address those needs of the students with teaching instruction and other means of intervention. The fifth step would be to give a final test on the unit of study; the teachers would then up load this into the program for review. The final step would be to interview the teachers over a 12 month period to see if the information and format they are using to collect the data and analyze helped them address students’ academic needs.
Data Collection
Data was collected by interview, whole group survey and group discussions. Teachers have strong opinions about printing scantrons, scanning them into the computer and reading the data that came out. The group discussions were the main focus of the collection of the data for this action research. They met on a weekly basis and discussed what the teachers did that week. The teachers were able to state their opinions and problems that they faced with the data collection.
            Collection from the students was done in in individual interviews. The students were interview bi-weekly to gain their thoughts and feeling towards the changes of the way teachers collected data. the students were also asked about on how they were notified about their scores, and improvement they need to make to help them achieve success. Students were very open to talking and discussions, They were not given surveys, only verbal discussion.

Findings

Teachers were very verbal about their feeling towards the new data collection. From the preliminary interview it was discovered teachers did not like collecting the data. They felt that it was a waste of time and they didn’t have a use for the information. This continues through the course of the observation and research period for the first 2 months. Teachers were very negative about the way data was collected. Teachers also reported that the collection of data was time consuming because you had to create the scantrons and print them, but when you tried to put them in the scanner they would not scan all of them. Teachers stated that they didn’t like the fact that there was only one scanner and it was extremely slow. Teachers were really negative about the data collection for the first two months. Not only were the teachers negative about the testing collection and data analysis, so were the students. The student’s stated they didn’t like the test all the time. Some even stated they would miss school because they had a pre- test that day they didn’t want to take. They didn’t like the pretests because they were had and felt really bad when they didn’t pass.
The next 3 to 5 month period, the instructional coach fixed the problems the teachers informed her about and helped teachers use the information and the program to help their students succeed. They teachers were starting to use the data collected to improve their student’s weaknesses. They also discovered the student’s strengths and used both of them during the small group instruction. Teachers also have stated that they have seen a tremendous growth in the scores from each unit. During this time period the teachers have found was to use the test data and their feeling shave shifted to a positive note. Students also reported that they don’t mind the pre-tests. They finally came to the conclusion, even if they miss school on the day of the pre-test they would have to take it when they came back. Some of the student’s also stated they just gave up and knew that they would have to take it no matter what, so just do it when everyone else was
The next 6 to 12 month period, teachers were using the scores to actively support the data they collected during small group. They have also started to use the data with diagrams and charts that the instructional staff used to help analyze the data.  (Harris, Edmonson, & Combs, 2010) (The Leadership and Lerning Center, 2008) Teachers would report to the students their goals for improvements and their weakness and if they had changed over the 9 weeks. Students felt that they were more accountable for tier grades and it really challenged them to “beat” their classmates. Teacher saw this as a positive competitive spirit and continued to support it. Students were also pleased with their improvements in grades. Some that were struggling at the beginning started to use the advice of the teachers to benefit their learning.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The conclusion of is action research project showed that although data collection and analysis can be tenacious at times, it will benefit the students and teachers in the long run. Teachers are not always able to identify the weaknesses of the students’ academic ability with discussion and small group; the students might have a weakness in the testing setting. Teachers and students may have been hesitant because the thought of the unknown scares them. With practice and instructional support data collection is beneficially to all parties involved form the local teachers and student to the distinct wide collection. You can see what school struggle and where schools succeeded. District can use there’s test score to make decisions of movement in the district.
The times are changing and so are the ways of collecting data. Everyone wants their children and students to succeed. As an instruction coach, principal, teacher or just a stakeholder involved we are held accountable for the outcome of the students learning and academic ability. Data collection is where it starts, give it time the unknown is scary but is greatly beneficial.



References

 

Center, T. L. (2010). Data Teams. Englewood, Colorado: Lead + Learn Press.
Dana, N. F. (2009). Leading With Passion and Knowledge. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin- A SAGE Company.
Harris, S., Edmonson, S., & Combs, J. (2010). Examining What We do To Improve Our Schools. Larchmont, New York: Eye On Education.
Preston, C. (2013, April 17). Elementary School Datra Collection and Analysis. Retrieved from Ezine K-12 @rticles: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charity_Preston
The Leadership and Lerning Center. (2008). Decision Making for Results: Data-Driven Decision Making. Englewood, Colorado: Lead+ Learn Press.