Process Overview

Rollin Hadsell

Action Research

Process Overview

EDLD 5301

Goal: Why are our high school students not financially ready for life after high school? Are the methods we use in our high school to teach financial literacy sufficient enough to get our students ready for post high school and college?

1.      SETTING THE FOUNDATION- After meeting with my site supervisor (principal) and our curriculum director/assistant superintendent, we came up with a myriad of things I could do an administrative inquiry on. We decided that the most important thing for our students with regards to the questions we asked and thought about was their financial literacy. We decided that two questions (and probably many more along the way) will be answered. I first want to find out why our students are not financially literate when getting out of high school. I want to find out the reasons our students are not getting taught financially in other ways. I also want to answer the question of whether the curriculum we use in our school (however basic and small it may be) is sufficient enough to prepare our students to help them on their way to a better path financially before leaving high school. I believe this research is important because our students are going into college and coming out with more debt than they could ever imagine having before their college graduation. I am hoping to be able to take to the district the results of this study to see if we as a district need to change the way we teach financial literacy, and if we need to do more.

2.      ANALYZING DATA- After obtaining pre-test sheets and parent, teacher, and student surveys, I will be able to come to a better idea of what our students need to learn. I will also be able gear my financial lessons towards the things our students do not have a lot of knowledge about. I will also, by analyzing the surveys that have been passed out and returned to me, further be able to analyze the reasons why our students are not being taught about financial literacy. With feedback from parents, teachers, and students, I am sure new questions will arise that I will be able to look further into and research later on after all this is finished. At the end of the research time, after teaching lessons all semester, the post-tests I will give at the end of the semester will give me even more data to analyze. I will use this data to hopefully effect change in the way we teach money matters to our students, or if the lessons we teach are working, then ensure that we keep doing the things we are doing to teach our students effectively.

3.      DEVELOPING DEEPER UNDERSTANDING- In developing a deeper understanding of the problem we are facing, I will analyze the data that I have collected from surveys, observations, interviews, and research that I will do on my own. I will be able to learn why students aren’t being taught, and what we can do to help them- or their parents- learn more and be more effective money managers.  I will conduct interviews with other business teachers, business leaders in the community, as well as doing my own research to further understand the problems that our students are facing. Credit card debt, student loan debt, lack of savings accounts, all this will be researched and discussed when interviewing others. I have already read many articles pertaining to the problems our students are facing when getting into college, without any financial know how.

4.      ENGAGE IN SELF-REFLECTION- This step is used for me to take the time to make sure I am progressing in my action research plan. Is there anything else I need to do to further gain more knowledge about this subject? Are the actions steps I have planned effective? Do I need to go back and change anything, or look forward and change something? These are the questions that I will reflect on. I will also ask for input from the people that are involved in this action research plan. I will ask for feedback concerning the methods, processes being used, and if the plan seems to be progressing the way it should. What improvements can I make in this process to help the overall project?

5.      EXPLORING PROGRAMMATIC PATTERNS- At this point in the research, I will  explore the programmatic patterns in our school. I will look at why these students are not learning financial literacy. I will research any school biases that exist in our school or district concerning my plan. Are there racial differences when it comes to way students are learning? Do some students have the opportunity to learn what others learn as far as financial literacy goes? What are some things I need to look at here to help me further understand what the true problem is? I will talk with my supervisor and any other person involved in this research to assess whether they see any biases that I don’t.

6.      DETERMINING DIRECTION- This step will come at the end of my research, as I will have all my data compiled, tabled, and analyzed. I will have given all tests by then, and it is at this point I can conclude whether change needs to be made in the way we teach financial literacy. I can gauge whether we need to find ways to help the parents become more financially responsible to be able to set examples for their students, and if we do conclude that, what can we do to help them? As far as teaching the students, do we need to change our entire way we teach finances, add additional material and teach it for a longer period of time, as right now we don’t teach financial literacy long enough, compared to how important it is in today’s society. Of course this is just my opinion as of right now, with no data to back up this statement.

7.      TAKING ACTION FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT- After determining the direction we as a school need to take, I will use the data that I have collected during the semester. I will use this data, including interviews, surveys, and pre and post- test data to write a comprehensive plan for what we need to do as a district to get our students ready to face the world financially. I will have all data that I have utilized ready for any questions from anyone that needs more information. I will write this plan with alternatives to what we are doing presently, how to best implement the alternatives, and steps to take to implement the changes we need for our district.

8.      SUSTAINING IMPROVEMENT- This step is of vital importance to the entire action research plan. I can research, determine direction, and take action to improve the situation, but if that improvement can’t be sustained into the future, then all the work would seem meaningless. In my opinion, the CARE model of examining improvement would be the one I would use. I will write my concerns down and pass out to all stakeholders, and what needs to happen for us to sustain school improvement. I will look at the positive things that are happening that must be sustained also, and then give recommendations for effective sustainability. I really like the SMART model that is explained in the Harris et. al text (page 97). It says that recommendations need to be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. I will also conduct evaluations at the beginning and end of each semester by continuing to give pre and post-tests to students to assess where students are with their financial knowledge, continue to look at material we are utilizing, and stay updated on current trends or problems in the financial world that could affect our students. I will also examine what we are doing that does not need to be changed. Many things may need to be different, but we cannot just turn a blind eye to the things that do not need to be changed and forget them.

My Action Research Plan

Hey all. I have added my Action Research Plan below. I hope it is correct. Please, please, please give me some feedback on it, good or bad. I won't get my feelings hurt with comments, because this is a learning experience. Thanks for any comments you can give me!!!

Action Research Plan

Action Planning Template
Goal: To find out why our students are not financially ready to leave high school, and if the things we teach them in high school is sufficient enough to help them get started on the right path financially.
Action Steps(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Surveys will be conducted with  teachers, admin, parents, and students to find out if they were taught financial responsibility as children.	Myself	Will send surveys out in January, and will receive back within 2 weeks so I can analyze data.	I will need surveys to pass out to individuals, computer with Excel to create tables for data.	Surveys will be analyzed to help understand why students are not financially literate, and if there are other concerns with the results, such as parents needing to be taught.
A second survey will be sent out to parents and teachers only to explore if they taught their children financial responsibility when they were younger.	Myself	Will send surveys out in January, and will receive back within 2 weeks to analyze.	Surveys, computer with Excel to create tables for data to be stored.
Myself and other teachers will give a written Pre- test for students that are involved in all three business department classes. There will be a total of about 150 students involved in the testing.	Myself, other teachers in the school, principal, curriculum director.	Pre-tests will be given the first week of January and collected that day. Tests will be graded and saved to be compared with the post-tests to be given later on in the study.	Testing material for 150 students, teachers to help give tests to students, principal and curriculum director will help analyze data when returned.	I will grade pre-tests and assign a percentage of correct answers to each test. I will then create a table with the percentages of each test taken by the two different study groups.
I will teach the financial curriculum that is required of business teachers, we will attend a marketing and finance event called “Marketplace”, and I will have speakers come and talk to students about financial literacy.	Myself, other business class teachers (including FCS taught classes that teach Dollars and Sense), all involved in Marketplace event that will take place in April, principal, curriculum director, special education teachers.	We will start our research in January starting the 2nd semester and it will run through the semester. I am also exploring the possibility of continuing the research through the first semester of next year, just to have more data to analyze, and more students.	Financial curriculum, teachers that will teach the financial curriculum.	Students will be evaluated during the semester by their grades, but the evaluation that will go with this research will be the post-test we will be giving at the end of the semester.
My final step in the research project will be to give a post-test to the students that have been involved in the financial curriculum that we have been teaching for the semester. We will give the test and analyze the data, comparing it to the data from the pre-test given at the beginning of the semester. We will also compare it to the students that did not receive the financial curriculum during our classes. I will come to a conclusion with this data and answer the question of whether the things we teach them about finance is working, and hopefully find other ways or methods to help these student gain a better understanding of financial literacy.	Myself, other teachers, principal, curriculum director.	The post-test will be given at the end of the semester in May. If I decide to continue, another post-test will be given at the end of the first semester of next year, in December of 2013.	Financial literacy post-test, computer with Excel to create tables for data.	I will evaluate all the data that I have taken, and come to a conclusion about if what we teach the students in our business classes about financial literacy is sufficient enough to get them started on the right path financially. I will also evaluate data concerning what students learn outside of school from parents, grandparents, or other sources of information that they gain. Are their parents teaching them how to handle finances correctly, are they setting the example for their kids? Are there other ways our students are learning about financial responsibility? If so what are those ways? These are things I will evaluate at the end of the study.

Addendum to my research topic

I have made an addition to my research topic. I will not only be asking why our students are not financially literate coming out of high school, but I will also be assessing the methods used in my classroom to see if they are sufficient enough to prepare our students to be ready for what life throws at them financially. I will be doing surveys, tests, interviews, reading literature. Stay up to date, because I am sure something will change soon. Thanks again for reading. Please feel free to comment on my topic with any help or criticism. I can take it!!! Thanks again.

Action Research Topic

I have decided that I will be doing my action research topic on financial literacy for high school students. The question I would like to have answered during this project is "Why are today's students not financially literate, and what steps can we take to do help them become more aware of how finances work?" I will explore the causes of why today's youth are not financially aware, whether it be parents are teaching or modeling for their kids financial practices, or if the schools need to be doing more to make students financially aware. Stay tuned, there will be more. Any comments or suggestions are welcomed!! Thanks!!

Action Research for Educational Leaders

Educational leaders could use action research for a myriad of things. It could be used to find the question to why student absenteeism continues to rise (if applicable), how to get the staff of your school to be a more cohesive group, or just simply find out what kinds of improvements you as the educational leader need to make to help you be the professional you would like to be. I will be using the action research technique to find out how we can get our high school students to be more financially literate, as our students really do not understand finances, and how important it will be to them in the future.

ACTION RESEARCH

I have created this site to keep everyone up to date on my action research project. Action research is basically "looking inside" your profession, asking questions, or "wonderings" about the profession, and then finding answers to those wonderings by doing research. However, action research doesn't stop there. After reading literature, doing surveys, talking to people, interviews, etc., an administrator will then come up with solutions to help improve what you have been thinking about, evaluating how the solutions are working, and then finding answers to new things that need to be improved. Many times, we as teachers (or future administrators) sit in a professional development seminar, workshop, or conference, and are told by "outside experts" what to do, and how to do it. The material that we are given usually ends up being put in a filing cabinet, never to be seen or used again. Action research is done by the teacher/administrator (or a group), and the research gives "inside knowledge" about what to do and how to do it. I believe this type of professional development is much more meaningful for a teacher/administrator, because he/she or they have a part in making the decisions that will affect the classroom, school, or district.

 I will say it another way. An administrator (or a team of administrators, teachers, PLC leaders, or whoever else) will find ways to improve what he/she or they want to improve. Action research is also called administrative inquiry, and it is not meant to be a research project, as the name suggests. It should become a way of life for any administrator that wants to be the best leader they can possibly become to help our students, teachers, staff members all become the best they can be.

Stay tuned, there will be more to come!!! Thanks for reading!!