STEM Implementation Action Research Proposal
At the conclusion of last year, I
was concerned about the achievement of the students at my school; primarily
because in the past they have scored below proficient on standardized tests,
especially math. As a fifth grade math
and science teacher I was wondering how we could help to improve student
achievement. The school had just changed
the set up of their fifth grade classes by implementing a departmentalized
block format; where there is a two hour block for math and science, and a two
hour block for English language arts and social studies. The district also just piloted a STEM Education
(the integration of science, technology, the engineering design process and
mathematics) and had initiated plans to implement STEM throughout the district. Schools were to pilot the program within
their own settings, and our administration concluded that 5th grade
would take on this responsibility the first year. This project will examine “In what ways will
the implementation of STEM Education affect my 5th grade students in science and
mathematics?”
A theoretical framework that best
supports the research I want to conduct is social constructivism. “Social constructivists posit that knowledge is
constructed when individuals engage socially in talk and activity about shared
problems or tasks” (Driver, Asoko, Leach, & Mortimer, 1994). STEM is a process that allows a cooperative
group of students to collaborate on a posed problem and develop a solution. With the posed problem being
real-world investigation and the students being able to work together using
higher order thinking skills, one believes that learning with retention has a
much better chance of occurring.
The action
research will be gathered from my two fifth grade classrooms, which combined,
total 33 students. The age range is 10-12 years, with demographics of 10 African
American, 12 Caucasian, 10 Hispanic and 1 Asian. To protect the identity of my students, they
have received student numbers in addition to the first letter of their homeroom
teacher’s last name. For example; C4 would be a student from my teammate’s
homeroom, with a student number of 4. I
will also be incorporating data from last year’s students. These students have also been given student
numbers combined with the first letter of their former homeroom teacher’s last
name, with the addition of the letter L placed first to reference last
year. For example; LD12 is a student
that was in my homeroom last year, with a student number of 12.
The
action research study that I have created is a descriptive design, quantitative
study. I have chosen to collect
quantitative data because I want to answer a specific question; “In what ways will the implementation of STEM
Education affect my 5th grade students in science and mathematics?” Quantitative research questions are stated in
the onset of the research, and seldom change during the course of the
study. In order to resolve an answer to
a specific question, the question must not change throughout the study
(Mertler, 2009). To resolve this question,
I have created a triangulation of data collection consisting of: (1) a
questionnaire of student’s interest in the implementation of STEM Education
teaching strategies, (2) administration of Learning Link tests that assess
student growth in mathematical thinking and then compare last year’s students
(control group) and this year’s students (experimental group), and (3) administration
of benchmark 3 and comparison of math and science benchmark achievement data
from last year’s students (control group) and this year’s students
(experimental group). This research design is a descriptive design because I am
examining the phenomenon as it exists (Mertler, 2009). STEM Education has already been implemented; therefore,
I must conduct my research by making interpretations about the phenomenon
already in place. In order to keep the
data reliable, I intend on using the Kuder-Richardson formula 21 to determine
the internal consistency of the tests because they are only administered to the
students once (Mertler, 2009, p. 127).
With the conclusion of my action research study, I intend on coming to a
conclusion of how the implementation of STEM affects my students’; attitudes
toward the new teaching strategy, growth in mathematical thinking skills, and
their achievement scores on standardized tests in science and math.
With all
three aspects of my data I intend on using descriptive statistics. I have chosen to use descriptive statistics
so that I can simplify, summarize, and organize my data (Mertler, 2009). More specifically, I plan on evaluating my
data using measures of central tendency.
By using measures of central tendency, I can compare this year’s
students with last year’s students. In
doing this I can determine to what extent STEM teaching strategies have on my
students’ attitude, achievement scores and growth in mathematical thinking during
fifth grade. Although I am unable to give
questionnaires to last year’s students, I can gather and appraise the attitudes
of my current students, as they pertain to STEM Education. I will make a statement about STEM implementation
and have students rate the statement whether they strongly agree, agree, have
no opinion, disagree, or strongly disagree with that particular statement. In doing this, I can quantify the data and
use central tendency to measure the statistics.
One
limitation to running a quantitative research study is that I am unable to investigate
the “hows” and “whys” of the research data.
With quantitative research one should not deviate from the intended
research question, however, I am doing a quantitative study so I can get
answers to my question. I also think
that my sample size of only 33 students is small considering that STEM has been
implemented throughout the district. On
the other hand, incorporating the previous students scores strengthens any
conclusions I come to because I can compare my results to a group of students
who were not exposed to STEM based learning.
The following timeline was
created based off the school’s testing schedule. My students have been moved to be tested
first for Learning Link so that I can assess the data for my research. I have added an extra week for analysis while
students are on spring break.
- March 12th
-15th – Administer
Benchmark 3 tests; 13th -
Math assessment, 14th – Science assessment
- March 12th
-23rd Analysis of last
year’s and this year’s benchmark tests
- March 19th
-23rd – Administer STEM
interest survey
- March 19th
-23rd – Analysis of
interest survey
- March 26th
-30th - School’s spring break.
Additional analysis conducted here; where needed
- April 2nd
-6th – Administer
Learning Link test
- April 2nd
-6th – Analysis of
Learning Link data
References
Driver, R.; Asoko, H., Leach,
J., Scott, P., Mortimer, E. (1994). "Constructing scientific
knowledge
in the classroom". Educational researcher 23 (7): 5.
Mertler, C. (2008). Action research: Teachers as
researchers in the classroom (2nd edition). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.