Draft Action Research Project Progress Report

Before I begin this Progress Report I must say that I have changed my action research project.  So the information below will reflect what my new Action Research Project is.  I changed it after talking with my campus principal and feeling we had more of a need in the Vocational Education area as of right now.

Title

In my action research project, I am trying to determine if vocational education programs provide students that are involved in the vocational programs an incentive to improve academically in core courses and their other elective courses.

Needs Assessment

Seventy percent of our student population on my campus is economically disadvantaged and come from a home environment that either does not have a high school degree and/or do not have formal training to use so they have an opportunity to earn a decent wage.  Ten percent of our student’s population is African American and forty percent of our student population is Hispanic.  The other half of our student population is Caucasian or classified as other.  I do not think this is an ethnic issue since the majority of our students are economically disadvantaged no matter the ethnic breakdown.  I fill the issue really is a geographical issue more than anything.  Where our town is located there are not many jobs that require an advanced degree, however there are a significant amount of jobs where a trade would help our students if they plan on staying in this community.  This is why I feel proving how important vocational education is to our students.

Objectives and Vision of the Action Research Project

The main objective and vision that I have by doing Action Research on the importance of Vocational Education for our students on my campus is to provide data that might show a positive academic trend once students are involved in these Vocational Programs.  The Action Research Project will be a success if the trend is positive and provides great data for our school board and Superintendant to look at that might possible get more Vocational Programs on our campus.

Review of the literature and Action Research Strategy

After looking all over the internet for data about positive trends associated with Vocational Education, I found several articles related to this topic.  Meer’s research from Stanford University best describes Vocational education for high school students by saying, “Kulik (1998) writes that “there is an achievement gap at the start of high school between students who elect different programs.” Some argue that tracking only serves to reinforce these differences, but Slavin (1990) counters that students in different tracks differ too much in aptitude to make any such comparisons meaningful.”  (Meer  2005).  Much like the quote refers to, I feel like every student should have the opportunity to become a productive citizen in society and to do that some individuals might need to learn a trade.  I feel like High School would be a great place to start teaching students a trade, and by doing this Action Research Project I hope the positive data will be able to provide our students with more vocational opportunities.  After speaking with my Principal two weeks ago we felt like this would help our students more than my previous Action Research Project, which is why I changed my Action Research Project.

Articulate the Vision

I am currently communicating the Action Research Project’s Vision.  This is in the infancy because I just changed my action research project.  With that being said, I have spoken with a couple of my coaching friends about how important vocational programs are to our school and our community, and they have agreed with me.  I plan on developing a survey for our staff to take in order to gather more data about their feelings on vocational education.  After I have their results, I am going to survey our parents to see how they see vocational education and what other things they would like us to offer our students on my campus. 

Manage the organization

My main goal with the Action Research Project is to show what a positive effect our current Vocational Education Programs are having on our students, and how new additional programs would benefit our campus and community.  The first thing I need is more academic data about students who are currently in the program.  The academic data needs to be from before they were in the program and then after they were in the program.  I hope to see an increase student achievement once they become part of the program.  My principal will grant me access to the data, but the counselors are who I will work really closely with.   I will interview our current vocational teacher to gather data on how much money, time, materials, and what kind of personnel they need for the programs that they are in charge of.  I will at that time see if any of these programs are possible with our existing personnel.  This is because hiring new personnel is an expense we cannot endure these days.  Once all the data is collected, I will present the data that I have to the school board to see what their take is on implementing other vocational type programs such as JROTC.

Manage Operations

If we are allowed to provide our students with more vocational education programs, I will try to use our existing resources.  These new programs should be run like all the other vocational programs at our schools.  The programs will have a sponsor who is ultimately in charge of organizing activities to get our students actively engaged with the program.   The needs assessment will help us with the data needed to choose the additional programs we might need.  One that comes to mind is JROTC since we do have many of our students joining the military.  These students will need to learn to work together as a unit under the direction of their sponsor.  If the program has any issues occur, they will try to work the issue out.  If anything severe occurs or an issue cannot be resolved, then school administration will be notified.   If the program or programs work together, our students could benefit from the program and quite possible change their lives for the positive forever. 

Respond to Community Interest and Needs

These days all anyone is concerned with in school is academics and academic achievement.   There are not many people who are concerned with students who have a learning disability or students that are not really interested in academics.  Many of those students are good with their hands and will be well suit to learn a type of trade.  If we can teach our students how to develop skills that will make them productive in the workforce, they can go out and make a good living using the knowledge that they gained in high school and/or go to trade school with background knowledge.  Once these students have learned these skills, they can get out in the community and provide a service to the citizens of the community and make a living doing it as well.  Whether it be a carpenter, plumber, welder, electrician, or any other trade you might be able to think of, these students will gain a better self worth and make a living while doing it.

Citations

Meer,  J.  (2005).  Evidence on the Returns to Secondary Vocational Education.  Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.  SIEPR Discussion Paper No. 04-14