Revisions...

This week was all about revising, editing, and finalizing my action research plan, and making the necessary adjustments to ensure that this study would be as efficient and effective as possible at providing possible solutions and answers to the question, "Do student-athletes perform better, academically, in-season or out of season?"

My site mentor has been a great resource throughout this process and helped me a ton this week, specifically. She was able to provide some valuable insight to my project and gave some really applicable advice that will prove truly valuable to this study. She suggested using Survey Monkey as a resource for gathering and examining information for my research, as well as recommending some questioning techniques and actual questions to ask on those surveys that would assist me in developing a plan to solve this issue.

My biggest concern with this week's assignment was to make sure that the questions I used were completely relevant to my study, that the research plan, itself, made sense and had a natural flow that made sense. My site mentor was able to speak to these questions by providing some clear direction to my project where I was unsure, and made certain that I left our meeting feeling confident in my work.

My Plan...

ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE of HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT-ATHLETES: IN-SEASON vs. OFF-SEASON
GOAL: The purpose of this study is to provide insight into the possible motivation of student-athletes, and to help teachers, coaches and administrators work with each other and with student-athletes to better prepare them to be more successful academically. And if my assumptions are true, this study may also give teachers, coaches and administrators some substantial evidence that would help them to encourage students to participate in extra-curricular activities.
Action Step(s):	Person(s) Responsible:	Timeline: Start/End	Needed Resources	Evaluation
Survey the coaching staff to see what % of their athletes participate in only 1, in 2, or in all 3 major sports seasons.	Ryan Pate Coaching staff Registrar Ath. Secretary	March 2013 July 2014	Class rosters Questionnaire Feedback provided by the coaching staff List of students who meet the criteria Skyward	Evaluate the number of students who will correctly represent the number of male and female 10th and 11th grade athletes who will participate in only 1, in only 2, or in all 3 major sports seasons.
From the coaches information, list twenty 11th grade athletes (male and female) and twenty 10th grade athletes (male and female) who represent the correct number athletes who participate in only 1, in only 2, and in all 3 major sports seasons.	Ryan Pate Coaching staff Registrar Ath. Secretary	March 2013 July 2014	Class rosters List of students who meet this criteria provided by the coaches Skyward	Determine from the questionnaire if the sample student-athletes meet the criteria for this study.
Determine the demographics of the athletes who participate in the 3 major sports seasons to ensure that the sample represents the diversity in the athletic program.	Ryan Pate Registrar Ath. Secretary	March 2013 July 2014	Class rosters and demographic information provided by the registrar Skyward	Determine if the demographics of the sample correctly represent the ones provided by the registrar.
Print the progress reports and report cards of the sample student-athletes and examine their grades, along with their attendance, for each grading period to determine if their grades were affected by the season they were in.	Ryan Pate Registrar	March 2013 July 2014	Skyward Printer, paper, calculator Excel document	Look at the data and determine if the student-athletes’ grades improved, got worse, or stayed the same compared to the season they were in, i.e., in-season/off-season, and make inferences based on the data provided from this experiment.
Survey the sample student-athletes for possible reasoning/motivation behind the results of their academic performance over the tested period of time.	Ryan Pate Sample of Athletes	March 2013 July 2014	Survey	Look at the answers to the survey to determine possible motivating factors of student-athlete academic performance.
Survey the coaching staff for possible reasoning/motivation behind the results of the sample student-athlete academic performance over the tested period of time.	Ryan Pate Coaching Staff	March 2013 July 2014	Survey	Look at the answers to the survey to determine possible motivating factors of student-athlete academic performance.
Survey the teachers of the sample student-athletes for possible reasoning/motivation behind the results of the sample student-athlete academic performance over the tested period of time.	Ryan Pate Various Teachers	March 2013 July 2014	Survey	Look at the answers to the survey to determine possible motivating factors of student-athlete academic performance.

Finally...I settled on a topic!

I finally was able to settle on a research topic for my action research project that I will conduct during my 18 mo internship in educational leadership. I went back and forth on two topics, but came to a consensus with my site mentor and we both agreed that this topic would benefit me because it would provide a great learning experience, and it would also benefit our school district if I could provide a simple solution to a yearly problem that occurs with our student-athletes.

Each year that I have been teaching and coaching I have come across several students that take care of business, academically, during their sport's season, but then turn into "slackers" as soon as their season is over. My plan is to study 40 high school male and females students in the 10th and 11th grades to see if I can put my thumb on some possible reasons for this, and even provide some insight to our teachers and coaches so we can possibly motivate these student-athletes to perform closer to the highest potential, academically, regardless of the season!

I will attach the my action research plan to this blog as soon as I figure out how...

Lessons Learned...Week 2

This week I was able to begin the narrowing-down process of the topic I would choose to research for the next several months. The research assignment is to choose three possible questions (to be narrowed down to one) I have about the school in which I work - or even areas of concern - then look at pertinent data about these questions/concerns, and use this information to come up with an answer/solution to the problem; basically taking this issue and putting it through the whole "action research process." The topic should benefit my school and I should be able to show how it would do so.

While visiting with my site mentor about several topics, it was brought to my attention that there are more than three issues that would be worthy of such research. From these three, however, I have to narrow it down to only one question/concern and research this one topic for the duration of my internship as an educational leader.

When considering the vast number of possibilities I seemed a little overwhelmed; but with assistance from my mentor we were able to narrow it down: (1) Do student-athletes perform better academically when they are in-season as opposed to being in off-season/out of season? (2) Does our ACE program (a credit recovery class for at-risk students) accomplish, at our school, what it was intended to accomplish? (3) Is our tardy policy effective at deterring repeat offenders? Is there a correlation between consistent tardiness and academic performance?

When considering the large amount of information it would take to complete these studies thoroughly I found it difficult to narrow down the information to really answer the questions I had. Also, some of the questions I had about these programs weren't as easily answered as I thought. For certain topics there are too many other factors that would have a great influence in answering the questions I had, but would not be available to study. I would be able to speculate on some conclusions, but not be able to provide data to back it up. That would, of course, be poor research!

Overall, I learned that research can be done effectively only if the right questions are asked, the right information is available, and the problems in our schools are not as "quick fix" as I once believed!

Educational Leaders Should Utilize Blogging...

Blogging would allow educational leaders to, basically, have on-going professional development. They could bounce ideas off each other and have ready access to pages and pages of topical discussions and solutions with/between colleagues who are all experiencing similar circumstances and dealing with similar issues. Blogging allows for a much larger community of career learners to interact and assist one another on a daily basis if needed.

Action Research Works...I know!

The term Action Research is one that was quite unfamiliar to me until I began studying the term in my on-line class conducted through Lamar University. Basically, action research is one's abilty to look at a particular job/skill/problem, observe what is happening, then collect and analyze data that would support an action to result in a desired change. After chewing on this definition for a while and contemplating it's steps, I came to realize that  those who are really good coaches do action research every week (and I am sure ther are probably many who disagreed, but who don't understand the in's and out's of the coaching profession; especially with the stereotypical beliefs about some coaches).

Coaches are constantly gathering and analyzing data and applying it to bring about change that will benefit their teams. Each week during the season, practice and game films are studied in great depth and detail, and they are graded, viewed with the players and other coaches then used to teach the players how to effectively execute the skills that will lead them to be successful. This information helps coaches decide what is done in practice, how their teams will practice, what players get to play each week, etc. In addition, coaches view game film on their opponents to view the opponent's strengths and weaknesses and strategize methods to use their own strengths against the opponent's weaknesses. At the end of the week, on game day, the score decides whether their plan and strategies were successful ot not, then the process begins all over again.

Coaches who don't use this method to teach/prepare their teams are not nearly as successful as those who do. This is a proven method with time-tested results and I personally know it works. Therefore, I know it will also work in the field of education. The principles work and make sense, and educationl leaders and administrators would be wise to exercise these concepts in their schools to better their districts and solve the problems that might prevent schools from being successful.