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!