Research Study For Improving Academic Performance

Choose 1 (one) of the following hypothetical scenarios and design an appropriate research study. Write using essay format and include a discussion of each of the following:

•  Identify a research problem and a relevant research question for the proposed study.

• Select a methodological approach that best suits the study and provide a rationale for this approach.

• Describe the data collection method(s) you would use to explore the research question. Explain why you have chosen this method(s) for data collection and show how it aligns with the methodological approach and the research question.

• Highlight potential ethical considerations for the study.

 Scenario 1 (choose either this scenario OR Scenario 2)

You are a teacher with 15 years' experience. You teach Science at a large urban secondary school. Lately, a number of incidents in the school district have involved students possessing weapons. You (and many other teachers) believe that students bringing weapons to school is a problem worthy of further research. The central direction of your research will be to study students' experiences with weapons in high school.

Scenario 2 (choose either this scenario OR Scenario 1)

You have been reading a research report about the benefits of meditation training on

concentration and academic performance. The report states that an all-girls' school used daily meditation training to support the students' learning. You are curious as to whether this is an artefact of the nature of a single-gender school or a genuine benefit of the daily meditation exercises. You decide to do some research to determine if the girls and the boys at the school where you teach demonstrate a similar response on academic performance when introduced to daily meditation exercises. 

Introduction

As an educator, improving academic performance academic performance of my students is one of the main objectives of my everyday work life. Most of my planning and implementation in classrooms is focussed on this objective. As part of my professional practice I often have to find and implement interventions and design research projects with the explicit goal of increasing academic performance. Therefore factors that influence academic learning are really important considerations for me as an educator to know and to use in my research, from the stage of research design to implementation to result in analysis. A thorough knowledge of the factors that contribute to academic performance and the ways these factors operate and what influences or has an impact on these factors is a very important professional knowledge for me as an educator. We will look into all aspects of improving academic performance in this research study. 

Research question 

1. a) What are the factors that influence academic excellence? 
2. b) What are the easiest ways for schools to increase academic learning?
3. c) Is academic learning the only outcome that needs to be studied in the school setting?

Literature review

Research reports many different factors that influence academic learning. Including gender, age, teaching methods, socioeconomic status, the medium of instructions, daily study habits etc are reported from India (Ali, Haider, Munir, & Khan, 2013). In the Canadian context the factors listed by the Quebec Education Department are the support and availability of parents, parent's financial situation and standard of living – students in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas get lower marks, the geographical location of the school, language of instruction, whether mother tongue is the language of instruction or not, racial and gender diversity in the class, whether inclusive school or not,  selection procedures followed for admission into the school etc are reported to be factors that influence academic performance of the students  (Quebec, EseR, 2015). 

The research evidence strongly suggests academic learning and performance is linked heavily to the socio-economic status of the student. Graetz (Graetz, 1995) suggests 'A student's educational success is heavily dependent on the social status of student's parents/ guardians in the society. Considine and Zappala (Considine, 2002) have noticed that parent's income or social status positively affects the student test score in the examination. 

The student's previous academic record also heavily influences current academic performance (Measures, 2007; Bratti, 2002 ). Many other factors that influence academic performance are the efforts of individual students , parents educational background, previous schooling experiences, stress and motivation level of students, learning style of students, teaching style of teachers, school vision and mission, use of technology, health and eating habits of students, concentration level of individual student etc.

A very interesting study by Pedrosa et al (Pedrosa, 2006) mentions that students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds actually perform better than others in academic performance, which he calls educational elasticity. This can be attributed to increased motivation levels due to higher stakes for the student in his academic performance.