Action Research Findings

Action Research Findings

By Chris Ward

Collaborative Action Research Project

Introduction:
I am a middle school Keyboarding instructor of thirty years currently teaching in a middle class school in a suburb of Orlando and Disney World. My students are multicultural and multilingual. The community is mobile and many of the students have lived in several states and countries. Students come from varied educational environments that generally include some introduction to computers and Keyboarding.
Statement of the Problem:
My struggling Keyboardists, those students that would benefit most from proper Touch Typing methods, fail to see the importance of what the instruction they receive or practice what they have been taught. These students spend most of their time hurrying through assignments, peeking under their cover sheets, looking at their hands and keyboard, and taking every opportunity to cheat whenever they feel the teacher is looking another direction. Therefore, independent drill and practice do not help them develop good Touch Typing habits, but reinforce bad habits which are difficult to break. There needed to be an intervention.
I believe there are several factors causing these students not to use the proper keyboarding technique. First, many of them do not have the self-discipline to follow difficult directions. At the first indication of frustration, they abandon the Touch Typing method and resort to the short-term, immediately gratifying complete, but improperly typed paper. Second, middle school students vary drastically in hand-eye coordination. Some of my students play piano and have excellent hand-eye coordination while some cannot tie their own shoes. Lastly, while I supply a wide selection of drill and practice, the struggling student rarely practices effectively. This student's unreadiness, his lack of ability to concentrate on one activity for fifty-two minutes, and his lack of moral maturity contribute, instead, to wide spread cheating and habitual shortcuts. Some type of intervention was needed that would reinforce proper technique.
Methodology:
It is my opinion that I can best improve my students' performance by focusing on proper drill and practice and giving rewards for improvement on weekly timed writing exams. To accomplish this task I developed a student mentoring rubric and a faculty observation score sheet. I feel the combination of peer and adult observation would reinforce the importance of proper drill and practice.
The term triangulation refers to the use of three or more observations to establish research (Sagor, 2000). The sources of my triangulation are student observations, teacher observations, previous student records, video analysis, and a spreadsheet and chart to illustrate findings.
I used the student buddy system to pair off students for student mentoring and peer reinforcement. Students observed each other three times a week using the student mentor rubric. Students observed and scored the other student's typing habits noting deviations from prescribed Touch Typing methods. To view the student Keyboarding Rubric visit online at: http://www.logoschristian.org/windyhillms/key1rubric.htm.
Teachers also used the Keyboarding Rubric and were asked to observe at least ten students on three different random visits. This worked especially well during the week I was out sick. Students were instructed by the substitute teacher to conduct student observations, and random visits by Mr. Rees and Mr. Graves insured that they were on task.
I videotaped the class during the student observations. Taping helped to insure that students performed appropriately when the teacher was turned away or distracted.
Findings:
Peer pressure and adult supervision seem to have had a positive effect on the middle school students who were learning Touch Typing. The buddy system of student mentoring created a sense of urgency and importance. Adult supervision set an atmosphere of acceptance to prescribed methods. Students stepped up to the plate when the curriculum became challenging and competitive. Student's performed better when they knew their work was being evaluated and observed by independent second and third parties.
The Action Research spreadsheet and chart I created revealed several interesting dynamics beneficial to the effective teaching of Keyboarding. The control group was another 4th period Keyboarding class taught by a first year teacher. On the spreadsheet, I created two columns for timed writing results to be done at the end of Lesson 4 and Lesson 8. Lesson 4 was my base line. I then compared the net increase or decrease between the two Lessons. I discovered that if, in the two week period, my students completed Lessons 5, 6, 7, and 8, while using the student mentoring program, they increased their typing proficiency by over 9%. These gains appear to be minimal until you compare them with the control group.
The control group did not use the student mentoring buddy system during the same two weeks. At the end of the two weeks they also were requested to take the timed writing at the end of Lesson 8. Their net results were a negative 38%. The control group actually went down in timed typing proficiency. Eleven of the control group students had not finished all of the Lessons through Lesson 8. Due to a lack of supervision and mentoring, the students control group were falling behind in work production while the test group completed all of the required work.
I then compared the timings with these of my students from the previous year. The net increase was 5%. This meant that the new test group that practiced the Keyboarding Rubric increased their performance by 4% over the previous year's class.
When I viewed the video tape I discovered students checking the video to see if it was on during the mentoring sessions. After students were convinced that the video was recording, they would return to typing and cover their hands. Thus the video appeared to have a positive effect.
I also discovered some factors that I did not anticipate. The first year teacher that was teaching the control group was not checking his own class's work progress. Some students had completed the Lessons, but failed to complete the Posttest. This may have skewed the findings. The other thing I noticed was that his students were not moving ahead to important next level skills, but were in fact going back and repeating Lesson 4 for a higher grade on Lesson 4. This made Lesson Four's timed writings higher than Lesson 8, because in Lesson 8's students did not have time as yet to return and practice for a higher grade. Hence, the control group had misdirection due to a lack of supervision and mentoring.
Included with this report is a spreadsheet with two charts. Chart A indicates the wpm typed by my class at the end of Lesson 4 and Lesson 8. Chart B represents the control group's (CtrlG) wpm scores at the end of Lesson 4 and Lesson 8.
In addition, I should mention that I did get parent permission to publish my findings. I did this because it is prudent and I wanted to use it on our web page as a student motivator. To see our parent permission slip please visit:
http://www.logoschristian.org/windyhillms/researchpermission.htm.

Conclusion:

Finally, I would like to make one comment about what I learned while conducting my research project. During the process of doing research, I discovered that the questions were more important then the answers. Many of the questions that came up, as a result of conducting research, exposed weaknesses in the procedure and practice of the instructors. When addressed, correcting these practices should increase student learning. This tertiary effect was not the focus of the research but a secondary benefit. It is my opinion that our program has benefited from this research.

References:

Sagor, Richard (2000). Guiding School Improvement with Action Research. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

You may visit my Lesson Plan web page at:
http://www.logoschristian.org/windyhillms/lessonplans.html