Educational leaders are guided by various research approaches which help them in improving teaching and learning methods in education. There are lots of challenges faced by both the teachers and the students in the classroom environment. It is necessary to establish the root cause of each issue and address it to make sure the learning process is made better. Some of the challenges faced in the learning environment are lack of confidence by the students, especially in reading out loud due to fluency issues, unable to handle non-fictional texts, establishing the best teaching methods for certain subjects such as mathematics and daily motivation methods for the students. There are different methods that can be applied as will be discussed in this work. Action research is one of the improvements in ways where the practitioners conduct an ongoing study on how they teach or on how the students learn. Action research is aimed at determining the strengths and the weaknesses of the teaching and the learning methods that are used so that improvements can be implemented. The educator is expected to determine the issues or the problems which influence the practice or the achievement of the student. A descriptive action research can be conducted where the learning methods of the students and the teaching practices will be described. Therefore, the cause of the problem is established instead of providing simple guidance on what will be done (Research Methods for Educational Leaders, 2018).
Qualitative and quantitative data analysis has been applied for a period of time, especially among the k-12 teachers. The results are then used to determining improved operational approaches, but the cause of the failures and obstacles is not addressed. Therefore poor performance among the students becomes a persistent issue since the methods provided provide a short-term solution to the education issues. Action research, on the hand, means intensive studies to come up with a permanent solution for both teaching and learning approaches (Ross-Fisher, 2008). In action research, the teachers and students of different grades can be used to study to represent the rest of the group. Involving the educators and the learners in the study is better than just taking data on their performance and concluding what should be carried out. Furthermore, the results of the action plan can be extended to other students, considering that the challenges that are experienced in a certain grade apply in the most learning environments. Data analysis, on the other hand, can only be involved to a single school thus each setting has to carry out its own analysis to come up with methods for improvement.
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The first step in action research is the identification of the problem which happens daily in the school environment. Some of these issues include poor attendance, the parents not being involved in the performance of their students, writing skills problems, bullying, poor performance on mathematics and sciences and best teaching practices for different subjects (Ross-Fisher, 2008). When a topic is narrowed down instead of being investigated fully, there are high chances of the same problems occurring again and again. Action research has to include an in-depth study of the problem and exploring it to the fullest to ensure that best method to address it will be determined. The next step will be the formation of research problems, and they should not be vague but related to the issues in the learning environment.
A literature review has to be conducted to get what have already been studies about the questions. Only the relevant study materials should be used in this case to make sure that they are helpful to the study questions and there will help come up with different methods that have been proven beneficial. A problem such as using graphics to support the eighth-grade students will lead to an investigation of all the successful teaching approaches that are relevant to the specific students. The methods will then be determined by the grades they can be applied best and the subjects’ best tackled with particular teaching approaches. As the literature review ends, several things should be identified, and these are the number of sources that provided relevant information in relation to the question and the strategy that would be best applied in the stated situation (In Briggs, In Coleman and In Morrison, 2012).
In conclusion, the learners and the educators are both faced with obstacles which pull back the learning process, and the result is an undesirable outcome. Improvements can, however, be done through an analysis of the environment and establishing best approaches. Traditionally, a qualitative and quantitative analysis of data would be done, and the solutions provided were short-term. Through the action research, deep studies can be conducted on the research questions, addressing every side of it to make sure that only the best learning and teaching methods will be provided. When a deep study is carried out, any other issues which might be associated with the problem are determined and addressed, thus helping in coming up with an approach that is best for the specific question.
References
In Briggs, A., In Coleman, M., & In Morrison, M. (2012). Research Methods in Educational Leadership and Management. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.
Research Methods for Educational Leaders. (2018). American College of Education, 4.
Ross-Fisher, R. (2008). Action Research to Improve Teaching and Learning. ProQuest Education Journals, 160-164.
