Limitations To My Action Research
Although my Action Research allowed me to grow as a educator/researcher and allowed my students to grow socially and emotionally, the process getting there was not easy and I ran into some hurdles which I had to overcome. One of the biggest challenges I faced while conducting my Action Research was balancing being a teacher and a researcher. Action Research requires one to be a teacher and a researcher at the same time and it was very difficult for me to juggle being a teacher and researcher at the same time. For my research data, I was trying to keep track of and record the way my students solved each social conflict they encountered and appreciated others. I had a hard time recording every single time I witnessed a student solving a conflict or appreciating someone because sometimes these moments occurred while I was in the middle of helping a student, setting up for a lesson, on recess duty or working with a small group so I didn't always have the immediate ability/access to record these on my observational guide. Therefore, I felt that it was hard to get an accurate count of the amount of conflicts solved by a Problem Solving I-Message, telling the teacher, an act of violence, and the amount of Appreciation I-Messages used weekly by the students I was following. In order to fix this problem, at the end of each day, I would reflect on the conflicts that occurred and record any conflicts on my observational guide that I had forgotten to record earlier on in the day. I also would check in with my master teacher and ask her to tell me about any conflicts she witnessed and made sure I had each of these conflicts recorded on my observational guide.
Another challenge for me was finding the time to conduct my action research lessons. My students had a lot of academic content that had to be covered during the time period of my action research and that took priority over my action research lessons. Therefore, I couldn't do as many lessons on conflict resolution and appreciation as I had originally hoped and discussed doing in my action plan. I wanted to integrate my topic with the academic content I was teaching but I found it difficult to connect it to academic content I was teaching. Although, I wasn't able to do as many lessons as I had originally planned, I realized it worked out because my students development of the strategies I taught them could be observed both inside and outside of my action research lessons.
The third challenge I faced was that students often reported inaccurate information to me during conferences. Every week I would ask each student I conferenced with if they had any problems with friends during the week. During phase 1 most of my students reported that they did have problems with friends and I observed many of these problems so I knew my students were reporting to me valid and accurate information. During phase 2, many students reported that they didn’t have any problems with friends during the week when I had witnessed them having problems with friends during the week. In phase 1 this was always the first question I asked during the conferences but in phase 2 this question was asked after asking about the Appreciation I-Messages they had given and received during the week. Therefore, I am not sure if this provoked my students to not want to acknowledge and reminisce over the conflicts they experienced during the week. As a result, I had to rely more on the information I recorded in my observations for my data analysis and took the information my students told me as their perception of reality. In their eyes, they were no longer experiencing conflicts with friends and only appreciating friends for nice things they had done for them. Although this was not alway representative of what my observations indicated, it served as valid input for me to take into consideration.
Another challenge for me was finding the time to conduct my action research lessons. My students had a lot of academic content that had to be covered during the time period of my action research and that took priority over my action research lessons. Therefore, I couldn't do as many lessons on conflict resolution and appreciation as I had originally hoped and discussed doing in my action plan. I wanted to integrate my topic with the academic content I was teaching but I found it difficult to connect it to academic content I was teaching. Although, I wasn't able to do as many lessons as I had originally planned, I realized it worked out because my students development of the strategies I taught them could be observed both inside and outside of my action research lessons.
The third challenge I faced was that students often reported inaccurate information to me during conferences. Every week I would ask each student I conferenced with if they had any problems with friends during the week. During phase 1 most of my students reported that they did have problems with friends and I observed many of these problems so I knew my students were reporting to me valid and accurate information. During phase 2, many students reported that they didn’t have any problems with friends during the week when I had witnessed them having problems with friends during the week. In phase 1 this was always the first question I asked during the conferences but in phase 2 this question was asked after asking about the Appreciation I-Messages they had given and received during the week. Therefore, I am not sure if this provoked my students to not want to acknowledge and reminisce over the conflicts they experienced during the week. As a result, I had to rely more on the information I recorded in my observations for my data analysis and took the information my students told me as their perception of reality. In their eyes, they were no longer experiencing conflicts with friends and only appreciating friends for nice things they had done for them. Although this was not alway representative of what my observations indicated, it served as valid input for me to take into consideration.