Area of Focus Statement:
This research will explore the teachers role as a health
advocate for his or her students, examining two questions:
How are teachers trained to recognize physical, mental,
emotional, and psychological health problems, particularly among
vulnerable or at-risk students? How effective are these current
processes? Brief Description Intervention:
Using mixed method data collection, this study will attempt to
identify gaps in the current training of teachers as student health
advocates, and consider solutionsi.e. improved training
processesthat will help to improve student health outcomes,
especially among vulnerable or at-risk student populations.
What data collection tools will you use to measure the impact of
your research question(s)? How will these three (3) data collection
tools help you get at the effectiveness of your intervention?
3 instruments TOTAL using mixed methods
(quantitative/qualitative) are needed, not 3 per question.
Research
Questions Data Collection Tool Why this tool? Justify its use
in
your study. How does it match to what you are attempting to find
and to measure? 1.
How are teachers trained to recognize physical, mental,
emotional, and psychological health problems, particularly among
vulnerable or at-risk students?
1
Interviews 2
Teacher focus groups 3
These data collection methods will help to gather qualitative
information on the current processes used for training teachers as
student health advocates. 2.
How effective are these current processes?
Anonymous student surveys/questionnaires
Anonymous teacher surveys/questionnaires
Student focus groups and interviews Comparing the data from
student and teacher surveys will help to close the gap between
teacher perceptions of health advocacy effectiveness in the
classroom and student perceptions of their teachers role as a
health advocate. This could help to highlight possible failures in
the current training processes, and how these needs could be better
addresses in the classroom.
2. Discuss how using a mixed-methods data collection approach
will lead you to understand and explain more fully what is
discovered during the research, as opposed to using one approach
over the other?
Using a variety of data collection methods will allow me to
assess both qualitative and quantitative data in order to a gain a
more comprehensive understanding of the current training processes
in place and the ways in which these processes are falling short.
While focus groups will give me a broad overview, in-depth
interviews will help me to narrow in on particular trends in the
classroom and identify the gap between teacher expectations and
health advocate service delivery. Anonymous surveys will provide
information on student backgrounds, as well as mental, physical,
psychological and emotional health needs, which will be useful in
determining the teachers effectiveness at noticing these issues,
particularly among at-risk or vulnerable student populations. This
will be compared with teacher surveys that will analyze their
expectations for their role as health advocates in the classroom,
their perceptions of the current training system, and their
analyses of how effectively these duties are being performed.
Overall, the combination of data collection methods will provide
sufficient information to determine the efficiency and thoroughness
of the current teacher health advocate training processes and to
make recommendations for future improvements.
Reference:
Mills, G. E. (2014). Action Research: A Guide for the Teacher
Researcher. (5th Ed). Pearson Education Inc.
