So How Am I Going to Do Any of This?

Hey everybody! Looks like it is time for another blog post again. Since the last blog post, we all did our methods assignment and made some pretty big steps in determining how we planned on conducting our primary research. Because of this past project, which we turned in yesterday, and us starting our research proposals, today’s blog post is going to be all about the methods I intend to use for my project.

For those of you who are not familiar with my project, I intend on analyzing a high-achieving charter school to determine what characteristics make the school successful. In determining these traits, I will essentially be performing a mini-ethnography on the school that I will be studying to try and gain as comprehensive of an understanding of the school as I can. On the largest scale for my project, I intend to compile all of the different theories that I have read in the literature which focuses on the components of a successful charter school, and create a list which I will systematically evaluate to determine which quality is important and which is not (no big deal, its gunna be super easy right?)

Anyways, in order to determine which of these characteristics are actually important, I intend to use a combination of surveys, interviews, and classroom observation to understand the personal components behind what makes the school successful. Additionally, I have a source which provides a form of the necessary information that should be obtained about a school when it is being studied. This will be useful when trying to gain a comprehensive understanding of the school.

Although it may seem like I know what I am doing, there are still a lot of unanswered questions that I have. The first issue that I have is that I still do not know which school I will be studying. I would like to be able to study BASIS Scottsdale, since it is the highest ranked school in the state and I already have easy access to the school and its students and teachers; however this raises some ethical issues. Because I go to this school, I already carry some bias and preconceptions about the school, and so it might subliminally affect my results. If I can follow strict research methods, though, which allows for as little interpretation as possible, then I might be able to limit this bias.

Another problem that I would have to overcome would be obtaining access to school records and student profiles. Since most studies within my field use demographic information to contextualize the study and student test scores to determine the school’s achievement, obtaining this information is a vital component of my research. Again, there are ethical implications involved with disseminating this information to me, especially since the information will be about my peers.

My final problem is determining which grade to study. I would like to focus on BASIS’ upper school, because not only is the upper school highly ranked, but there is also more testing data to work with for these students. This is because the lower school only has state standardized tests which can be used, whereas the upper school also has AP, SAT, and ACT scores which can be used in my analysis. Once again though, there are ethical implications involved in studying a group that I am already familiar with.

Alright, enough problems. Although I still have a lot of work that I need to do, I am feeling pretty good about where I am at right now, especially since the methods assignment helped me a lot in actually figuring out what I want to do. Right now I just need to focus on solving these big couple problems; however, after that, I am hoping that my project will be smooth sailing. Anyways, that is all. Cya next week!