An Action Research Report - Essay Example

Education PART ONE Question One The has addressed a number of relevant areas that academicians need to look at when writingan action research report. The author has looked at related areas such as titles of stories, person, and voice, tense, tentative versus definitive statements, clarity, and consistency, simplicity of language and conventions of format. In the writings, the author has been able to come out openly when explaining the relevance of academic writers getting sensitive when it comes to matters of person and voice. According to the book, academic writers should make use of active voice rather than passive voice, and a lot of illustrations and examples have gotten given for the same. This has come out clearly, and the author has been able to show some of the possible weaknesses that mine emerge as a result of an academic writer using passive voice. In the book, there has been a well illustration on the use of APA format, the guidelines and how it can help an academic drive his point to the reader at ease. The guidelines have been clearly stated and expressed in a manner that any academician who may be a pioneer or new to this type of formatting can easily follow and understand. The author has come out clearly in his explanation concerning these particular formatting styles by giving empirical findings on its usage as well as providing the websites for this format. There are a number of weaknesses that have emerged in the book the author needs to improve on in future when doing other writings of the same. He has overemphasized on the usage and relevant of APA writing format without necessarily appreciating other writing styles such as MLA, HAVARD and CHICAGO writing formats. It could look greater if the author appreciated the existence of other writing forms, despite focusing his work on APA format. Doing this would have shown the reader that the author has an extensive of the idea in other writing forms and have realized that this is most relevant for academicians. The author has emphasized on the relevance of APA writing format among other issues that academicians need to keep in mind when making an academic report. In the book, we have not been given the methods used in data collection in identifying how these concepts have worked for those writers who have followed all these. Therefore, the readers may doubt using these methods since there is no empirical evidence for those who have applied the same in the past. In future, the author needs to mention about those who have ever used these particular ideas he is emphasizing and the quality of work the produced and as well as the rating they got given. Question Two In the book, the aspects of the qualitative research have been used by the author in embracing clarity in his arguments and winning the heart of the reader. A number of reasons, methods/ways and the particular type of writing have gotten well addressed on by the author and how they can be made presentable. For example, when talking about the titles of reports, the author has come out and explained how the title should get framed so as to capture the attention of different readers. The author believes that a writer need to get creative and develop a title that is more entertaining and brief that grabs different readers’ attention. Nevertheless, there are a number of suggestions for qualitative research in writing that the author has failed to follow in his writing. In the book, we are not told of the place, this is answering the question where, that we need strategically to locate the title, as well as the formatting style. The author has not suggested on the cover page and the synopsis that writers need to keep in place so as to attract as many writers as possible. Also, explanations on how different titles need to get differentiated in terms of their differences in scope and academic levels have not been suggested. Question Three The author has employed the use of quantitative research in the book, and this has helped to address a number of points in a more clarifying way to the readers. The author has used quantitative research in writing when explaining on the right tense that academic writers need to use. In this case, we are told that of the different tense that academic writers need to use when writing an abstract, introduction, the body parts, and conclusion. For this particular area of focus, the author has given out the different time horizons and period on how the uses of tense in these parts of an essay have been changing over time. However, the there are no suggestions on how the data got collected and the data analysis methods that got used. Question Four I conducted a survey of 20 people, ten men and ten ladies, asking them to indicate their favorite color, where I used both qualitative and quantitative techniques. In my survey, I found out that the majority of the men liked dull colors while their female counterparts liked bright colors. Four men liked blue colors; other four liked black colors, and the other two liked brown colors, and the reasons they were giving is that dull colors look mannish. They also claimed that they are the best colors when it comes to laundry since they tend to camouflage with dirt. For the ladies, they showed a lot of passion in bright colors, four liked pink colors, three liked white, one liked yellow and the other two liked orange colors. Ladies loved the bright colors, having in mind the fact that they like doing a lot of laundries and being noticed and having shouting garments as well. Representing on a table:   blue black brown pink white yellow orange men 4 4 2 0 0 0 0 women 0 0 0 4 3 1 2 PART TWO The article, Using Action Research to Solve Instructional Challenges in Inclusive Elementary School settings Salisbury et al., has come out clearly in addressing the matters of special education. A number of students in the class, at all the levels, are prone to disability problems that need to get addressed in well-defined manners in collaborative partnership(s). According to Salisbury et al., the best way that can get used in addressing issues of disability among students is Action Research (AR). Action Research is a method that identifies the knowledge of the students and recognizes them as well supporting them and coming up with solutions for all the challenges. AR designs solutions that can improve the students’ situation for all the challenges that arise within the school and classroom settings, having some well-defined steps if making it effective (Salisbury et al., 1997). AR emphasizes the need of collaborative partnership other that an individual approach to solving a problem and it further outline some of the advantages that teamwork tends to have on different plans. AR describes the major components of a collaborative framework and direct practitioners on how they can how they can promote the inclusion of students with all the levels of disabilities in a general education classroom. Two school districts in New York; Johnson City Central School District and Fox Chapel Area School District, who get involved in a Collaborative Innovations Project funded one of the AR projects. Teachers from the two schools get involved in this project and came up with well-defined and underlined strategies on how they were going to conduct the whole project. Through the measures stated, they were able to collect the relevant information needed and conduct ethnographic field notes and interviews with all the identified students with disabilities (Salisbury et al., 1997). They conducted their studies both on the classroom contexts and within the school, collected their data, tabulated them and done some analysis on their interpretation. They classified their studies into two, through the active participation of students and where they focused on an individual student, and the other one was making a classroom more inclusive. For the first one, after identifying the disability needs of the student, the parents of the student were called for a meeting in school with the teachers. In this case, collaborative partnership is usually formed, and each member of the team get assigned some of the roles and duties that he/she will be playing. This particular approach has always proved to be more effective in assisting the students with disabilities, but the show has proved to have some strength in other fields or units of study (Salisbury et al., 1997). From the book; we have seen this working both for all the methodologies concentrating to a particular student and those that concentrate on a group of students. Personally I think that, a well-established AR with well-defined roles will always find itself in a position to solve nearly all the observable academic challenges within the students. The research found out that a well laid and defined AR is in a position to address some of the disability problems among the students. That was after a number of students who get identified as the disability problems got a lot of support and improved in some of their identified problems. I, therefore, believe that team work with well-functioning members and a well-strategized AR can help the collaborative partnership achieve their set goals, aims, and objectives. Reference Salisbury, C.L et al. (1997). Using Action Research to Solve Instructional Challenges in Inclusive Elementary School Settings: Education Treatment of Children. Chicago, IL: The Riverside Publishing Company. Read More