Poverty and Education

Poverty and Education

Introduction

Poverty is the greatest threat to educational success. Bryan Stevenson also once said, “Provided injustice, poverty, and gross inequality still exist in the world, nobody can truly rest.” This is what is happening in the education sector. Scholars realized that chronic stress, living in adverse poverty, and staying in impoverished and chaotic settings affect brain axes, primarily those involved in executive functioning, controlling aspects such as working memory, attention, inhibition, planning, and reasoning in children. Therefore, Children who grow up in such impoverished environments often have behavioural and emotional issues that make their transition and performance in school problematic. Jacob & Ludwig’s (2008) research reported that 50% of school-aged children globally come from low-income families lacking emotional and optimal cognitive development to succeed as learners. The proposed study’s significance is to help learners from impoverished families get the support needed to succeed in class. Wehby (2022) affirms that acquiring a good education is the only means to avoid poverty in adulthood. Besides, economists believe that education is the only means of productivity because the salary is connected to one’s productivity. Nonetheless, learners from impoverished families still face a greater risk of adverse instructional results in modern America. Therefore, this research will explore strategies teachers can apply to support learners from less privileged families to succeed in the classroom.

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Purpose and Significance of the Proposed Study

For decades, America’s worst reality has been that the wage gap widens. Consequently, educational outcomes are among the primary areas affected by family earnings. According to school measures, children from less privileged families often start school behind their peers from affluent families. Issues such as occurrence, timing, scheduling, and profundity of poverty affect or influence a kid’s educational success (McGee, 2021). Nevertheless, the study shows that through various factors that affect school readiness and academic achievement in early childhood, teachers and caregivers can work collaboratively to help lessen the effect of poverty on kids from less privileged families. Hence, the study and its significance aim to determine how learners from less privileged families can acquire the necessary support to become successful in the classroom.

Primarily, students from low-income families often feel abandoned, uncared for, left behind, and unwanted, affecting their esteem and, eventually, their education. Wehby (2022) insists that impoverished living conditions affect learners’ self-esteem. Thus, such learners often lack concentration in class because they have no enthusiasm and zeal that motivates them to learn and acquire education, irrespective of their economic background. In addition, Wehby (2022) stresses that some learners even experience segregation from fellow age mates due to a lack of basic needs that their peers from affluent families have. These issues result in harassment, and only instructors have the power to solve problems and help such kids succeed in the classroom. The learners’ outcome I would wish to influence is their vocabulary and reading, which will ultimately enhance positive concentration in the class. In my current role, I work as a preschool teacher assistant, and the institution is situated in a serene setting with fifteen learners per class. The primary role of the teacher assistant is to prepare and plan the classroom environment while overseeing the learners’ safety.

Explanation of Problem

The statement of the problem or a scenario that led to researching learners from low-income families was that one of my students in class often participated less actively in class as she was asleep or completely worn out at the time. Even during playtime, she distances herself or isolates herself from other learners. When I investigated and inquired from her, she became open and told me she never takes breakfast, or at the time, they sleep hungry at night, which affected her concentration. These set the stage for this research’s problem or situation statement. Learners from less impoverished families experience numerous adverse challenges that cannot allow them to succeed in class regardless of their determination. Most of these challenges affect learners’ concentration in class. For example, a report showed that 18 per cent of grade four learners for free lunch got good grades in reading and math; this is matched to forty-four per cent of grade four learners whose parents’ wages are more than the required limit for free lunch (Wehby, 2022). The statistics show that just a tiny percentage of learners can get better grades if offered free lunch, which means that economic status affects educational performance.

Additionally, schools having a majority of learners from low-income families have fewer or more scarce resources than required. Consequently, the only way the teacher can help is to create creative ways of making more resources to support learning (Jacob & Ludwig, 2008). Young learners from low-income families lack the appropriate resources, motivation, and flexibility to encourage classroom concentration. Most learners from less privileged families can never meet the expense of some significant learning resources, leading to low-class performance. The other concern is that different types of schools matter much to learners for most institutions (Sagor, 2000). Wehby (2022) supports Sagor’s (2000) sentiments that the significant problem of learners rests on the social environment within which schools function, like family settings. Such environments make it difficult for learners from underprivileged backgrounds to utilize educational opportunities fully.

Population and Research Question

The selected population for the research is learners from preschool to grade four. The key reason for this selection is to show that the brain functions of kids change due to poverty. Primarily, it shrines portions of the brain, especially for decision-making, memorization, and planning. Secondly, the selected group can accurately and freely express their matters with fewer challenges and fear because they trust the teacher. Thus, the targeted populace is learners from ages 5-10 years or those in grades 1-4, and the sample size will be approximately 50-60. Besides, the selected population is suitable for the research because these learners are within the required age and can honestly respond to simple survey issues or problems efficiently. Finally, the research question is: What strategies can be used to support children aged 5-10 from low-income families to get the necessary support to succeed in the classroom?

Literature Review

Relevant Early Childhood Education Theories

Vygotsky’s social-cultural model is the leading early childhood education theory that supports this proposal. It would be the most suitable for supporting the research proposal because Vygotsky believes children learn actively using hands-on experiences. Besides, the theory suggests that culture, parents, teachers, caregivers, and peers are accountable for developing children’s high-order roles. In Vygotsky’s notion, learning is an inherently social process, and by interacting with various persons, learning is integrated into individual world knowledge. Above all, this theory emphasizes that the best strategy to enhance children’s success in the classroom is for the teacher and parent to work collaboratively to support the child. This will help children develop proximal growth (Eun, 2019).

Nevertheless, the theory insists that with support from more experienced people, children can progressively learn and increase their skills and scope of understanding, irrespective of their backgrounds. Some basic terminologies related to the discussed issue are low-income, less-privileged, impoverished families, classrooms, and successful and necessary support. They will be in alphabetical order as follows.

• Low-income families have annual wages less than 130-150 per cent of the federal poverty earning level.
• Necessary support/help/ assistance is the appropriate or required help one deserves.
• Underprivileged/less-privileged/less-fortunate/Impoverished/disadvantaged families are families in a specific social class with insufficient money to purchase essential provisions like shelter, transportation, clothing, and food.
• Successful means achieving the expected outcomes or aim.
• The classroom is an area for learning and teaching.

Research Summaries and Application of Findings And Author’s Position

Closing the achievement gap: Lessons from Illinois’ Golden Spike high-poverty High-performing schools by Glen. W. McGee (2021) was the first article. This article fundamentally informs this action research because it emphasizes the research’s focus areas: strategies to support learners to succeed in the classroom. The main points and purpose of the article also stressed the central area of focus in my research. The article focused on low-income children by addressing the concerns about the academic performance of children from low-income families while utilizing essential influential variables such as ISAT scores and interviews.

Most importantly, the instruments, interventions, and strategies that the article gives are much more effective and practical. The author used varied instruments to collect data and show that the delivered interventions and strategies are effective. First, the article uses assessment criteria in different private and public schools, but most significantly, those with the highest number of students from low-income families. Therefore, the author’s first instrument is assessment criteria, where institutions with a sum of ISAT scores of above or 66% in the last three years are studied. They must show an overall increase of 10% of the students meeting or attaining the above standards on the combined ISAT, and they must get at least 66% (McGee, 2021).

In addition, the study used observation; interviews and web-based and published materials were used to determine if learners from low-income families are genuinely affected by comparing them with those from low-income families. The article even uses rating scales for learners from different schools, and they used teacher-created tests, attendance data, and an attitude scale. All of these fully realized that families’ income affects learners’ performances; 56 per cent of learners from affluent families attained 66 per cent on the ISAT test, while only 18 per cent of learners from low-income families attained 66 per cent (McGee, 2021). The intervention that McGee offers for this study is for the teacher to work closely and collaboratively with parents by continuous communication to involve the parents of learners in their learning and education. This way, the author believes that teachers can help achieve success in the classroom and improve the general performance of the learner. McGee (2021) gives such a workable intervention because it was realized that parents are often less involved in their children’s academics. For instance, McGee says that learners can successively fail. Since parents from low-income families are often too busy and focused on finding money to sustain the family, they get less concerned and involved in their learners’ welfare and education (McGee, 2021). With close working between the teacher and the parents, the teacher can identify learners’ issues and approach the parent, then effectively design a means to help such students succeed in class regardless of their economic background.

The instruments and strategies include statistical data, observations, and test scores. It was easier to notice the challenges and disparities among schools and learners from less privileged families, including the lack of resources for learners and the lack of good teachers. McGee (2021) insists that the only effective means to bridging the success gap among learners is achievable only if public policy concentrates more on supporting families and communities, elevating their wages and housing, and attending to the health and national wants.

The second article was “Oral Health and Academic Achievement of Children in Low-Income Families” by George. L. Wehby. Wehby’s (2022) article stressed that impoverished kids have higher unachieved oral health desires that inhibit their performances, especially classroom success. As such, it used a medical test procedure to demonstrate the relationship between oral health in the first five years of the kid’s life and succeeding academic achievement for less privileged learners. This article utilized different instruments and strategies, including statistical data, interviews, and discussions. Accordingly, these interventions clarified that children’s oral health before school age is more connected with their academic scores. For instance, statistical data was used to compare the disparities in percentage. Kids with minor dental medication had higher reading and math scores by one percentile, whereas those learners who got comprehensive oral treatments in their first stages of life had high math scores by 0.7, just 95% and 1-2 percentile (McGee, 2021). Therefore, the study used such procedures and instruments to effectively show that unmet oral health wants considerably hinder learners’ success in class.

The article provided primary intervention for parents and teachers to work closely and primarily to educate parents through constant communication about the effects of unattained oral health wants. The teacher should emphasize that oral health challenges learners in class and, most importantly, their academic success, particularly for learners from less privileged families. The intervention that will be used to address the area of focus of this research is that teachers and parents should work closely and collaboratively with teachers to certify that students from impoverished families attain the required help to be prosperous in classrooms. This intervention is the most viable because McGee (2021) affirms that parents are often partly involved in student learning. The efforts to bridge the success gap for less privileged learners will only be achievable by applying parents in students’ education and primarily the government attending to the communal wants. The other aspect that makes one feel these interventions are workable is the procedures and instruments used with correct statistical information comparison, which all confirm that there is a disparity and a problem that affects learners from low-income families.

Secondly, the intervention is the most workable and prioritized because it meets the problem statement’s needs. First, the close relationship between the teacher and the parents will help solve the learners’ issues, especially the lack of food. Teachers can start planning free lunches just for learners from low-income families. This will effectively boost their morale and concentration in class. Besides, parents’ and teachers’ cooperation will help address the community needs that the government and education officers should address to help solve the economic pressures that result in low performance among low-income students. The collaboration between the teachers and parents will also help solve the lack of resources. The school management will know that most learners cannot afford the resources needed; teachers will employ their creative skills to ensure that most resources are available. Alternatively, the school can also organize fund drives and donations to support the needs of the affected learners.

The only changes that will be made to the intervention are how to support or meet the needs of the learner’s low-income families. This will help give the appropriate options that could help quickly solve the learner’s issues. For instance, schools that lack resources could organize fund drives and donations, especially for books, if the government cannot support such schools. These activities can help get the essential resources to enhance learning among students from less privileged families to support their learning and ensure their success in class. The other thing that would change is that tutors would ensure they built stronger relationships with parents and learners. This way, they can support learners from low-income families by volunteering their time to teach these learners during their free time. Besides, Compton‐Lilly & Delbridge (2019) insist that volunteer teacher-sparing time and assisting learners from impoverished families are appropriate ways to build bonds and identify and understand student issues. Teachers can initiate such volunteer programs independently after requesting the school principal and board permit after-school programs to assist learners.

The Proposed Study/Research

Intervention Plan

The intervention plan, where parents and teachers work closely to give learners the necessary support to ensure they are successful in class, will be implemented in the following order.

Weeks	Tasks	People involved	Location
Week 1	Provide students with survey forms to fill out to identify those from low-income families who are unsuccessful in the classroom and who need support.	Researcher and students	Classroom/school
Week 2	The researcher prepares a report on the findings and the number of students, and then shares the results with the principal and discusses a way forward and possible solutions.	Researcher	Home
Week 3	Visit different learners’ homes to assess the situation and determine the primary issue.	Parents, the researcher	Home
Week 4	Involve parents and discuss and provide possible solutions.	Researcher, parents	School or home
Week 5 in the future for at least two months	Teachers and researchers will observe whether learners exhibit changes, and parents will be sent weekly progress checks to see if there is an improvement.	Teachers Parents and the researcher	At school

 Ethical Considerations: Informed Consent and Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Sagor (2000) maintains that in any research, especially action research, ethical considerations are crucial because they guide a person’s research designs and practices. As such, for any research, the principles, including voluntary participation, potential harm, confidentiality, and informed consent, are necessary and fundamental features that any research must consider to succeed. Therefore, informed consent while conducting this research will be accomplished by ensuring that the researcher briefly describes this information to the research participants as the IRB application presents it. Mills (2013-2014) reminds researchers that the IRB obliges a person researching to remember to narrate the wholeness of the study, including the research procedures, exclusively while completing the IRB application. To effectively achieve informed consent, Sagor (2000) advises that it is essential for a researcher to prepare an informed consent form for research participants to fill out. A researcher can achieve this by adding an agreement statement at the end of the leaked consent document for participants to fill out and sign. Besides having a leaked consent document, Sagor (2000) emphasizes that it is essential for a researcher to ensure that before engaging participants on anything about the research. The researcher should begin by discussing an informed consent form with the participants to ensure they are aware of whatever they will partake in and decide whether to participate in the research.

Ethical Considerations: Freedom from Harm

Mills (2013-2014) highlighted that one of the fundamental rights of research participants is assured by the IRB. According to IRN, the freedom from harm phrase states, “Those research participants must never experience any unwanted risks for taking part in research” (Arifin, 2018). The intervention strategy that includes teachers, parents, and learners necessitates that, as a researcher, I ensure that everything that participants share with me remains private and confidential to safeguard them from harm. However, the selected intervention plan requires the close engagement of teachers and parents. Mills’ (2013-2014) literature review and the plan above explain how the research will be conducted; therefore, all ethical considerations will be used for successful research. I will, thus, achieve freedom from harm by ensuring all participants remain anonymous so that all that information will remain private even while visiting homes. Besides, a parent will be free to participate in the research. Such privileges ensure that participants are protected from manipulation or harm or are exposed to dangers or labelling risks.

Ethical Considerations: Anonymity and Confidentiality

Ethical considerations of confidentiality and anonymity are purposed to protect the discretion of study participants while reporting, gathering, and analyzing evidence. Confidentiality separates or modifies any personal labelling information from participants from the collected data. At the same time, anonymity is a case where a participant in a research activity must remain unknown or unidentified by anybody (Surmiak, 2018). These definitions, therefore, affirm that it is against human rights regulations to interfere with the confidentiality of the participants when conducting research. Hence, to protect anonymity and privacy, various security measures like using participant’s codes to mark information instead of names will help keep participants anonymous and confidential. Using a computer, I will use security measures to protect the participants’ information. First, I will use encryption measures for the computer files to keep the shared information secret. Besides, to enhance security on storable documents such as consent forms, I will ensure a secure and lockable cabinet to support such vital documents, ensuring I maintain utmost confidentiality. Finally, Sagor (2000) emphasizes that it is essential for researchers to remove any personal identifiers from the research documents to help make participants anonymous and ensure their data are often safe and confidential.

Data Collection and Intervention Plan

Data Collection and Data Collection Procedure

Data collection is the most significant part of the research. Different procedures and steps must be executed to collect information accurately. Therefore, for this research, data collection will start with identifying the research area of study. Sagor (2000) states that this step aids in identifying the opportunities or issues for data gathering. The stage that ensues is using survey questions for participants to fill, which an interview session will then follow. The survey and interview session will help recognize low-income families’ main concerns affecting their class success. This stage will be the revelation phase that helps realize the real problems and openings within these affected families.

The succeeding process will be an interview. This phase will be the most vital as this is the perfect moment for the researcher to have a face-to-face discussion with the research participants while they express their challenges and experiences to the researcher. The session will necessitate note-taking because the researcher will identify and choose the opportunities and problems from the interview session and then set objectives for the study’s success. This interview process, where different families talk about their problems, will help the researcher plan appropriate methods and approaches to solving the issues facing students from impoverished families. The interviewing process eases the data gathering by ensuring that a researcher collects enough data from the sample cluster. Therefore, research must ensure this session remains confidential and allows participants to express themselves. The interview process eases the data collecting time, ensuring one gathers enough data from the sampled group. The interview process will remain confidential and provide freedom of expression to the participants.

The final procedure that combines the first and second steps is observation. While interviewing families and as the learners fill the forms, it would be appropriate forte the researcher to observe the environment, the entire family household, living conditions, and particularly the family’s population. These aspects will help correctly analyze the information the participants have filled in the forms and shared information. Once all the information is gathered, it will be examined and interpreted to ensure all the data are dependable and credible.

Data Collection Considerations

Guba and Lincoln affirm that a researcher must establish trustworthiness within action research. The stringent measures for qualitative research, such as dependability, transferability, confirmability, and credibility, must be adhered to. These four elements are the four-dimension criteria. Therefore, they remain vital aspects to consider in research, and the researcher needs to ensure all these four features of trustworthiness are accomplished while conducting research. Thus, how can a researcher achieve these four aspects of credibility in action research? Forero et al. (2018) define credibility as the degree to which a study account is correct and believable with specific reference to the level of agreement between the partakers and the investigator.

Thus, to have credible and dependable research or trustworthy research, a researcher must demonstrate that data analysis and examination have been executed in detail, exhaustively and reliably. This is achievable by launching the methods of analysis, recording, and systemization with explicit information to assist the reader in deciding whether the research procedure was credible (Forero et al., 2018). Hence, I will ensure credibility by recording all the interview processes and disclosing all the analysis methods used in the research, such as providing a comprehensive study and using survey questions.

The research activities will ensure transferability by thoroughly defining and describing the study’s context, background, and fundamental assumptions. Therefore, anybody who wishes to shift the results to a different environment is accountable for deciding how practical the change would be. Additionally, confirmability will be exhibited by revealing each detail of the data analysis stages and demonstrating that the research discoveries are not stained by conscious and unconscious partiality but accurately display the partakers’ responses.

Intervention Plan

The process of collecting data begins with the identification of the area of research. This denotes the population to be studied, including the students, parents, and the particular area of conducting and gathering information. The stage that follows is the use of survey questions for participants to give their responses. This stage will ensure the researcher identifies the real problems and opportunities in low-income families that will help answer the research questions and set the research objectives. The third stage entails in-depth interviews where sampled partakers will be interviewed to give more detailed information on less privileged families and learners and, most importantly, the challenges affecting their studies and performance. The final procedure is the observation stage, where the interviews and the filing of survey questions will help analyze and understand the physical situation and the credibility of the given information. The last stage will be to analyze and interpret the provided data and make sure an appropriate action plan is made.

This research proposal investigates how learners from low-income families can attain the necessary aid to flourish in the classroom. Hence, the readers will primarily focus on students from less privileged families and the help such learners require to be the same as those from affluent families. The research will utilize qualitative methods of data collection, especially interviews and surveys. The research question that this action research is to answer is: what strategies can be used to support children from low-income families to get the necessary support to succeed in the classroom? The selected intervention plan for the study is for the teacher to work closely with guardians and parents to support students from less privileged families to improve and succeed in class. Moreover, the data collection methods will reflect data credibility and other elements such as transferability, confirmability, and dependability. Besides, the researcher will compose different confidentiality and anonymity measures as explained above to ensure that participants’ information is safe and confidential.

Author’s Reflection

Hypothesis

This research primarily focuses on seeing how students from unfortunate families can attain the help to become more successful in class. The hypothesized outcome of this proposed research would be that students from less-privileged families fail to get the necessary support they desire to thrive in their education and classes due to different challenges. As stated previously, students from less fortunate families often experience or are exposed to diverse family and background challenges that affect or interrupt their learning. For instance, most of these learners lack the support of their parents and teachers to enable them to succeed in education. Therefore, this research hypothesizes that students from low-income clans are too occupied with family duties, or their guardians primarily focus on providing for the family rather than the learners’ education. As a result, most of these students who are often designated numerous roles to execute after school are always worked out in class, asleep, absent from school, do not finish their homework, and do not concentrate in class because of family challenges. Besides, the research found that learners from less fortunate families lack success in class due to poverty. Parents often earn salaries below the minimum wage in most of these families.

Consequently, most learners are likely to abscond or fail to go to school because of a lack of fees or because they stay for days without food or even go to school on an empty stomach. All these are likely to affect the concentration of such learners in class. Due to the identified challenges that students from low-income families face, the study proposed an intervention that teachers should consider working closely and collaboratively with parents. The teachers can do this by involving them in their kids’ education to help the students from disadvantaged backgrounds improve in class and succeed like their peers from fortunate families.

Thoughts and Changes Concerning The Research Question

Some aspects of the research question are likely to change, especially the research question. The research question will change to what factors make students from less fortunate families unsuccessful in the classrooms and what strategies or interventions teachers can use to give learners from underprivileged families the needed support to enhance their classroom success. The primary reason the research question will change is that I realized that before finding an intervention strategy, it is essential first to understand the root cause of lack of success in the classroom by learners from low-income families and then ultimately come up with an intervention. This is precisely what Grothaus and Cole (2010) encourage by stating that identifying the real solutions to a problem means that the researcher is first aware of the actual causes of the issue in question. From this comment, it was evident that a researcher must begin by finding the root cause of the lack of success in the classroom for learners from less privileged families before finding the strategies that are the possible solutions. This is because one can only realize the root cause of a problem by first identifying the aspects that affect the learning of students from less fortunate families using the identified issue. As a result, it would be simpler to provide the correct plans that parents and instructors can implement to support students from low-income families to be much more successful in classrooms. Mills (2013-2014) also affirms that a researcher first taking action without finding the root cause of essential factors that contribute to the challenge can result in misdirected efforts and ultimately waste time and resources while researching.

A Personal Understanding of Action Research

Analyzing my thoughts about action research can look ironic to confirm that I was unaware of the meaning or what entails action research before this course. I purposely learned and became aware of action research through the ECE660 unit. When the study commenced, I still saw action research as the typical research I have often engaged in, which often looked too complex. As a result, I remember perceiving action research as an unessential part of this course until I started weekly assignments on action research, where I was introduced to a step-by-step process of action research. Even if I was initially naive and green about action research after starting the course until the sixth week, I could fully attest that my perception and assumption of action research transformed. Previously, I thought action research was defined as normal research processes; this changed after starting the course. Action research assignments, reading, and teachings become much more enjoyable.

Changes in My Understanding of Action Research

My understanding of action research has changed; first, the simple definition I previously had changed to a more detailed definition as an approach to educational research commonly utilized by academic experts and professionals to scrutinize and improve teaching and practice. It was then evident that action research is more of reflection and critical self-reflection that a teacher implements daily in the classroom. Excitingly, I feel encouraged that my ordinary view of action research completely changed because I learned the importance of action research to a teacher. Action research helps one acquire new knowledge, improve educational practices, and solve crucial problems in classrooms and schools. Mills (2013-2014) also states that action research positions the student and the teacher in an investigative environment to help them study the crucial stages of doing research and finally manage to practice action research approaches to help find solutions to classroom problems while teaching. Finally, the course ensured that I acknowledge that action research uses successive cycles of observation, reflection, and actions to reveal workable solutions to issues.

Application of Action Research to an Early Childhood Professional

In my future role as a teacher, action research will help me reflect on the necessary changes by exploring what other people are doing in the teaching discipline. The reflective ideas I learned from researching will significantly strengthen my future career. It will expose me to practical training, which will assist me as a teacher in improving teaching and learning using classroom-based research. Research action will also be necessary because it motivates and invites one to continue learning by learning more about classroom practice, which will enrich my teaching repertoire and reflect on teaching. In addition, action research will help change my attitude, identity, and professional competencies, as I will aim to consider learners’ needs and my needs in the teaching field. Finally, action research will be vital in my future role as a tutor as it will guide me in finding real-time solutions for real issues in a classroom (Sagor, 2000). For instance, the research that I am currently working on the matter I chose was how learners from less fortunate families could get the necessary aid and become more successful in classrooms. I devised real-time strategies and resolutions to the research problem using action research. Finally, I answered the research question on how to support students from low-income families to improve in class. This demonstrates that action research is a vital tool for most teachers. It encourages tutors to involve students in the national curriculum process by using the appropriate strategies that promote active involvement of students in class undertakings and make them feel in possession of their learning.

Significance of Action Research To A Change Agent And Leader In Early Childhood Education

Finally, action research can also be a vital tool that a change agent and leader can use in early childhood education. Such is achievable because action research positions tutor as learners by providing intentional and systemized approaches to transforming the teaching discipline. Thus, in the future, I plan to further my education and be a trained early childhood scholar, then work as part of community practice as an action researcher. The leadership skills that the action research course has taught me, like problem-solving, collaboration, and facilitation skills, will be used to engage in sustained professional learning activities to explore tutors’ day-to-day practices and roles to bring about educational transformations. With the right skills, qualifications, and knowledge gained from action research, I would become a future agent and leader in early childhood education. The role of action research will enable me to be a more decisive leader in my society, as it will help me gain vital skills of being a reflective professional in class and become a role model to other educators. Consequently, it will assist me in sharing my novel ideas and knowledge about teaching with other tutors within the region or state and then asking them to experiment with the different study approaches in class. With the knowledge gained from action research, I would become a perfect change agent by helping tutors shift their attention from one of the agreements to innovation and inquiry, forming a more involving and comfortable learning environment that motivates students.

Conclusion

Generally, the unit action research remains a fundamental unit that ensures that I become a competent solution-finder in my future role as a teacher. The unit confirmed that I acquired action research writing and leadership skills, which will be helpful for my future career. The research has primarily focused on the strategies that can be used to support students from low-income families to succeed in class. While researching this, the research used Vygotsky’s theory and qualitative data collection method, especially interview and survey questions, to support the findings. Finally, the research outcome is that learners from low-income families experience several challenges that affect their learning and success in the classroom. Such a challenge is poverty. The intervention for the research question was that teachers and parents should work closely to give learners the needed support to be successful in class. Other parts of the research discussed are the author’s reflection, the study’s trustworthiness, research procedures, and the timeline for completing the research.

References

Arifin, S. R. M. (2018). Ethical considerations in a qualitative study. International Journal of Care Scholars, 1(2), 30-33.

Compton‐Lilly, C., & Delbridge, A. (2019). What can parents tell us about poverty and literacy learning? Listening to parents over time. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 62(5), 531-539.

Forero, R., Nahidi, S., De Costa, J., Mohsin, M., Fitzgerald, G., Gibson, N., & Aboagye-Sarfo, P. (2018). Application of four-dimension criteria to assess the rigour of qualitative research in emergency medicine. BMC Health Services Research, 18(1), 1–11. Doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-2915-2.

Grothaus, T., & Cole, R. (2010). Meeting the challenges together: School counsellors collaborate with low-income students and families—Journal of School Counseling, 8(27), n27.

Jacob, B & Ludwig, J. (2008). It is improving educational outcomes for poor children.

McGee, G. W. (2021). Closing the achievement gap: Lessons from Illinois’ Golden Spike high-poverty high-performing schools. In Closing the Achievement Gap (pp. 97-125). Routledge. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED478485.pdf.

Mills, G. E. (2013-2014). Action research: A guide for the teacher researcher. Prentice-Hall, Inc., One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458.

Sagor, R. (2000). Guiding school improvement with action research. Acid.

Surmiak, A. (2018). Confidentiality in qualitative research involving vulnerable participants: Researchers’ perspectives. In Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 393-418). Freie Universität Berlin.

Tavory, I. (2020). Interviews and inference: Making sense of interview data in qualitative research. Qualitative Sociology, 43(4), 449–465.

Wehby, G. L. (2022). Oral Health and Academic Achievement of Children in Low-Income Families. Journal of dental research, 00220345221089602.

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Write: Content Expectations
Heading 1: Introduction (review and revise from Week 1 assignment)
Purpose and Significance of the Proposed Study: In one to two paragraphs,
Describe your current professional role and setting.
Explain the purpose of your study and the student outcomes you want to influence.
Discuss the literature or research that indicates why this is an important area to address in education.
Note: If you are not working in early childhood education, you can use a previous or future role that aligns with your career goals and interests.
Explanation of Problem: In two paragraphs,
Explain the statement of the problem or situation that led to this interest or why you want to pursue this topic.
Use scholarly research to support your choice of problem or situation.
Population: In one paragraph,
Describe the target population (gender, race, age or grade, quantity of participants, students or adults).
Explain why you have chosen this target population for the study, including details about why this population is appropriate for the study.
One Research Question:
Develop one research question that aligns with your statement of problem or situation and addresses what you hope to answer and influence in this proposed study.
The question must be answerable and appropriately represent your identified population or participants.
This heading should be two to three pages.
Heading 2: Literature Review (review and revise from Week 2 assignment in paragraph form; do not use the tables.)
Relevant early childhood education theories for your discipline-specific action research proposal: In one paragraph,
Describe one to two early childhood education theories that could be used to support your proposal.
Basic terminology and concepts related to the issues you will discuss:
Provide an alphabetized list of research-related terms and definitions from scholarly or credible resources. This list is used to help the reader, who may be unfamiliar with your topic, understand your proposal.
Two research summaries:
Select two scholarly or credible research articles.
Summarize the intervention, strategies, procedures, and instruments used in the chosen study that are productive in investigating your topic and area of focus.
Application of findings and author’s position:
Determine the intervention you will use to address your area of focus based on your literature review
Discuss why you feel this intervention is the best approach for your action research study and why you believe it meets the needs you have outlined in the statement of the problem.
Explain any changes you will make to the intervention based on the study you have outlined. For example, do your classroom, school, centre, or organizational needs differ from those in the stud?
This heading should be five to six pages.
Heading 3: The Proposed Study/Research (review and revise from Week 3 assignment)
Intervention Plan: In one to two pages,
Describe how you will implement your intervention chronologically and provide a hypothetical yet practical timeframe for these steps.
You may include a chart that organizes how you would implement your intervention weekly.
This will be a timeline including dates and tasks.
Your chart could include dates, tasks, people, locations, etc.
Ethical Considerations: Informed Consent and Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval: In one to two paragraphs,
Discuss how you would approach informed consent and IRB Approval if you were to implement your action research study.
Please explain how you would ensure that participants enter the research of their free will and with an understanding of the study and any potential dangers.
Review the UAGC Institutional Review Board (Links to an external site.) page for information as needed.
Ethical Considerations: Freedom from Harm: In one to two paragraphs,
Explain how the literature you reviewed and your implementation plan lead you to believe you are doing an appropriate intervention and not exposing your participants to risk.
Ethical Considerations: Anonymity and Confidentiality: In one paragraph,
Explain your planned measures to use anonymity and confidentiality to avoid privacy invasion and potential harm.
This heading should be four to five pages.
Heading 4: Data Collection and Intervention Plan (review and revise from Week 4 assignment)
Data Collected: In one to two paragraphs,
Justify one qualitative (experience-based) or quantitative (number-based) instrument that would be used in your proposed study to collect data on the effectiveness of your intervention in answering your research question.
Provide support from the research, literature, and textbook to explain why this would be an effective method for data collection.
Data Collection Procedures: In one to three paragraphs
Describe your procedures for collecting data in your proposed action research study. This is where you explain how you use your intervention to collect data.
Data Collection Considerations: In one to two pages, discuss credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability:
Discuss how you will establish the trustworthiness of your action research study using Lincoln and Guba’s Quality Criteria for Trustworthiness (Links to an external site.).
Intervention Plan: In one to two pages, provide your proposed timeline,
Describe your data collection procedures and provide a narrative description of your proposal (elevator speech). Be sure also to address how your data collection will reflect trustworthiness and the ethical considerations of anonymity and confidentiality.
This heading should be four to five pages.
Heading 5: Author’s Reflection (review Week 1 Discussion and Week 5 Assignment)
Author’s Reflection: In this section,
Hypothesize what you think will be the outcome of the proposed research study.
Share your thoughts on what your research question will change or improve as a result of your study so you can connect your deep understanding of the issue (literature review) to your research question.
Critique your understanding of action research as a result of constructing your action research proposal.
How has your understanding of action research changed since the discussion in week 1?
Discuss how action research can strengthen your practices in your current or future role as an early childhood professional.
Forecast how you could use action research in being a change agent and leader in early childhood education.
This heading should be four to five pages.
References: (Include in Week 6 Summative/Final Paper)