Research Questions

Deciding on My Focus

When first considering action research, I was unsure of what my exact focus would be. Because I support the growth mindset perspective and strive to be a lifelong learner, I decided that I wanted my project to help me refine my teaching skills in order to foster student achievement.

Identifying an Issue

After reflecting on my student teaching, substituting, and tutoring experiences, I identified issues that I wanted to examine more deeply. I realized, through this reflection, that a major issue that I had observed was that teachers' appeared to hold their students to differing expectations. I heard phrases like, "these students are hopeless," "this student won't amount to much," and "this student won't be able to complete this task."

Connecting to Student Learning

It appeared that these expectations impacted student learning. Those who were held to lower expectations appeared to be given less opportunities to succeed. These experiences have stayed with me and helped me to decide to look at teachers' expectations and address any low expectations that I may have already developed. This experience does not appear to be unique. Ormrod (2014) states that teachers' personal biases and expectations impact the ways in which they interact with students and how they design instruction. Additionally, students who are held to low expectations are less likely to achieve academically (Rubie-Davies et al., 2014).

Narrowing My Topic

Teachers' expectations, however, is a broad topic so I decided to narrow my topic by asking myself what subject I found teachers' expectations to be the most important. Because technology is becoming more and more influential, I decided to begin researching how teachers' expectations can impact students' interest in technology. I wondered if teachers' expectations were related to the shortage of students entering into STEM jobs (Vekiri, 2010). After obtaining and reviewing several studies, I developed three research questions (shown above) that guided both my review of current literature and the design of my proposed intervention.

Providing a Rationale

My first question will help me explore the impact that my intervention has on teachers. By analyzing teachers' video reflections, I will code data and generate pertinent themes. This question is important to consider because teachers' expectations of their students' capabilities when using technology appear to impact whether or not students develop an interest in jobs that involve technology (Greenes, Wolfe, Weight, Cavanagh & Zehring, 2011). My second question will help me to explore a current gap in the existing literature. While many studies look at how teachers' expectations impact student achievement, few look at how these expectations specifically impact achievement with technology (Lee, Min, & Mamerow, 2015). By comparing rubric scores before and after teachers engage in the intervention, I will be able to see if raised teachers' expectations specifically promote students' achievement when using technology. My third and final question will help me to understand how altering teachers' expectations impacts students' experiences when using technology. Flip grid student reflections will help me to address this specific question. Students' achievement and experiences are important to study because these factors impact whether or not students choose to enter into career paths that are directly related to technology (Lee et al., 2015). Thus, a holistic understanding of these research questions may help to raise teachers' expectations and increase the number of qualified people interested in working with technology in the United States.