Ethics and Educational Research: The Effects of Classroom Management on Student’s Academic Performance
Background to the problem
The basis for my research is my experience from my life in high school in 1995, and during my period as a teacher and head teacher both in elementary and intermediate school. In high school my favorite and mathematics teacher and my chemistry teacher displayed the extremes of classroom management; the mathematics teacher practicing proper classroom management and the high school teacher poor classroom management.
The former made his classes engaging and despising, shouted or scolded no student for lack to write or present class assignments while the latter issued random handouts and mocked students contributing to the poor performance of his students. In addition, while working as a headmaster is discovered that classroom management, deliverance of instructions, teachers’ locale, fellow students and learning environment determined the student’s performance contrary to the exact situation in education. In addition, some subjects were hard to deliver, and the commitment of the teacher and student involvement was called for. With this knowledge, I resolved to approach teaching to acquire students’ inclinations and the purpose of the educational procedure.
Statement of the problem
The management of the classroom, by the teacher concerned, has numerous effects on the student performance in any given subject. Various researches conducted on the effects of classroom management on the performance of students have converged to show that the level of classroom management affects the learning conditions or environment and, depending on whether effective or poor, the students’ performance will either be high or low respectively and so will the perception and commitment of the teacher; effective or poor (LiWai-Shing, 2008).
Other researches show that, the deliverance of content and instructions to students affect their conduct like, laziness and lack the determination for guided students. Despite the many benefits associated with effective management of classrooms, poor performance is still dominant in most schools which for the last few years have experienced declined performance.
Research Question
Founded on the problem statement, one of the research questions to be used by the researcher is:
1. How can management of a classroom assist in organizing and enhancing decision making? and,
2. How does the management of a classroom assist in establishing a successful learning ambiance? (Stone, 2005).
Statement of the Research Methods
This research will make use of constructive-interpretive design of research since this design permits the researcher to observe the participants and respond to the research questions mentioned above. The researcher also has room to respond to the research questions using the information and knowledge as well as know-how of the respondents obtained from data collected from interviews and questionnaires and later coded and analyzed by means of SPSS (Cryer, 2006).
The research methods to be used in the in this research are mainly directed towards answering the two research questions mentioned above. For the first question of how management of classrooms assist in the organization of classrooms and enhancing the process of making decisions, both open-ended questionnaires and closed-ended questionnaires. The use of open-ended questionnaires will guarantee that participants are in a position to provide answers voluntarily while eliminating biasness and subjectivity. This will also enable the researcher obtain first-hand information on the sentiments, attitude and opinion of the participants hence understanding them by identifying their misconceptions and develop approaches to counter the same in future lessons (Brahier 2001).
In addition, the open ended questions will convey a message to the students on the nature of a subject and help them realize that it is not only the right answers that count but also a subject go beyond the approach or the nature of the answer (Brahier 2001). The information from the open-ended questions can also be used to supplement the information from the closed ended questions. Some disadvantages of open-ended questionnaires are the large amount of data associated with delay in the process of analysis. Again, there is a variation in the manner in which participants write the narratives (Edwards 1997). The question will also be answered using closed ended questions to guarantee that data produced is not too large and hence ensure fast analysis of the collected data. The closed ended questionnaires will facilitate the consistency of the responses given by the participants (Cryer, 2006).
To answer the second question on the assistance obtained to create effective classroom setting using proper classroom management, interviews with the participants will be used to gather information on how a good classroom management will ensure the creation of a favorable learning environment. Interviews will also be used by researcher to collect data numerous participants especially those who can’t read and/or write (Cryer 2006). The interview will also assist the researcher to clarify information from the participants. Nonetheless, the use of interviews creates subjectivity of results as the researcher has some probability of influencing the responses (Cryer 2006).
Introduction to Ethics in Educational Research
Ethics is moral convention of conduct governing the actions people do and the manner in which people perform those actions (Hobson $ Townsend 2010). The need for ethics in the research in education and social disciplines have for the last decade remained complex due to the turn taken to interpret them and the elevation of the qualitative form of research. Before, during and after the research, it is common for the question ethics to arise and similar questions may be prompted in the event of reading the accounts of other researchers. The main contributions to such question are the association of the educational research to the principles of ethics and the importance of such to the researcher and the participants (Hammersly and Traianou 2007).
Before distributing the questionnaires to the students, some of the ethical issues include independence, reciprocity, and trust, as well as privacy. In the case of autonomy, one must ensure that the language used in questionnaires is plain enough to allow the participating student to grasp the intended its objective without consultation from fellow students as this will create subjectivity. Before commencing the fieldwork, one must also ensure that their approach to the participants and the quality of the questionnaires raises no suspicions as this will lower the confidence of the participants resulting to mistrust (Hammersly and Traianou 2007).
The language used in it must therefore be formal and plain and endeavor to promote the wellbeing of the students’ performance while justifying the negatives associated with lack or poor classroom management. One can also carry out a reconnaissance survey to familiarize themselves with the setting of the participants. As of reciprocity, the researcher is faced with the issue of accessing the participants’ through the cooperation of the school managements for fear of disclosure of information that is private to the school (Hammersly and Traianou 2007). Before conducting the research, the researcher may be faced with situations of students feeling left out from participating in the research. On the other hand, some parents may refuse their children from participating in the research for fear of their privacy in after the participation.
In the course of carrying out the research, the researcher is likely to face some ethical issues like equity, trust, reciprocity. For reciprocity, the researcher is likely to face the issue of students’ reluctance to sacrifice their time for studies to fill in the questionnaires (Hamersley and Traianou 2007). Some of the participating students may expect incentives before they answer any question and this is an ethical issue to the researcher as this may bias the result or answers provided. Since the students will be participating from their classes, the issue of privacy arises as to how a fair environment will be achieved such that the answer is only known by the participant and the researcher.
This will avoid issues of mockery or scolding from the teachers for the form of answer given. During the research, all the participants must be treated with equity such that no student, despite age, gender or level of education, should be provided with assistance in answering the questions as this can also bias the answers and the research in general (Smeyers and Depaepe, 2010). As of trust, the researcher must also present himself or herself as with honesty in all communications to the students’ the management and to oneself.
For the ethical issues following the research, one should strive to protect the participants, and practicing honesty. The researcher must provide honest data results, methods and procedures as well as the documentation of data (Smeyers and Depaepe, 2010). Not data or information should be fabricated, misrepresented or falsely included in the research findings or results. During publication, the agency should not be provided with incentives; neither should the fellow colleagues or the society in general. During data compilation, thorough care should be exercised to avoid errors or the negligence of some results which the researcher feels are not important or inline with the objective of study.
Again, the researcher must ensure that the research activities are well accounted for in clear and well organized records. Such contents include the research design, the data collection techniques, and the findings (Smeyers and Depaepe, 2010). Reciprocity after the research or the interview is dependent on whether the participants expect some incentives or payments. During publication, one should respect intellectual property by honoring patents, and copyrights. No unpublished data, methods or findings should be utilized without the permit of the authors and so proper acknowledgement of the works of others must be ensured and the relevant referencing method used for complete references.
Another responsibility of the researcher is to protect the individual participants by ensuring that any the questionnaires has no name written on it to ensure it remains anonymous and that information is differentiated between private and public to avoid instances of participants details going public (Howe and Moses 1999). Lastly, after the compilation and publications of information, the feedback must be provided to the management and the participants.
Information sheet and consent form
Information sheet
Research Title: The Effects of Classroom Management on Student’s academic Performance
Name of researcher:
Introduction: Due to the observed poor performance in most schools for the past few decades the need to teachers to embrace effective classroom management is necessary to promote high performance among the students as observed in my high school and head teacher experience in both elementary and intermediate schools. With the knowledge I got it is my wish to use this knowledge to assist all the teachers who intend to have high performance for students by proving that classroom management assists in teachers in organizing classrooms and enhancing the process of decision making and the effect of classroom management to create an effective learning environment.
Procedures of participating in the project: To participate in the questionnaires and the interview, the random sampling will be used to provide student participants from form I to IV and those in the intermediate school at different ages. The participants will then be assembled in different classrooms where they will participate in answering questions in questionnaires with no. To partake the interviews all interviewees will be interviewed individually and all those who have participated will go back to class and not combine with those yet to participate.
Benefits to the society: The benefit of such to the participants (students) is the provision of information necessary to improve performance in schools by effective classroom management. The students will also put across their problems based on various subjects and this will help in formulating rules to ensure proper performance.
Potential Risks: The potential risk of the research is the scolding of students by teachers for answers provided but the researcher is urged not to provide details of participants or the names of teachers mentioned.
Participation is voluntary: No student will be forced or provided with incentives to participate since the information from the research is for the benefit of the students and the schools in general.
Results: The final results will be provided to students through publications supplied to the management.
Privacy: No participant should be afraid of participating since all collected data will be stored electronically by researcher and the hardcopies burnt to conceal identifiable handwritings. Any future use of data will only be available from publicized research not the collected data. The electronic data will be stored in a databank with a password and limited access.
Ethical guidelines:
Contacts:
Consent form
Project Title: Effects of Classroom Management on Student’s academic Performance
Principle investigator:
Research Coordinator:
Confirmation statements:
Name of participant:
References
Brahier, D., (2001).Assessment in Middle and High School mathematics. Eye on Education, Inc. Larchmont: NY.
Cryer, P., (2006). The research student guide. McGraw-Hill international. London: UK
Edwards, J., (1997). How to conduct organizational surveys. Sage Publications. London: UK.
Hammersly, M., and Traianou, A., (2007). Ethics and Educational research. Teaching and learning program. Retrieved on 19-05-2011 from http://www.tlrp.org/capacity/rm/wt/traianou/ last updated 2007.
Hobson, A., $ Townsend, A., (2010). Research Ethics. University of Nottingham. Retrieved on 19-05-2011 http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:c8k4ksf6XycJ:www.edu.plymouth.ac.uk/resined/beginning/rethics.ppt+ethics+within+educational+research&hl=en&gl=ke&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShMHSKRUe41Fq4XglCSSvn4847azAKhajJL3VbMEDbkXv0cEvbMD0cej2vof0tJRxXhXcM-sE2-FqDFP4R149PlH3E_A8vouQQq2CA_dM7pTQyTiFwFriN-uoh4rAGOemqoK8WM&sig=AHIEtbSRaSar0kSokzl3Mdg8qFF8eDbYGg last updated on 2010.
Howe, K., and Moses, M., (1999). Ethic in Education Research.University of Colorado. United States of America: USA.
LiWai-Shing, H., (2008). Classroom Management.Hong KongUniversity Press. China.
Smeyers, P., and Deapepe, M., (2010). Educational research. Springer. London: UK.
Stone, B., (2005).Best Classroom Management. Corwin Press.
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