Research Proposal
Rhondalyn J. Cornett
Grand Canyon University TCH-587
October 1, 2014

Abstract In this action research project the researcher talked to several teachers discussing the concerns they had in education. Most teachers cited discipline in the schools as the concern they most worry about in their classrooms. I researched several articles where schools have implemented School Wide Positives Behaviors intervention Supports (SPBIS) were put into place schools showed a decrease in discipline and an increase in academic achievement. In this action cycle we implemented the first intervention to see what significant data could be reviewed.
Steps in Action Research Educators use action research just about every day they are working with students. The educator could be teaching a lesson or looking a class discipline you are using action research without realizing it. The steps in action research are: Identification of the problem area, Collection and organization of data, Interpretation of data, the action based on the data, and finally reflection (Ferrance, 2000). The first step in action research is to identify the problem. If there is a discipline problem in the classroom, the first question may be why? What is causing the inappropriate behavior? Is the problem something that the educator can help solve? When choosing where to begin in your research the educator will need to ask himself several questions. The questions should higher-order in nature. The questions should be stated in common language, avoiding education jargon. The questions should be concise and meaningful. Finally, the question should not already have an answer (Ferrance, 2000). The second step in action research is gathering data. This is a very important step in deciding what action needs to be taken. When gathering data the educator needs to use multiple sources to better understand what is happening in class. There are multitudes of ways to gather data. Some ways include surveys, questionnaires, interviews, narratives, and anecdotal records to name few. After you have gathered the information; now is the time to interpret the data. When the teacher is analyzing the data, he is looking for common themes in data. The teacher will then have to decide how to summarize the data. The data may be summarized by using a graphic organizer. Next, after the data has been organized and the educator has reviewed current literature, the educator must design a plan of action. When making the plan of action the educator does not want to change a lot of variables at once. Adding too many changes at once will make it harder for the educator to know what technique worked. Finally, the educator will assess the effects of the intervention. Was there improvement? What does the data show? Is the improvement shown in the data? So, what is next? What questions does the educator have now? If the intervention did not work, what additional revision does the educator need to make?

If educators are given professional developments that help them learn to keep students more engaged and self-motivated it will cut down on disruptions in the classrooms.
What changes do I want to see?
Whom do I want to be helped?
The Issue or Problem

Plan of Action:
What new intervention will you try to see if there will be different results?
Assess
Was there improvement? If not, why?
Interpreting the Data:
Were there common themes in the data?
Data Analysis: How will the data help the participants?
Data Analysis: What can I learn from the data?
Data Collection: What types of data do I want to collect?

Research, Title, Questions and Hypothesis During this quest for a prospective research topic this researcher has talked to five different veteran teachers, asking them what they consider an issue in education today. The first response is discipline. Most say they spend most of their time disciplining a significant number of their students. The next question I asked, “Why you think that discipline or classroom management is such an issue?” Most said students do not seem to care about school, they do not seem to feel that education is important. The follow-up question this researcher had was why do the student not take their education seriously and most feel it comes from the parents. These educators feel that the parents do not stress the importance of education at home, so the students do not come ready to learn. The final question is, if all of this is true, our job as educators is to educate the students; how is this going to be accomplished? Educators are still accountable to several agencies (State and Federal) and it is responsibility to make sure that all students learn to the best of their ability. The first source this researcher looked at was the article, Changing Behaviors by Changing the Classroom Environment, by Caroline A. Guardino and Elizabeth Fullerton. This case study explores the possibility of affecting classroom behaviors by modifying the classroom environment. This article looked at a teacher’s classroom environment as it reflects the disruptive behavior in her classroom. In this article the researchers collected data for overall classroom academic engagement and disruptive behavior. Data was collected, analyzed and determined that overall academic engagement was extremely low before intervention, with students engaged less than 3% of the time (Gaurdino & Fullerton, 2010). After modifications were made to the classroom (grouping of students, individual carrels for independent work, distinctive group areas, and chair bags) classroom engagement increased to 45% from 3%. Disruptive behavior occurred 90% of the time of observations immediately decreased (Gaurdino & Fullerton, 2010). This article was chosen because it addresses some of the questions or concerns that the teachers had concerning disruptive behavior. The second article chosen was 5 Myths about Student Discipline. This article addresses five myths that most teachers face as reasons that their classroom discipline has problems. The five myths discussed are: 1) If your lessons are engaging, you won’t have discipline problems, 2) teachers need to find their own style of discipline, 3) Effective teachers do not have power struggles with students, 4) A school leader’s attention needs to be on instruction, not discipline, and 5) The school code of conduct is an adequate building discipline system (Boyd, 2012). The article was chosen because it lets educators know that it is not just the teachers’ problem if students are not engaged. No matter how engaging a lesson can be there may be 1 or 2 students that are not engaged for reasons that cannot be controlled (thirsty, hungry, angry, depressed, sleepy, worried, afraid, and so on). The third resource chosen was A Qualitative Study on Classroom Management and Classroom Discipline Problems, Reasons, and Solutions: A Case of Information Technologies Class by Mehmet Erdogan, Engin Kursun, Gulcin Tan Sisman, Faith Saltan, Ali Gok, and Ismail Yildiz. This study looks at classroom management and discipline problems in Information Technology classes in High School. This article was chosen because it deals with the same concerns that educators face in the United States. This study takes place in Turkey. The study starts with surveys of the teachers, students, parents, and administrators. After the data was analyzed it was decided that lack of rules and routines in the classes were major reasons for the disruptions. It was also found that students didn’t care for the way material was presented to them by the teachers. This study can be used as a resource to help teachers question if some of issues are about classroom management. The final resource that was chosen is titled, The Effect of a Professional Development Classroom Management Model on At-Risk Elementary Students Misbehaviors by Dr. Gary Reglin, Dr. Joretta Akpo-Sanni, and Dr. Nonofo Losike-Sedimo. This study addresses the problem of at-risk elementary school students in four grade levels that had too many disruptive behaviors which interrupted classroom instruction. The issue that the teachers had was that many of students might be retained if no academic improvements were made (Reglin, Akpo-Sanni and Losike-Sedimo, 2007). The purpose of this study was to see if professional development helped to reduce the disruptive behavior of the at-risk students. The study concluded that after some struggle from teachers that they could not argue with the results that student discipline referrals decreased by a significant percentage. This researcher chose the last article to inform teachers that there is not a patch to reverse disruptive behaviors; it will take some work on behalf of the teacher and the buy-in from students. As the President of a large urban local, this researcher has sat in numerous meeting on concerns of the district. Indianapolis Public Schools are currently dealing with the state and federal citations of over identification of Special Education Students. The question that was asked was what is the reason for over identification? Does the district really have a huge number of special education students being referred to local RTI (Response To Intervention) teams because of discipline problems? The purpose of this study is to see if teachers and Building Based Teams (BBT) are accessing all avenues before throwing labels on students. With the increasing demands of high-stakes testing and all over accountability have teachers and their administrators, over-identifying students to help combat the high-stakes testing. My hypothesis is if teachers are given professional development that help them learn to keep students more engage and self-motivated and cut down on disruption in the classroom, student Special Education identification will drop by a large percentage and student achievement will make gains. This can be accomplished by surveying students about interest and strengths, surveying parents, teachers and administrators. With this information we can analyze the strengths of the teachers and students and develop specific professional development to help close the achievement gap as we look at disaggregated data.
Literature Review The thesis statement this researcher is: If teachers are given professional development that keeps students more engaged and self-motivated then there will be a decrease of disruption in the classroom and student achievement will increase. I plan to use at least 10 studies to develop my research project. The first study being used is 5Myths About Student Discipline by Laurie Boyd. This article is written by a principal of an urban middle school. The myths addressed are: 1. If your lessons are engaging, you won’t have discipline problems. 2. Teachers need to find their own style of discipline. 3. Effective teachers do not have power struggles with students. 4. A school leader’s attention needs to be on instruction, not discipline. 5. The school code of conduct is an adequate building discipline system. I am using this article because it shows in order to have good discipline you need more than good lesson plans. The article also debunks most myths that teachers and administrators use to explain why some educators have better discipline than other teachers. This article suggests without clear cut procedures and routines, common rules and step-based consequences, behavior interventions for chronic misbehavior, and student behavior plans when behavior interventions are not enough. The next case study I plan to use to support this research project is titled, Sifting From Reactive to Proactive Discipline in an Urban School District: A Change of Focus Through PBIS Implementation. The authors of this study look at how implementing Positive Behavioral Intervention Systems (PBIS) to one school resulted in a decrease of out-of-school suspension rate by 20%. This article describes the challenges faced by the pilot school in this urban district, the strategies employed by the PBIS initiative, and the results experienced during two years (Netzel & Eber. 2003). The article takes a school in the Waukegan School District in Illinois. The challenge for this school was there are several layers of interventions needed for different students with the most intense needs. Another challenge the school faced was funding of the new program through a grant. Another challenge this school faced was a high suspension rate (9.8% of 600 students) in this school had out-of-school suspension, a total of 117 documented. There was a backing of special education referrals and no procedures were in place to prevent misbehavior. This article discusses the set-up of a PBIS Leadership Team participated in and how the team provided professional development to the rest of the building staff. Throughout this first year of implementation the office compiled the data of incidents referred to the office. Monthly the Leadership Team would look at the data to see if any trends were developing. An example given was more referrals happen between 2:00pm – 2:59pm; the staff would meet and make suggestions to decrease the amount of discipline referrals during that time. This article illustrates how implementing PBIS in a school district with high minority, high free/reduced lunch can decrease discipline referrals by a significant amount. The third article I would like to review is, Beyond the Discipline handbook, a Conversation with George Sugai interviewed by Mitch Bogen, from Harvard Education Letter. In this article George Sugai explains what Schoolwide Positive Behavioral Supports is; how students move through the tiers: What schools get wrong when it comes to discipline, How is PBIS is implemented in a school and What kind of improvements do schools see once they have implemented this approach? Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports (SPBS) a three-tiered framework for implementing schoolwide practices and systems aimed at preventing behavioral problems. This article helps support my thesis statement that if teachers receive Professional Development in Best Practices in discipline student discipline referrals will decrease. George Sugai is the co-director of the Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. In this article Sugai discusses how improvements happened in three randomized-control trial studies. This study showed a decrease in disciplinary actions inside the school and an increase in the perceived behavioral health of the school and in academic engagement. George Sugai suggests they have trends showing improvement in state achievement scores for elementary students. The fourth article, Classroom Management – a Pathway to student Achievement: A study of Fourteen Inner-City Elementary Schools, by H. Jerome Freiberg, Chris A. Huzinec, and Stacey M. Templeton. This article examines the achievement data of a prosocial classroom and instructional management program – Consistency Management and Cooperative Discipline (CMCD) implemented in 14 elementary schools in a large urban school district. The data shows that when 350 random students whose school had implemented CMCD ranked average in the 67th percentile in Math and 64th percentile in Reading; while 350 students from schools in the same urban area using traditional discipline system scored 50th percentile in both Reading and Math. The article looks intensively at achievement data which showed a significant increase in the schools that had implemented CMCD than schools that did not implement CMCD. I plan on using this article because it supports my thesis that academic achievement will increase when the correct behavioral systems are implemented in the school. The four articles reviewed address my thesis statement and proves when the correct professional development is given to teachers, students’ engagement will increase, academic achievement will increase and discipline referrals will decrease.
Research Types and Tools In order to figure if my theory is correct: Professional Development in Classroom Management or Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports Interventions Systems (SPBIS) will decrease the number of discipline referrals (disruptive classroom behaviors), data will need to be collected from several sources. Data sources that I may include is student surveys, teacher surveys, and discipline referrals. The first stop made will be to the Superintendent to receive permission to use the data and interview teachers and students. Data will also be needed from the Discipline Coordinator from the district. The district will provide the data of the school discipline referrals and suspension rates for the 90-days prior to the implementation of SPBIS. Data will also need to be collected during the 90-day implementation of SPBIS. The research will then be compared to see the change in referrals and suspension. Next data collected will be surveys from the staff and students of the school and see how they feel about the climate/safety and learning environment of the school. If there will be any challenges it will be the time it takes for teachers to give the survey to the Kindergarten through third grade. These surveys will need to be read and time given to help students answer questions. Teachers are often frustrated by other time-consuming data collecting, busy work and other everyday items, for me to ask them to complete surveys from students and themselves may be far reaching for some respondents. Gathering this information will give the district a glance at the feelings of students and educators on the safety and learning environment of schools. Sharing the information from the surveys will help develop buy-in from staff and students. When both have buy-in, we will have a better opportunity of having true results from our interventions.

Data Matrix Template Research Question(s) | Data Source 1 | Data Source 2 | Data Source 3 | What effect will the implementation of Schoolwide Positive Behavior Intervention Supports (SPBIS) have on discipline referrals | Count of discipline referrals during the 90-days period preceding the implementation of SPBIS (Reglin, Akpo-Sami, Losike-Sedimo, | Count of discipline referrals during the 90-days immediately following the implementation of SPBIS | The change of Discipline referrals during the 1st 90-days before implementing the SWPBIS and the day immediately following the second 90-days of implementing the SWPBIS | What effect will the implementation of Schoolwide Positive Behavior Intervention Supports(SPBIS) have on suspension rates? | Count of suspensions during the 90-days period preceding the implementation of SPBIS | Count of suspensions during the 90-days immediately following the implementation of SPBIS | The change of suspensions during the 1st 90-days before implementing the SWPBIS and the day immediately following the second 90-days of implementing the SWPBIS | What effect will the implementation of Schoolwide Positive Behavior Intervention Supports(SPBIS) have on the climate or learning environment of the school? | Teachers, students survey on climate and learning environment before implemention of SPBIS | Teachers, students survey on climate and learning environment immediately following the implemention of SPBIS | The change of positive responses to the implementation of the SWPBIS in the school. |

Creation of Measurable Performance Objectives and Identification of Skewing Factors This researcher’s action plan begins with the problem or concern in quite a number of schools in the district that I have taught in for almost two decades. The main concern this district is facing is the huge number of discipline referrals and out of school suspensions that happened last year. Last year Indianapolis Public Schools had 8,800 suspensions last year which resulted in over 20,000 days of non-instruction according to the district’s Positive Discipline Coordinator. This cannot continue to be the norm in this district or any district in the United States. So we must look at what will be our first intervention to implement in order to see the decrease in this data. The first intervention that will be implemented will be procedures for coming into the building when arriving as walkers, car riders, and bus riders. When we look at times of day students are referred it was identified that in a four-week period one school had 57 discipline referrals that dealt with students running, shoving, pushing, and hitting in the hallway while entering the building. The first intervention will be very simple to implement in all grades Kindergarten through sixth at any school. This first intervention is the acronym H.A.L.L.S., which is Hands behind your back, All eyes forward, Legs walking forward, Lines straight, Silent. When implementing a School wide Positive Behavior Support (SPBS) it starts with the first-tier which will take care of around 70-80% percent of the behavior problem. The second and third tiers are for more extreme behaviors. In the first-tier, all students are exposed to a formal, positive, preventive, social-skills curriculum that supports the academic mission of the school (Bogen, 2009). H.A.L.L.S. was chosen as the first intervention because it is believed by this researcher that if the morning can start off on a more positive note, the rest of the day may be more productive. As students enter their classroom on the first day prior to morning implementation; each classroom teacher will introduce the H.A.L.L.S. procedure. The intervention will be practiced when walking to the restroom, cafeteria, and special area classes. The intervention will be explained how this supports the mission of the school. Part of the mission of the school is every student is entitled to a safe learning environment. H.A.L.L.S posters will be posted in classrooms and hallways as a reminder of what is expected of them at all times. The intervention will mentioned to the students as the exit off their bus, “Show me your H.A.L.L.S.” The intervention will mentioned to the car riders and walkers as they enter the building they need to also, “Show me your H.A.L.L.S.” (Boyd, 2012).
The success of this intervention will be measured by the decrease of discipline referrals in the hallway from 8:45am to 9:05am, as seen by my table below. Who?(Group) | Will Do What? | To What? | On What?(Ensure comparable pre- and post-comparisons) | By How Much?(No hanging percentages) | By When? | The students entering the building in the morning | Will decrease | The number of discipline referrals | Reported during the morning arrival entering the building and going to class or cafeteria for breakfast | From the current total of 57 in a 4-week period to 30 in the next 4-week period. | From 10/20/14 to 11/14/14 |

After participating in the action research intervention the students at this school will decrease the number of discipline referrals reported during morning arrival entering the building and either going to class or the cafeteria for breakfast from the current total of 57 during 9/2/14 – 9/23/14 to 30 referrals from 9/29/2014 – 11/7/2014. One factor that may influence this action research intervention is the time factor. During the next 4-week period, there will a 2-week fall break. Students coming back from that long of a break will need to be reminded of the expectation of morning procedures. The next factor that may influence this action research is the deliberate bias a number of teachers may have towards the new intervention. Historically, teachers have been inundated with the “next new silver bullet!” It is a concern that teachers will either ignore students not following the procedure, which may make the data look like the intervention is succeeding, when in fact it is not; or making the intervention is not successful by being “over cynical”. Teachers may look for any type of in fracture to prove there is still a problem or concern. Either of these factors can skew my data to look better than it is actually or look as if this intervention has made conditions somehow worse. One way to address these factors is by norming what should all adults in the building should be looking for in the hallway. Also, in the beginning before introducing the intervention, refer teachers to data on the number of referrals that written in the morning, show that there is a real problem. Using this intervention it is the belief of the researcher that discipline referral will decrease by a significant number if introduced and monitored with fidelity.
Dissemination Plan Now that the action research went through the first action cycle, and the results are positive. Who and how will I get this information out to the stakeholders who will find these results informative. Choosing your audience will depend on the format for the dissemination. There are three major audiences that may be interested in the information: Academic, Public, and Professional/Organization (Stinger, 2008). With academic dissemination, the information may be reported in journals and books that are stored in universities. The second audience is the public. Usually information that is disseminated to the public comes from government bodies, public interest group, or community groups. Finally is the professional/organizational audience. This dissemination is used for direct professional and organizational purposes to improve or strengthen programs, services, and practices (Stinger, 2008). This researcher has chosen to share her research data with her profession, believing that educators (teachers & administration) will find results of the interventions significant to some of their problems happening in their schools. Next, is deciding how the information will be disseminated. This researcher will prepare a written report in the form of PowerPoint. The PowerPoint information will include the data prior to the intervention. A detailed explanation of how the intervention was implemented. During the introduction it would also be shared of any push back from educators. Next, the results following the intervention would be shared. The hypothesis that I started with was: If educators are given professional development that help them learn to keep students more engage and self-motivated it will cut down on disruptions in the classrooms. Looking at the first intervention and the success of the intervention, will hopefully intrigue the educators to know they can have some success in the classroom.

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