I have learned a lot from my research, but it has brought up a couple new questions. Including:
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I am still in the process of analyzing the data I've collected. From what I can see from compiling it into my spread sheets my students don't eat appropriately and their meals have little to no nutritional value. There seems to be a direct correlations between how "grumpy" they are and that seems to definitely reflect in their referral rates and attitudes in class.
In my opinion this type of research needs to be conducted for a longer period of time. I also wonder if the time of year might produce different results. This is the last trimester at my school and a lot of our student's last opportunity to graduate on time. In other words they can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so a lot of our students on their best behavior compared to the beginning if the year where the they can't see the light. My results will alter my nutrition unit - I need to spend more time on the accessibility and cost friendly healthy foods as well as the importance food is to be successful. Nutrition Pre and Post-TestI will be using a good survey for my pretest and I will use the same test for their post-test to see how much they learned throughout the treatment. Click HERE to access survey. RubricI will be using a rubric to collect data for each of my student's entries. Click HERE to view rubric. Student Referral RatesI will be using data collected by the office of all of my student's referrals. I will then compare them to their score of the rubric to identify if there is a relationship between poor nutrition and behavior. This data is not linked as I have not collected it yet and it violates my student's privacy. Student ReflectionTo collect more qualitative data I will write a reflection at the end of the treatment answering the following questions:
Qualitative vs Quantitative DataI chose to do a mixed-method study throughout my research action study to answer my driving question: "What effect does tracking nutrition digitally have on student behavior and success?"
This means I will be utilizing both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. I will collect my qualitative data by first giving each of my students a pre and post-test: this will give me an understanding their depth knowledge about nutrition, health, and exercise prior to the treatment and will tell me whether students gained additional knowledge about nutrition. Second, throughout the study students will record their every meal, snack and exercise routine with an app on their phone called “MyfitnessPal”. Students will be scored on their nutritional tracking with a rubric. Third I will collect behavior referral information so that I can compare their tracking score. To collect quantitative data I simply plan to give my students an opportunity for reflection of the process. I will utilize descriptive and inferential statistics to analyze the information and to see if there is a correlation between nutrition and referral rates My driving question (ever evolving) is: “What effect does tracking nutrition digitally have on student behavior and success?” For my action research study I will doing a mixed methods study to analyze how nutrition effects our student's behaviors throughout the day. I want to see if there is a correlation between nutrition, or lack of, and referral rates.
I will be utilizing students personal devices (ie. cell phones) and a free app named MyFitnessPal as tools to implement my action research study. Students will use the app to record their diet and within that app it can calculate how many calories from fat, carbohydrates, protein, etc. Students will be able to share this data with me through the app which is one of the many reason why I chose this app. I also love that it gives tips and assists the students in setting goals (actually a fantastic tool for young people and adults). I have chosen to utilize their cell phone because everyone of my students has one and it is always with them, so hopefully they will never forget to record. I am interested to see if digitally tracking their nutrition with this app on their cell phone helps my students with achieving their goals in both improving their behavior and with academic success. It has been extremely difficult to find seminal people for and consistent research for my Driving question (What effect does physical education and knowledge of health science have a students ability to be strong learners and how can we utilize technology to promote healthy living?) especially because it is a broad question. I have found that when it comes to utilizing technology within a physical education classroom it seems to be easier said than done. I have found multiple articles which give ideas and suggestions but conclude that even though PE teachers are open to using technology there is little to know resources to make this happen. A name I did come across a couple of times while researching, in particular, using heart rate monitors in the class was Stewart Trost a professor of Physical Activity and Health, in the School of Exercise and Nutrition Sciences and Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Trost has conducted many studies and produced multiple publications surrounding sports, childhood obesity, physical education and more. In one study also linked below he found that there is a significant decrease in physical activity between childhood and adolecence years. IRB LinkFinal Two Articles
My driving question has boiled down to "Is there a correlation between a student's nutrition and their learning process throughout the day?" My educational context begins internationally - How are high achieving countries feeding their students? I have menu's for school lunches in these countries that look nothing like our's here in America. In most of these countries food is prepared from fresh foods that are cleaned, prepared by a certified chief, and it is a concern of the school whether or not the kids are well fed. Then I move onto what other states are doing comparatively to California. I found that there is an alternative school in Wisconsin which has used nutrition to changed student behavior. After the menu was changed from the typical school lunches to salads, meats, whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables they found that "Grades are up, truancy is no longer a problem, arguments are rare, and teachers are able to spend their time teaching." NVUSD is working toward improving lunches in schools which has bee wonderful, but is it enough? The food looks and tastes better, but is it fresh? Do we have a chief preparing it? If this saves us time in the classroom and if this is a basic, effortless intervention we could do then I cannot understand how it would be considered an "extra cost". IRB Draft |
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AuthorInspire. Teach. Coach. Healthy Body. Healthy Mind. Archives
May 2018
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