It's Not Just About Ideas

The topic I’m thinking of doing action research on is..

The topic of this action research is based on the current problem of the college admissions world and all the confusion surrounding applications and financial aid. Students more than ever are applying for colleges and universities, but a lot of those students don’t finish their applications nor submit the required things they need to in order to get an admissions decision. The topic of this research will be about what students are most confused about when it comes to college admissions so we can effectively implement the research and ideas into the online platform to further develop
my innovation plan.

The purpose of my study is to..

This study is aimed at gathering all of the information needed to successfully
implement my online platform that will effectively help students to navigate
the college admissions process.

My fundamental research question is..

In what areas of college admissions impact high school senior students the most when it comes to understanding the application process?

The most appropriate type of data for me to collect is… Mixed Methods

I chose Mixed Methods because I believe that when I combine the two research designs, it will provide us with better measurable results. It will help me to gain a better understanding on how students learn and what they want to know for college admissions.

The Qualitative research design will be used to:

• Interview some students on what they believe needs clarifying in the whole college admissions process.
• Get a focus group together of students who are actively searching and applying to colleges or universities to get their feedback on what can be improved when it comes to the whole process.

The Quantitative research design will be used to:

Create a survey online and send it out to counselors so they can send it out to their students who are juniors and seniors so we can get a better understanding of what students want when they are in the college admissions process.

The specific form of data I will collect is..

Interviews (Qualitative)- Students will be asked questions directly on what they learned from the online platform.

Surveys (Quantitative)- Student reflections on how the information for the online platform was presented and how it helped them learn more about the admissions process.

Focus Groups (Qualitative)- Students will be paired up with two-three other students so they will be able to effectively discuss their thoughts and opinions with the online platform.

Based on the preceding responses, my research design can best be described as…

The focus of my literature review is to help teachers and counselors understand where their students are struggling with college admissions and how they can help. This will help us facilitate and implement the online admissions platform successfully so we can help our students when they are applying to colleges and universities.