Running Head: ACTION RESEARCH

Action Research: Respect in Schools

Jill Vanderbur
The American College of Education

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Action Research
Introduction

It was 2:30 in the afternoon and recess is over, Kyle and Zach come in to the classroom,
Zach is crying and Kyle looks angry. I call both boys out into the hallway to find out what
happened during recess. During a soccer game at recess, Zach had the ball and was just about to
score a goal when Kyle ran up to him and slide tackled him to the ground. Zach is hurt and
upset that Kyle isnt playing by the recess soccer rules. Kyle doesnt have much to say, just that
it was an accident. Without being able to take too much time and teach a long lesson to both
boys, I quickly talk to them about being respectful to one another at all times. If something is an
accident, the other person must know its an accident and students have to say that they are sorry.
After the 10 minutes discussion with the boys, we head into the classroom to begin working with
the rest of the class.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T. A word that you hear frequently in classrooms and schools, but are we
really seeing it? In the past, teaching of values and morals came first. Students respected each
other and every adult they encountered.
Part 1: Purpose, Problem Statement and Research Questions
Problem Statement: The amount of state mandated curriculum in schools today takes
precedence over, and leave little time for, teaching students moral-based and character-based
lessons.
Are students really showing less respect for each other, their teachers, other adults, and their
own parents?

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Have schools really decreased the amount of moral-based and character-based lessons in the
classroom, compared to the past?
The purpose of this research is to compare and contrast todays curriculums with curriculums of
the past to better understand differences in moral-based and character-based teaching.
When public schools were established in the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries,
one of their missions was to teach moral virtues (Mondale & Patton, 2001; Mulkey, 1997).
Nowadays, teachers and schools are feeling pressure from administration and state leaders to
push their children to the max with reading, math, and writing curriculums. Children are
expected to learn more now than they ever were before. Schools are feeling pressure from state
standardized tests and being sure their students are all academically achieving to the highest
standards. Government officials are controlling what needs to be taught in schools and how we
can make all students successful. However, the problem now lies with childrens behavior in
schools. Teachers are dealing more with bullying, respect issues, and management in classrooms
than ever before. Students have less respect for teachers, themselves, and their peers. Why is
this? Shouldnt we be teaching students these life lessons in the classroom on a daily basis.
According to Lickona (1991), schools and teachers should educate for character, especially
through teaching respect and responsibility. It needs to be an expectation just as it is for a student
to pass a math test or read at grade level. Students need to know what good character is and looks
like and start being held accountable for their actions. According to Gough (1998), the ultimate
goal of character development occurs when each person reaches the point where doing good
becomes automatic or habitual. Like learning a sports skill through sustained practice, morally
appropriate actions become natural and consistent. Students need to imitate teachers who are

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effortlessly honest, trusting, fair, respectful in their actions. If children arent being held
accountable for these skills in school, are they ever going to learn what good character looks like.
Are childrens home lives effecting their behaviors in and out of school? Teachers can help
students learn the importance of knowing right from wrong, personally valuing what is right and
acting based on knowing and valuing. Still and Beller (1998) emphasized, Moral reasoning does
not promise behavioral change, but it does promise individual soul searching and reflection on
personal beliefs, values, and principles. Without this process, cognitive moral growth will not
increase, behavior change will never occur, and the potential for consistent moral action becomes
little more than a hit or miss proposition. (p.24).
Literature Review
Nickell, P. & Field, S.L. Character Education: A Historical Perspective. The Education Forum.
60(2).
In this article there is research supporting character education in schools from the past to now.
They give different perspectives from teachers, parents and students of what it is to have
character.
Lickona, T. (1991). Educating for character: How our schools can teach respect and
responsibility. New York, N.Y: Bantam.
This is a book about the importance of teaching respect in classrooms and the effects that it has
on children and their future. This also talks about how to incorporate more lessons into daily
curriculum and its importance.
Mulkey, Y. J. (1997). The history of character education. Journal of Physical Education,
Recreation & Dance, 68(9), 35-37.

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This article will be useful in helping determine the history of character education and the effects
that it has on children. It will also tell about the importance put on character education in the past
versus the effects that teachers today put on it.
Methodology
I have collected background data from literature and have mapped out a data collection
plan in order to answer the two research questions about respect in schools today. I will be
collecting qualitative data from three sources. First, I will be conducting a survey from classroom
teachers in my school, then I will conduct an interview with a teacher who has been teaching for
over 25 years, lastly I will meet with a focus group of teachers who integrate character-based
lessons into their day.
By conducting a survey from broad range of classroom teachers in my school varying in
years of experience, I plan to collect qualitative data to determine if respect in schools is a
problem in their eyes, too. After I collect the data and analyze what other teachers are feeling,
Im hoping to see a trend that all teachers are experiencing a respect issue in their classroom.
This will help me determine if students are really showing less respect for teachers, adults, and
peers.
An interview with a teacher that has been in the classroom for over 25 years will provide
me with a lot of insight of what the classroom and schools looked like in the past. I plan to
collect a lot of data from her about ways that curriculum has changed and how she feels that
those changes have affected students of today. The data will also help me to understand how
much education has evolved in a positive or negative way.

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Lastly, I will be conducting a focus group study of teachers who have decided that they
need to implement character-based lessons into their curriculum and day. This data will provide
me with information on the impact of teaching those skills in the classroom and how theyre
seeing changes in their classroom regarding respect of one another and adults.
Data Collection
The data collected in the interview was qualitative data. I had an informal interview via
email with the teacher asking some questions that would help me better determine if characterbased lessons used to be taught in the past and if shes seen a difference in the students
throughout her teaching experience. The data helped me understand what it used to be like in
schools. The data also helped me understand some reasons why schools may be seeing respect
issues between students and adults. Lastly, the data collected gave insight about character-based
lessons and the feelings that she has toward them and the impact that they have on the classroom
climate as a whole.
The data which I collected in the survey is both qualitative and quantitative data. I sent
out a survey to all staff members at my school asking them to answer ten questions on respect.
The data which is received back in the survey was very informative and helpful in answering my
research questions. I had questions based on respect in school, any changes that theyve seen
over the past years of teaching, and questions regarding character-based lessons. Once I received
the survey was completed I received a graph showing me results of the survey that I could easily
analyze and draw conclusions from.
The last form of qualitative data which I collected was a focus group study. I did a small
study with 6 teachers who teach character based lessons in their classrooms. During the study I
asked what kind of lessons they incorporate into their day, some activities that they do with their

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class to build a classroom community and the effect which they feel that its had on the respect in
their classroom. This data really helped me gain understanding on the importance of characterbased lessons and how to integrate them into daily practices without having to set too much time
aside. It was a great way for teachers to bounce ideas off of each other and to see what has
worked well and what can still be done to improve the lessons.
Data Analysis
The interview which I conducted with a teacher whos been teaching for 28 years in the
public schools and two years in a private school gave me some good insight of what education
looked like in the past. She feels that there is a change in respect in schools, but not as drastic as
one may suspect. Overall, she said that students have a different attitude toward adults. When
asked why she feels students are not respecting adults as much her response was: I feel that
parents have a different relationship with their children than in the past. With so many parents
working, they seem to feel that the time they have with their kids is more of a friend time than a
parent time. I also think that the split families breeds that kind of an attitude as well as each
parent wants to be liked and attempts to be a friend rather than a disciplinarian. Lastly, I asked
her about character-based lessons. She said she has taught them in the past in the classroom,
however, establishing good classroom management and classroom culture from the very
beginning is so important. To continuously foster respect in the classroom is the main
importance. Students need to feel how good it feels to be respected in order to want to respect
others. This helped me answer my question of are we really seeing less respect than before. It
seems like there are some changes in respect, but a lot of what my interview showed was that she
believes its stemming more from the home and not necessarily due to lack of teaching character
based lessons.

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My second form of data which I collected was a survey taken by 24 staff members at my
school. This ranged from full time to part time staff members. Below is the quantitative data
which I felt helped me answer my research questions the best.

This data shows that overall, teachers

feel that students arent too
disrespectful to their peers. This gave
me a good overall idea of how
teachers view their students.

This was an interesting question, it

aligned a lot with my results from
my interview. Teachers feel that
students are less respectful because
there is less emphasis from parents.
This helps me understand why
there is less respect in school.

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This data also shows me how teachers feel about

students respecting them. Most teachers feel that
overall students are showing less respect to
them as well.

This was interesting data for me as well

help me understand some changes which

Lastly, I conducted a small focus group study with teachers who are teaching characterbased lessons in their classroom. I was hoping to find more about the changes that theyve seen,
however, a lot of teachers just began last year and this year, so they are still figuring out the best
way to integrate this into the classroom. One teacher in the study did say that she felt that the
lessons have built more respect in her classroom, but she is still seeing problems outside of the
classroom with her students. The teachers who have been teaching the lessons feel that when
they are teaching kindness in their classrooms constantly, students are feeling respected by each
other and others. They also get an opportunity to show random acts of kindness to adults in the
schools. They feel really proud and excited to be able to do this. The teachers are going continue
to try to integrate lessons throughout the day for about 5-10 minutes.
Part 2: Communicating Your Findings
The teachers at my school were very interested in the survey and anxious to hear the
results and findings of the problem statement and research questions. Since it was the end of the
school year and many people were busy with wrapping up the year, I ending up sending out the

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results and findings via email to all staff members. I also included some of my own analyzations
and findings from this research. According to A. Oldebekking (personal communication, June 13,
2016), these statistics and results seem to align very much with her beliefs and feelings on
respect. She is concerned with the decline in respect of all students in the school and feels that
we as teachers should set high expectations of respect and hold all students accountable for them.
If only a few teachers in the school buy-in, the students will not feel that they need to be
respectful at all times or around all teachers. It needs to be a collaborative effort to change the
respect of students. I also had a conversation with another teacher (J. Vandendend, personal
communication, June 13, 2016) who feels that if all teachers were teaching character based
lessons, we would see an overall change. She has attended many conferences on character based
lessons and is hoping to inspire the teachers next year to begin using them more and more into
their daily routines so that students are all hearing and seeing the same expectations.
Part 3: Future Actions
The next steps in helping me come to conclusions for my two research questions is to continue to
teach respect in my classroom and hold students accountable for their actions. I think that if I
were to continue this research further, I would like to send the same survey out to multiple
schools and get other teachers opinions and thoughts. When gathering data, I think it would be
helpful to see gather more data and what others have seen in the past or are currently seeing. I
also would love to have more interviews and focus groups with teachers from all over to hear
their suggestions and some of the strategies that they feel have worked and havent worked to
assure respect in their schools. I would expect to see a rise in achievement in schools which
students are showing respect to others. I think that overall it makes for a better learning

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environment and a better classroom culture feel. When students feel that they are cared about and
see the importance of respect, they will do better in school. I think one idea that I could research
would be to see if students scores really do increase based on character-based lessons and
respectful behavior in schools.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the problem lies with the amount of intensive curriculum put on students
to succeed in math, reading, and writing and not on the importance of character education and
moral values. In my research, I found that most teachers feel that they are being less respected by
students in the classroom and feel that there is less emphasis from parents and families at home.
Teachers still feel that peers are overall pretty respectful to each other, but this would vary from
school to school depending on students. I also found that overall teachers believe that teaching
character-based lessons does promote more respect in the classroom, but the data doesnt show
exactly how much it has changed from the past.

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References

Gough, R.W. (1998). A practical strategy for emphasizing character development in sport
and physical education. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation & Dance, 69(2), 18-20, 23.
Lickona, T. (1991). Educating for character: How our schools can teacher respect and
responsibility. New York: Bantum.
Mondale, S., & Patton, S.B. (Eds.) (2001). School- The story of American public
education. Boston: Beacon.
Mulkey, Y. J. (1997). The history of character education. Journal of Physical Education,
Recreation & Dance, 68(9), 35-37.
Nickell, P. & Field, S.L. Character Education: A Historical Perspective. The Education
Forum. 60(2).
Stoll, S.K., & Beller, J.M. (1998). Can character be measured? Journal of Physical
Education, Recreation, & Dance, 69(1), 19-24.

ACTION RESEARCH
Appendices:
Interview with teacher:
1. How many years have you been a teacher?
2. Have you seen a change in students and respect throughout your years as a teacher?
3. If so, why do you feel that students are not respecting adults, peers, and teachers?
4. In the past did you teach character-based lessons in the classroom?
4. Do you feel that if schools had more time to teach character based lessons, we would see an
improvement in student respect?
Survey used for quantitative data:
1. How respectful are students to teachers and other staff members at this school?
Extremely respectful
Very respectful
Moderately respectful
Slightly respectful
Not at all respectful
2. How respectful are teachers to students at this school?
Extremely respectful
Very respectful
Moderately respectful
Slightly respectful
Not at all respectful

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3. How respectful are students to their peers at this school?
Extremely respectful
Moderately respectful
Slightly respectful
Not at all respectful
4. Have you seen a change in respect from students to teachers throughout your teaching?
More respectful to teachers
Unchanged
Less respectful to teachers
5. Have you seen a change in respect from teachers to students throughout your teaching?
More respectful to students
Unchanged
Less respectful to students
6. Do you currently teach character-based lessons in your classroom?
Yes
No
7. If so, what effect have your character-based lessons had on students?
Improved in student respect
Unchanged
Decline in student respect
N/A

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8. Do you feel that you have time in the day to teach character-based lesson?
Yes
No
9. Why do you feel there is less respect in school?
Less emphasis from parents on respect
Technology
Less emphasis from schools
N/A
Other (please specify)
10. Do you feel that there needs to be more severe consequences when students are not showing
respect?
Yes
No