I can honestly state that before I embarked on pursuing my master’s, I had never
considered, examined or had a thought about action research. I would have been completely lost
two years ago if I was asked to perform an action research as part of my job. Prior to my
enrollment, looking at any action research would have been seen as a second language to me. I
truly feel more confident and better about my approach and comfort level in action research.
I have a strong desire to be an athletic director one day as my time as an educator and
coach has made me a better person and pursuant of helping to make my profession better itself
and beneficial to the students it interacts with every day. I am a strong advocate for students to
pursue participation in extracurricular activities. With that said there are restraints with financial
means, qualified sponsorship and outlook of extracurricular activities. I want to ensure the
students at my school and district are afforded the luxury of having the opportunity to pursue
extracurricular activities. I want to guarantee there will not be restraints based on the school or
district for the students.
Since conducting this plan, I truly want to start to investigate my current school and
district on the effects extracurricular activities have on students. I want to help my current
administrators to recognize my concerns and assist in promoting extracurricular activities. I
want to sit on committees that involve extracurricular activities to make sure that they have a
proponent voice for them. The implementation of the importance and juggling of extracurricular
activities does not start in high school but needs to be practiced and excelled at the younger
grades to help students master their extracurricular skills and academic skills. I would like to
promote the extracurricular activities to the point that there are high numbers of participants and
not a possibility of having to shut down certain activities. Furthermore, I am more conscious of
my actions as a sponsor and other sponsors as they conduct themselves.
Once I am an administrator or athletic director I will want to conduct this research once a
year to ensure that my students are progressing well in class. Additionally, I will incorporate
questionnaires for the sponsors and students to always be aware of any changes that need to be
made.
I truly believe that I am a more capable action researcher than I was before this class. I
have learned how to find the mean, standard deviation as well as consider certain variables when
conducting research. I have enjoyed doing the research as well as practicing on coming up with
figures. With the research it has opened my mind more to the positives that extracurricular
activities bring to the school environment and the need to either fix or find new ways to promote
them.
When I started my research on the effect of extracurricular activities, I was more set on
finding the results of athletics under the extracurricular activities. But as time went on, I realized
I could not think less of the other extracurricular activities and I held them in the same prestige
as athletics.
Furthermore, I would like to take my action research to the next level and research the
effects of extracurricular activities have on college students. I want to see if the patterns
continue as well as what precautions or obstacles will prevent these students from exceeding in
college. By conducting this research, it can help me take that knowledge to my students to
instruct them as well as warn them so they may not follow in the negative footsteps.
In conclusion, I have enjoyed taking part in action research and I do hope I am fortunate
enough to conduct research as my career furthers. Even if the action research is not in my field
of choice, I would like to at least assist my colleagues in finding answers to their questions.