Action Research Reflection Paper

Action Research Reflection Running head: ACTION RESEARCH REFLECTION PAPER

Action Research Reflection Paper C. Barnes Gallagher University of Phoenix Applications of Action Research EDD580 Dr. Y.L. Trahan Nov 17, 2008

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Abstract Transformational grammar refers to the diction of subpopulations that researchers address in conjunction to differential item functioning (DIF) and equitable test items. Psychometrics and linguistics include ongoing analysis of subpopulations and subgroup responses. Noam Chomsky has impressed the literary world with surface and deep grammatical structures that have influenced a universal grammar upon that test devisers address in respect to DIF. Dr. Jim Gator analyzes one side of the drawback that action researchers face in the field to which my action research project refers; the other drawback revolves about greenhouse affects and unpredictable national disaster.

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Action Research Reflection Paper Teachers have a responsibility to implement national and state standards as they implement curriculum and align their instruction with recognized accuracy, thus integrating meaning among subpopulations. Communicative tasks and reasoning skills are essential to each viable community, and as this nation is transcending to a multi-linguistic and pluralistic society, each citizen must strive to follow established policies and regulations. The completing of this action research process compels my concern for latent traits of subpopulations that strive for meaning through definitions, spellings, and usage that they must dissect as linguists nonetheless strive for a universal language. Referring to the probability that members of separate subgroups may respond differently to problems, differential item functioning (DIF) is a concern of educators who analyze magnitudes of test items for internal validity. I did not cover every aspect pertaining to DIF, differential predictions, and ethnicity analysis. Therefore, I have gleaned from the action research process a cause to further investigate ongoing process of DIF in respect to civic justice. Because language acquisition is important to subpopulations of nonnative speakers of the English language who must decipher between British and English idioms midst a hodgepodge of diverse media, some criteria such as high school grade point average continue to be reviewed by college admission officers as over-predictions of minority student achievement. Most Americans prefer to consider the value of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) rather than the Graduate Record Exam (GRE). This is no conjecture. The ratio of graduate university students to members of the nonprofessional job market is substantial. Educational standards vary considerably from country to country although the worldwide ETS is generating a cohesive global economy and academic system. Although I am considering literacy rates in respect to the GRE, most laborers

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focus on literacy rates in respect to high school graduation. These issues are part of the standards-based reform movement and “student-involved” assessment that must be “consistent with instruction,” relationships that are based in the Educational Testing Service (ETS) (Conley, 2005, p. 149). In contrast to the bereft dollars associated with graduate school, SAT scores and grade point averages evoke the support of a society dependent on industrialism, health care, and diplomatic relations—a hologram of civilian need is turning the pendulum. Most students and parents of subpopulations may express grief and alienation over the barriers inherent in the complex British-English diction. Although quality assessments should be regarded as formative organic processes that continue to produce new cells, they nonetheless maintain a link with an explorative psychological reality that linguists review in conjunction to jargon, a language weighed both by deliverer and recipient. Unlike Europe, the United States frontier is yet plentiful; however, its miles affect transportation costs. Economists manage politics and education, and the population is replete in adolescents entering their first year of college; however, a smaller portion of that population will prepare for graduate school. Though I should focus on the SAT, I focus on the GRE as one standardized learning tool that includes problems common of contemporary occupation. The words “professional” and “laborer” evoke numerous controversial connotations that a restless society may ignore. Already I have noted the function of learning theories and cognition. Having approached the subject of transformational learning, I admit that I did not reach the topic of transformational grammar, the psychological reality that is essential to our study of communication. Language is dependent not only on the deliverer but on the recipient--the effect of language reception is obvious: When a child is restricted to environments where grammars are confined, then the

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child’s speech will reflect constraint. Learning from those with whom he or she interacts, not only the child will be affected by obstacles imposed by diverse languages that may encumber anyone, preventing him or her from performing to community standards, standards that may vary by school, church, profession, socioeconomics, and demographics. Inherent communicative capacities are inhibited when the language faculty is immensely restrained. Language fluency and retention rates fluctuate in respect to underlying intuition, abstract techniques serving to overcome communicative barriers. My action research project focuses on topics intrinsic to everyone at every age because language and learning are transformational, receptive and affected by idiomatic barriers, differential item functioning that pertains to no exclusive population. The problem requires much more research of differential item functioning and latent traits characteristic of subgroups within a pluralistic society. I have only introduced the problem pertaining to phobias for the GRE and idiomatic barriers Survival instincts are innate to my active research of phonic and semantic impressions as judgments regarding acceptability are inherent to the recipient of constrained language barriers. The child must rely on communicative evidence so as to acquire accessible language skills. Unfortunately, that rightful potential may be degenerate, fraught with imperfection, causes for linguists and translators to universalize nomenclatures and syntactic conventions. Ideally, community members meet together to recognize and to protect common interests, challenges that require workable communication skills and standards, stated or implied. Diverse styles, however, sever the United States; rural, urban, and tribal issues pose the need for a psychological reality, an institutional conscience that members of learning institutions at all levels must address.

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My successful action research project may have been inhibited by my lapse of focus on a very esoteric subject, differential item functioning, subpopulations, and latent traits that action researchers address as they compile test items. When test devisers note moderate affects of DIF in respect to the meaning that the test item evokes to subpopulations, the test devisers eliminate the test item from the test. Everyone on every campus should be concerned about kernel equating methods, average residual values, differential validity, and score equity analysis. These topics do pertain to the fair assessment of test items and the fair administration of standardized tests from every stage of their development. Perhaps Political Science Professor Jim Dator is accurate as he projects the future of the University in respect to consequences imposed by the Second World War, financial security that threatens educational research and development. Dator notes that research and development have flourished as “a true bang for the buck”—he maintains that legislators, religious congregations, philanthropists, and parents disregard liberal education as an “elevating and cultivating pretense” and that they do not like to fund “institutions of higher education just so some few pointy-headed intellectuals may pursue truth” (Dator, 2005, p. 203). I have observed and experienced the words of Dator to such a paralyzing degree. Human nature is rampant in defeat as temperatures about the Arctic diminish as a result of greenhouse affects. A significant and deleterious area of the ice cap has melted, affecting not only Atlantic and Greenland navigation and commerce, for example, but mammalian life. As they attempt to predict and control testing and educational equity, researchers fear poorly designed and poorly maintained levees. The extent of my action research is inhibited by fears and latent traits that differential item functioning should and does include.

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Dator describes a new Dark Ages that cannot rest its case while card catalogues and inventories have been replaced by digital methods that are not realistically accessible to those who cannot afford the expenses associated with motherboard upgrades. When power fails due to natural phenomenon and disaster, individual civilians and governmental authorities alike are deprived of important records that become inaccessible as they are needed the most. Perhaps Dator accurately describes the collapsing financial cards that are diminishing as a result of “consumer, corporate, and national debt” contrary to “the supply and demand of a ‘free market’” (Dator, 2005, p. 209). The new resources and skill sets that may assist my continual growth to develop in my professional life revolve around these issues presented by Professor Dator. 6. What are some challenges? How did you overcome them? Some challenges of my action research refer to insufficient examples of language that may be constrained, limiting the learning faculty. How may the inhibited child or individual of any age devise relevant grammatical standards about his or her cognation? This issue is especially critical as a child is at a very impressionable stage—parents and teachers maintain mandatory roles that depend on empirical references and documentation; children are easily impressed and conditioned. Discounting potential linguistic rules, the poorly influenced or neglected child may become dependent on “genetic help” through an inherent vitalism, an intuitive Language Acquisition Device (LAD). The Language Faculty or LAD serves as an insightful abstract filter of possible and impossible rules. As the child familiarizes himself or herself with secure linguistic structures, he or she develops an innate biological system based on endowed insight for natural language and Universal Grammar, the human language faculty. Ones “reliance on structure-dependent operations must be predetermined for the language-learner by a restrictive initial schematic of some sort that directs his or her attempts to acquire linguistic

Action Research Reflection competence”—Chomsky described the “mind as a mirror” from the perspective of a universal linguist (Chomsky, Language and Mind (1972a), p. 63). Chomsky’s generative and transformational grammar are important to researchers who devise equitable tests and who analyze morphology, syntax, and semantics—topics of differential item functioning that researchers analyze in conjunction to all levels of communication.

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Action Research Reflection References Chomsky, N. (1972a). Language and mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch. Conley, M. W. (2005). Connecting standards and assessment through literacy (1st ed.). Des Moines, Iowa, and abroad: Allyn and Bacon, Pearson Education. Dator, J. (2005). Universities without "quality" and quality without "universities". On the Horizon, 13(4), 199-215. Retrieved November 10, 2008, from ProQuest Education Journals database. (Document ID: 943627971). Santicola, B. (2008, November). U.S. Government Technology Grants. Retrieved November 15, 2008, from http://www.us-government-grants.net/articles.php/tPath/7

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