Action Plan Proposal

Introduction
Todays society is technology driven; students are
seemingly centered around the technologies they use every day
and are finding uses for it in almost all everyday tasks.
Therefore, it is important to find out how school counselors are
integrating technology into their professional practice,
especially through classroom lessons with students. As
technology evolved it is important for school counselors to also
evolve.

Technology has a huge influence on how students learn,

interact and communicate with their peers and everyone else

surrounding them.

Journal of Technology in Counseling (2012)

states that since school counselors play an important role in

shaping students ability to learn, communicate and share
information with others, they would be well served to understand
how technology can enhance their work.

JTC (2012) also states

that there are reviews of relevant literature that include some

examples of how counselors are using technology, but a majority
of those examples are clearly dated.

The research wants to find

out if there are more relevant and up to date ways of using such
technology.

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The purpose of the proposed action research project is to

determine how counselors are using technology in their daily
routines with their students.
The following research questions will be addressed:
1. What technology are counselors using?
2. What are the student/counselor relationship outcomes of
implementing technology?
3. What other technologies would counselors consider
implementing with their students that they may not have
tried before?
Methodology
Research Design
This action research project uses a survey research
design.

Attempting to describe and explain conditions of the

present by asking participants to fill out a survey that is

given to them.
Participants
Participants will be selected by using non-probability,
sampling.

This technique is used when one wants to locate

participants who are rich in information about a specific topic;

they are not randomly selected.

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Action research relies on gatekeepers in order to gain

needed information.

A gatekeeper is someone who helps you gain

access to the participants that you wish to study (Del Siegle,

2002).

In this case the counselors will be the gatekeepers to

this research.

They will be the ones allowing access to the

information needed for this action research.

For this research, the proposed sample consists of school
counselors that the researcher knows or has access to through
internship sites.

These participants will be located in both

the New Jersey and Pennsylvania area, and

work with students

from the 5th to 12th grade.

Data Collection
This study will rely on the collection data through a
survey.

The survey will consist of open ended questions and

likert scales to collect data related to demographic information

and questions having to do with the technology available in
their particular school, how they use it and how their students
respond.
The researcher will be using google forms to collect the
data due to time constraints.

The use of an electronic survey

is the fastest way to collect the most data possible for the
action research.

A survey is being constructed at this time by

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the researcher.

It will consist of carefully worded questions

in order to get the information that is needed.

The survey will

also be reviewed by a professor in order to give proper

feedback.
Procedures
During this action research Gwynedd Mercy University
requires that the action research proposal go through an
Institutional Review Board (IRB) evaluation process.

This will

ensure that no one participating in the research is at any kind

of risk.
During the data collection, an email will be sent to all
participants.

These email addresses will be attained through

the researcher and her connections through her internship

sites.

This will include a link to google forms where they will

be able to find the survey they are participating in.

In

addition to the survey the participants will also find a link to

an informational letter that they will need to sign in order to
give informed consent and participate in the survey.
Limitations
There are some potential limitations with this
project.

Participants may not want to participate in the

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research project, therefore, not giving the time or effort

needed.

With regard to the potential issues with the questions,

the researcher needs to be careful in the way they choose to

word the questions that they will be giving to the
participants.

If they are not worded clearly the researcher may

not retrieve the information that is need for the research

project.
Analysis
The analysis of the collected data in this action research
project will include qualitative and quantitative methods.

It

will then be presented in both a written format and tables

showing the data that was collected.
Analysis of Qualitative Data.

Qualitative data will be

collected via open ended survey questions.

This data will be carefully reviewed and notes related to
commonalities in participant responses will be taken.

The

researcher will then analyze the notes to identify emerging

themes.
Analysis of Quantitative Data. Descriptive data that can be
quantifiable will be collected from the likert scale
questions.

The likert scales convert to numbers for quantifying

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the responses that participants give.

The answers given will be

thoroughly reviewed and put into percentages according to

answers.

After this step is done the researcher will then

review the percentages and put them into graphs and tables in
order to better understand.
Conclusion
This research is meant to see how counselors are changing
their techniques as our society continually changes with a
specific focus on the technologies that are being used and how
the students are response?

The information from this study has

the potential to help future and current counselors to not be as

intimidated when to comes to their job and technology colliding
and be able to look at it in a positive light.