Validating “The Three Domains Framework:” Administrators and teachers study

educational disadvantage

E. Alana James, Ed.D.

The Centre for Research Strategies

Jones International University

Three Purposes

• To introduce “ The Three Domains Framework” a tool that may be of interest to educators with high % of disadvantage in their schools.

• To tell the story of a group of educators in the State of Colorado, USA who participated in a year long study about educational disadvantage

• To discuss the first results towards validating this framework using Participatory Action Research (PAR)

Context of Homeless and Highly Mobile (H&HM) Students in the U.S.1. Homeless children may periodically live out of

their parents car or sleep on friend’s couches – there are approximately 1.5 million homeless children in the United States.

2. Highly mobile (transient) children attend 2 or more schools each school year and have been shown to be at high risk for dropping out (leaving early).

3. A recent study of homeless street youth showed that some of them had attended as many as 19 schools during their childhood.

Discussion

Turn to your neighbor and discuss the context of educational disadvantage that concerns or interests you the most. 7 minutes

The participants

• Seventeen educators – 9 administrators• 1 homeless shelter (ages 14-18)• 1 charter high school (separate from school

district but attached to it with special focus), • 2 middle schools (11-13) • 1 multi level school (ages 4-18) • 4 elementary schools (ages 4-10)

Different school environments

Different educational contexts

Schools that were in: rural (1) , small towns (3), suburban areas (3), urban (3)

• Rural = 120 students in 13 grades - population less than 1,000

• Small town = 75,000 people or less

• Urban population = 1.5 - 3 million

• Suburban = industrial or residential community clustered next to urban population

Project outline

• Participants conducted their own PAR study in their own school and developed educational practices to aid H&HM students.

• They met as a participatory group bimonthly on a Saturday

• They received a stipend when they finished their school year long project ($3,000)

• Their results were published on the web by the state education agency & CRS

PAR = participatory action research

The Three Domains Framework

• Developed during the study• Based on research about educational

disadvantage• 3 Domains

• Access to educational services• Welcoming school culture - inclusive• Flexible instructional strategies

• Over three timeframes: before, enrollment and ongoing

Discussion

Look over “The Three Domains Framework” and discuss it with your neighbors. 15 minutes.

Group discussion – 10 minutes

The question of the validity of this framework was only a small portion

of a much larger study

1. One of four questions

2. Use of the framework (or not) was completely voluntary on the part of the participants

3. Range of use could be placed on a continuum from “lip service” to central in the design of their PAR study

Qualitative analysis

Data collected throughout the school year from:

• Monthly reflective memos

• In depth interviews – pre and post

• Focus groups, administrators * and teachers

• Final reports

• Email correspondenceAnalyzed using Atlas/ti.

Open and Selective Coding

1. Reference to any one of the domains

2. Examples of use

3. Examples of non use

What did data show?

100% said it was useful for conversation with others.

The whole idea of "mobile" is so vague that you have to contain it somehow. Otherwise the problem is almost too overwhelming, if you look at the problem piece by piece, it becomes more manageable.

Further Results

30% mentioned the three domains were useful to direct their research projects

It helped me get my arms around what I doing, and what areas I wanted to focus on. The broader categories helped me think about the problem differently, I can take that big picture and break it down into workable pieces, then I can concentrate on one at a time. It helps me think about how I can use all of that research to fit within the school.

The majority (65%) said they used it in their studies

It was very nice to see that this whole idea of welcoming school culture and flexible instruction came out of my study. Lots of questions that I hadn't considered before, develop while using this model and I was able to hone in on them. I think that's the key, instead of seeing things so widely, you can target something specific.

Access to educational services

• Principal and teacher uncovered numbers of and services used by mobile children.

• Principal tested correlation between services and attendance.

• Principal develops case studies of her most mobile students and the services they access

• Homeless shelter designed a charter school based on data from 3 domains survey.

• Set up new systems

New Systems for Access

We have a system now, when a family goes to the shelter the first thing the shelter worker does is call my secretary. This works for all concerned.

Welcoming School Culture• Included homeless students in school activities. • Started “The lunch bunch.” • Opened a welcoming center. • Interviewed every parent who enrolled their children mid

year. The welcoming school environment is what

precipitated the use of the interview process, parents coming in were surprised that someone was interested enough in them to ask these questions, which created some follow-up situations, which got us comments from families like, no one has ever shown this much interest in us.

Flexible Instructional Strategies

Flexible instructional strategies are something that everybody strives for all kids, you have to differentiate, it is not an easy thing to do.

• Teacher changed poetry in her reading curriculum to include poems about homelessness. Motivation to memorize the poems soared.

• At the end of the school year her homeless students had excelled in this curricula four times the expected growth.

• The Three Domains Framework has been initially validated as useful

• It should be further tested by educators • Adding new components• Testing its significance in a variety of

geographic/cultural setting• Addressing different issues of disadvantaged

Conclusion/Recommendation

The Three Domains Framework has become the way that I talk about the services that we need to create, and the services that are successful. I do that in meetings and when I give talks, it's how I frame the conversation of what needs to be included in the programs.

For homeless service providers

Epilogue

• During the 2005-2006 school year 40 participants from four states (Colorado, Texas, Arkansas and Virginia) are participating in a similar study using web-based PAR methodology.

More information:

1. www.crsllc.org/resources/html = the pdf for the book done by the participants in the first study

2. www.wbpd.org is the URL for the new project:

Username = wbpd & Password = guest

3. alanajames@earthlink.net