Following Directions Action Research

My action research was designed around a problem I believe most teachers have and I feel unfortunately is a growing problem within todays society….following directions. Something we should have been taught as children. The problem started while reflecting upon my classroom skills with a introduction level ag class (majority 9th graders). No matter what I did that class had a horrible time working in groups. Thinking about it a little more I decided that group work was not the root of my problem but it was more following directions. The light build clicked immediately! Why not test all my classes and compare how students follow directions!

Procedure:
The basis of the research was two quizzes. The first being a simple following directions quiz. A series of questions that had the students drawing boxes, poking holes in the paper, and writing funny things if they didn't read the entire test to realize all they needed was their name. This very quiz was given to all of my students. The results can be found below on the graph. We then had a discussion about the quiz and talked about how the students felt about reading directions and if they thought they might read them in the future. That fell on a Friday so on Monday I gave another quiz. This time though I told the students it was a pop quiz. I had designed one for each class very similar to the first but on the relevant matter we were talking about in class. The results for this are also found on the graph below. The quizzes were graded on a pass or fail basis determined by if they answered the correct questions.

To fully evaluate the students on this subject I also had them complete a survey after both quizzes to determine their thoughts about the importance of following directions those results are shown below! 

Results

To conclude my action research results show that 70% of my students now feel that directions are important after the second quiz and will probably read directions. From the first graph above you can see that most students failed the first quiz but then passed the second with the exception of class period 4.