Reflections: a note about doing research with young learners

As a novice researcher implementing improvement research practices for the first time, I believe
that the data tells as much a story of my journey as it does my class of kinder and first grade
students. For instance, when I immersed in the literature and became fascinated with one aspect
of diversity, I inadvertently deviated from my original aim and felt devastated by the results.
However, since my heart's desire with this research has been to create a culture of trust that
celebrates diversity with as opposed to for my students, this oversight became an opportunity to
consult as a class about what we need to trust each other and build friendships.
Among other insights gleaned through this process, the group decided that it was important to
check in with each other several times during the day to determine overall sense of belonging;
something they referred to as, "making sure that everyone feels happy and ok." I developed both
written and verbal emoticon surveys in response to this class decision. However, it took me
several tries to successfully implement these with young learners. That's because, though vested
in the survey idea, young learners still live very much in the moment. Sometimes asking them
questions about events or states of being yield answers clouded by other factors such as their
current blood sugar level or need for a nap. In addition, since they tend to enjoy the process
much more than the product of an activity, they sometimes enjoyed coloring every emoticon
smiley face on the written surveys rather than choosing just one for each question.
Eventually, I found that taking an average of several surveys during the week, two written and
several verbal helped me collect data that better indicated their overall sense of belonging. For
the verbal surveys, I referred students to an emoticon scale posted in the classroom to guide their
answers as we checked in with each other periodically throughout the day's activities. Though an
imprecise process, requiring me to cross reference some of the early surveys with my field notes
to get a more accurate score, students became co researchers with me, especially during the
verbal surveys since we followed up by asking how we might work together so that everyone
feels like a "5" inside. One idea eventually led to the class project that provided rich data
regarding the powerful impact of collaborative, student-directed play . I experienced this same
learning curve with the other indicators that determined if my class and I were moving towards

the aim of increasing capacity to trust those whose views differ, including the added challenge
that so many of my change efforts ended up overlapping with others, leaving me to struggle with
trying to measure what felt more like a Venn diagram than a linear cause and effect. I dont know
if this is inherent to the improvement research process in the classroom or evidence of my
inexperience. At any rate, reaching out to my students for feedback and ideas leveraged my own
inexperience as a researcher to empower them to take ownership of their own collective learning.