A complaint brought up with our education system is that it does not prepare students for the real world. Critical thinking skills and creativity are key traits sought after in the workplace (Abadzi, 2016). Despite this, achieving these traits in students can be a challenge in schools. With the demands of state and federal standards, it can be difficult for teachers to find the opportunity to give students choices in the classroom to inspire these traits. This research looks into the amount of autonomy fourth grade students should have in their English/Language Arts classroom.

 

To perform this research, a study of different fourth grade classrooms in the same school would be conducted. These rooms would be similar in ability and make up, yet range in level of autonomy in the classroom. These classrooms would be observed throughout the course of the school year with assessments and interviews as well; the data collected would then be used to determine which teaching method, if any, was most productive in meeting state and federal reading and writing standards. This research could then be used by elementary teachers and administrators. It could also be used to start similar research for other grade levels.

 

I anticipate that this project will shine some more light on the role of student autonomy in elementary classrooms. While I have a hunch that autonomy will increase student performance, I would be foolish if I was firm in these beliefs before conducting the research. Furthermore, a more long term research project would need to be conducted to see if more autonomy in the classroom has any affect on out of school performance. It is far more likely that this research will be part of a collection to justify increasing or decreasing the autonomy students have in the classroom.

 

The research done for my Graduate Research Project can be used as a springboard for other research. Personally, I would like to see a more long term study regarding full autonomy classrooms and out of school performance. This would, however, be a very complicated study. A more obtainable study would look at how different levels of autonomy can affect student behavior in the classroom. If the research proves to lean one way or another, then those results will inform my own teaching practice.

 

How much autonomy one should have is not an easy question to answer. Despite this, the research proposal hopes to look at whether or not different autonomy levels in the classroom can have an impact on students’ performance. This research can be used by elementary school teachers, administrators, or future researchers. While the increase and decrease in autonomy for this research is short term, further research can be conducted to see if these changes have an impact on long term performance.