Questioning the Translation of Executive Functioning into Data

My name is Heather McKinzey and I am the ADHD/EF Coach and 2e Coordinator at Commonwealth Academy, an independent school in the DC area that serves students that learn differently. I am a graduate of Auburn University with a degree in Education. Over the course of twenty years in the education field, my curious nature and love of learning have kept me engaged in research based professional development. That is why I am honored to be a part of the 2018 SET Lab Delegation.

Being a part of this delegation has given me an opportunity to hone my craft as an educator and ADHD/EF coach. With the support of my SET Lab consultant, Allison Furton, I am designing a research study where I will identify an area that is challenging, investigate and incubate current research on the topic, develop a plan to collect and analyze data and finally, share my findings with others.

In my current role as ADHD/EF coach, I work with students to identify academic, social and emotional goals. Through active listening and open ended questioning, students are able to create action plans to move them closer to their goals. Coaching empowers the student to design their own process, the coach is there to support them as they implement their plans. Coaches do not directly teach executive skills nor do they create assessments to measure success. Progress is made in small steps and does not always translate to something quantitatively measurable such as a higher test grade.

Unfortunately, teachers, administrators and parents want to see immediate results and usually that is in the form of “good grades.” It doesn’t always pan out that way. A student might have set the goal to get organized and achieve that goal, but they can still receive a bad grade on their AP Chemistry test. My research question addresses the is issue of measuring student success around EF goals. More specifically,

What quantitative approach is best for students to use to demonstrate growth of EF skills in order to show progress to administrators and parents ?

I hypothesize that when students create their own personalized data collection system, they will be more invested in using the system to track progress; therefore the quantitative data they collect will reflect their EF skill growth to administrators and parents.

I will be documenting my research study progress right here on Medium, so come back to see what’s up with executive functioning skills and student created data collection. For my project and other great research projects from this year’s delegation follow the hashtags #educationscientist and #SETlab.