Dr. Serena Salloum
<b>Department: </b>Educational Leadership<br><b>Research Area: </b>Studying restorative practices in school settings
Department: Educational Leadership
Research Focus: Studying restorative practices in school settings.
Potential Student Project(s):
Restorative practices refer to a group of methods for interacting with others and resolving conflict both proactively and reactively; these practices have become popular in various settings including the justice system, workplaces, and school settings. Restorative practices aim to build positive relationships and repair harm in a way that involves all parties and avoids top-down delivery of punishment.
We are working on validating an observation protocol to measure teacher use of restorative practices in classroom settings. Validation refers to a process that involves proving our protocol measures what we would like it to measure. Your project would involve observing recordings of teachers or visiting schools and completing live observations to test out the protocol. In addition to conducting and recording observations (the main task involved), you may also participate in completing an IRB application, contacting and recruiting teachers for the study, reading or studying about restorative practices, and completing a literature review.
Our team will complete a factor analysis after the completion of 100 observations to quantitatively assess the validity of the protocol (ie - decide if our protocol works using statistics). If you're interested after the semester ends, there will be an opportunity to be a co-author on the resulting paper. You will also have the opportunity to co-present our findings at a local or national conference following the completion of the project. If the project ends up feeling like a good fit, there will be an opportunity to be hired as a research assistant after the completion of the teacher-scholar program.
Attributes/skills/background sought in undergraduate:
Required qualities: Reliable, good communicator, organized, comfortable using technology, able to complete tasks on time, attention to detail, interest in restorative practices,
Desired qualities: Desire to present and/or publish, knowledge of or experience related to restorative practices, able to build positive relationships with teachers.
Mentoring Plan: The student researcher will work on the project for 4 hours a week and participate in a 1 hour meeting with me weekly. Tina Ahmadi (Educational Psychology PhD student and former teacher) and Dr. Salloum will both serve as mentors, but Tina will take primary responsibility for training the student, checking in, meeting with them, and addressing concerns. Tina meets with Dr. Salloum weekly and the student researcher would be invited to join this meeting during certain weeks.
Contact: 765-285-8495, TC 915