Action Research Plan: Research Plan

Action Research Plan: Research Plan Student’s Name Institution Course # and Name Professor’s Name Submission Date Research Design Learning institutions oversee the growth and development of students of various ages. Many third-world countries need more food for their population; about 1.3 billion tons of wasted food annually (Elkanib et al., 2024). A mixed methods approach will comprehensively analyze the situation entailing studying food wastage in elementary schools. A mixed-methods research design utilizes quantitative and qualitative data to analyze the issue at hand comprehensively (Wasti et al., 2022). For example, a high amount of food waste in a school can be seen in quantity data. Students' perceptions and attitudes towards food will explain the high amounts of food waste in the school. In this vein, it would be feasible to leverage this study to create relevant associations between the amount of food wastage and students' attitudes toward food. Even though using the mixed method approach will be time-consuming and demanding, its value in this study must be considered. Complementary data obtained from both qualitative and quantitative data justifies the choice of mixed-methods research design. For example, a school that records more wasted food than other schools in the same level or area will most likely have students with a specific view of food. Quantitative data will offer statistical information concerning the food wasted, whereas qualitative data will explore students’ attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors about food. This implies that quantitative data will cover a broad sample and give general results, while qualitative data will delve into specific cases. Stakeholders will appreciate a detailed context and understanding accompanied by numbers. Moreover, integrating both data types will help the research to develop an increasingly effective and appropriate action plan (Wasti et al., 2022). Suppose there is a magnitude of food wastage in a specific school accompanied by significant trends; qualitative data will inform the development of targeted interventions. These interventions will be directed toward the specific needs and circumstances of the students. Data Collection Methods The research on reducing lunch waste in elementary schools will employ various data collection methods to gather comprehensive and relevant data. The data to be collected include the amount of food wasted and nutritional intake records, observations of students during lunchtime, and responses of teachers, students, and staff at the cafeteria. The first data collection method is a survey containing both quantitative and qualitative aspects of target data (Kwok et al., 2022). These surveys will be distributed to participants, who will fill them out at their convenience. Given that the study participants are students aged 6-11 years and a sample size of 200 study participants, random sampling is the best recruitment procedure to capture an even representation of the student population. Surveys will also be done on teachers and cafeteria staff. The questionnaire will contain closed and open-ended questions that will capture the attitudes and perceptions of these students about food wastage. Observations will be conducted in school cafeterias to collect real-ti...