Equity Analysis
“The gap between a predominantly Black student population and low academic performance reflects systemic inequities.” - Low proficiency rates - Attendance challenges - Economic barriers - Access to rigorous instruction At Luella High School, equity analysis is an ongoing process of interrogating our instructional practices and institutional structures to ensure every student has the access and support needed for excellence. My approach focuses on identifying barriers to student success—whether they are socioeconomic, cultural, or linguistic—and proactively designing interventions that validate and bridge student experiences with historical inquiry. By examining data through an equity lens, we move beyond equal treatment to equitable outcomes, ensuring that background does not predict a student's academic potential.
Research Proposal: The Impact of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy on Student Engagement and Academic Achievement in High School History Classes
By Taren Brown
EPRS 7900 Method of Research in Education
Dr. Anne E Martin
Georgia State University
March 5, 2025
Introduction
Research Issue
Having taught history for the first time in a high school in Georgia, I have noted that many students, especially those from the minority, do not have any connection with the curriculum. This disengagement can result in poor academic performance and a lack of concern in the course content. One of the challenges associated with history education in most learning institutions is that it is commonly dominated by the European perspective, which may not be inspiring to the African American or other students of color. This leads to the major question: How can history education be more inclusive and how can we make it more appealing to all students but especially to the marginalized students?
Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) has been advocated as a possible solution to this problem. CRP is an educational framework that aims at facilitating learning from the students’ cultural realities, understanding, and viewpoints (Hernandez & Awilda, 2022). Thus, the objective of CRP is to enhance the learners’ participation, academic performance, and success, as well as promote a welcoming classroom atmosphere. Nevertheless, as an idea, CRP has received a lot of attention in the theory of education but little has been done in terms of empirical research on its applicability and impact in high school history classes.
This research proposal aims at filling this gap by assessing the effectiveness of CRP on students’ participation and performance in a high school history class. Particularly, the study will seek to establish if the integration of African American history and culture into lessons will bring out the students’ interest and help the targeted students, the African Americans, to perform better in their studies.
Summary of Prior Literature
Studies in culturally responsive teaching and learning (CRT) have yielded positive outcomes in different learning environments. Amerstorfa et al (2021) posited that learning approaches that consider and incorporate student’s cultural practices can help increase student motivation and achievement. Other subsequent studies have backed this up by showing that CRP enhances academic achievement for the minority students (Copeland Solas et al., 2022).
Historically, studies have ascertained that learners perform well in the subject matter when their culture is incorporated in the curriculum. King et al (2020) asserted that African American students’ interest in history contents increases when they are presented with narratives and/or perspective that are relatable to the African American culture. Likewise, Smith et al (2020) posit that African American history inclusion in the curriculum enhance students’ engagement as well as their performance.
However, as seen in the previous section, there are still no studies that directly examine the effects of CRP in high school history classes. However, there is a lack of high school research and most studies have been conducted in elementary or middle school environments. In the same respect, while several authors have researched the effect of CRP in enhancing students’ participation, there is limited information regarding the effect of the strategy on students’ performance. This is the rationale for this study to fill the mentioned gaps by exploring the effect of CRP on both participation and achievement in a high school history class.
Statement of Purpose
The aim of this particular study is to explore the effect of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) on students’ participation and performance in a high school history class. In particular, the study will aim at finding out if the integration of the African American history and culture into the curriculum can help to enhance student’s interest and their performance with special reference to the African American students. In relation to this, the study will also seek to find out if the effect of CRP on students varies depending on their race and ethnic background.
Research Question(s)
- Quantitative Research Question: How is Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) connected to the level of student engagement in the high school history class?
- Quantitative Research Question: What is the correlation between Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) and academic achievement of students in a selected high school history class?
- Qualitative Research Question: In what way do students receive Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) in a high school’s history class and how effective is it for their learning?
Research Significance/Hypotheses
This study has the potential of expanding knowledge on how CRP impacts student engagement and achievement in high school history lessons. This is due to the diversification of students in the American schools hence the need to identify teaching techniques that will be effective in enhancing the learning of these diverse students. Based on the rationale that more attention should be paid to African American history and perspectives in classrooms, this study will contribute to the existing literature on the impact of CRP on high school classrooms. The results may be beneficial to educators and policymakers in order to promote the development of a more inclusive teaching style, which will help to close the achievement gap among learners of color.
Hypothesis 1: The implementation of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) will improve student engagement in a high school history class, as indicated by the baseline and follow-up surveys.
Hypothesis 2: The use of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) will increase the academic performance in a high school history class as reflected in the pre and post academic achievement test scores.
Expected Outcomes (Qualitative)
Besides the quantitative hypotheses, the qualitative part of the present study will seek to establish students’ perception on CRP and its influence to their learning processes. It is anticipated that students, especially the African American students, will perceive themselves to be more connected with what is taught in school and will have the desire to engage in discussions when their cultural realities and past experiences are respected and incorporated into the teaching. The interviews are expected to identify factors like improved culture identification, improved student identity, and improved critical thinking as students come across various histories. These qualitative data will supplement the quantitative data hence giving a broader perspective of the effects of CRP on engagement and performance of students.
Thus, the present research aims to provide a complex view on the advantages and difficulties of introducing CRP in the context of high school history classes using both quantitative and qualitative paradigms. The use of mixed-methods design will enable the study to go beyond ascertaining changes in engagement and achievement to understanding the subjective impact that CRP has on students.
Method
This research study will use both quantitative and qualitative research methods in order to achieve the objectives of the study. The quantitative part would include pre- and post-surveys for evaluating the changes in students’ involvement and performance, and the second part would focus on the interviews of students for understanding their attitude toward CRP. This research design is suitable for the study because it affords both the quantitative and qualitative approach that would help to understand the effects of CRP in its entirety.
Research Design
The study design will be quasi-experimental with two groups; the control group and the experimental group. The experimental group will undergo lessons based on Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) and the control group will undergo traditional lessons. This design is suitable because it enables one to determine the effect of CRP approach as compared to the usual teaching approach in terms of the students’ attentiveness and performance.
Participants
The subjects in this study will be 11th grade students of U.S history in Georgia High School which will be a pseudonym for the school located in Georgia. The school has a multiracial population, with 40% of the students being African American, 30% White, 20% Hispanic, and 10% of other race/ethnicity. Therefore the sample size for the study will be 60 students, with 30 students in the experimental group and 30 students in the control group. To avoid a biased sample, the participants will be recruited through a stratified random sampling technique whereby both groups’ race, gender, and socioeconomic status will be compared. This approach will go a long way in reducing bias and this will make the study to encompass all the students in the school.
The students in the experimental group will be taught using Culturally Relevant Pedagogy which will be on African American history and perception, and the control group will be taught using traditional method. To reduce effects related to the teacher, both groups will be assigned to the same teacher. The participants will be 16-18 years of age and the academic abilities of the students will range from average to below average which will be common among the high school students. Informed written consent will be sought from the parents/guardians of the students before they are allowed to participate in the study and the students will also give their assent to participate in the study. This ethical consideration is important so as to avoid violating the rights of the participants while conducting the study.
Instruments & Data Sources
The data for this study will be gathered with the use of quantitative and qualitative research instruments, which will afford an analysis of the effectiveness of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) on students’ engagement and academic success. The data collection tools will be pre- and post-tests, academic achievement tests, and semi-structured interviews. These instruments are intended to provide specific quantitative data as well as qualitative data concerning the use of CRP in a high school history class.
Quantitative Instruments:
Student Engagement Survey: To assess gain in student engagement, pre and post test questionnaires will be completed. Some of the questions will be based on the Likert scale focusing on the level of interest students have towards history, their level of participation in class and their level of interaction with materials posted. This tool will give numerical results of the extent to which CRP affects students’ levels of participation during the semester.
Academic Achievement Test: Academic performance will be assessed before and after the intervention through the use of pre and post test. The test will be in form of multiple choice and short answer questions and will cover topics from the U.S history curriculum. This instrument will enable the researcher to determine the extent to which CRP affects the academic performance of the students quantitatively.
Qualitative Instruments:
Semi-Structured Interviews: A purposive sample of the students in the experimental group shall be interviewed in order to understand their perspectives on CRP and its effectiveness in enhancing their participation and learning. The interview questions will be general in nature and pose questions which will enable the researcher to gain qualitative information regarding the students’ experience with the curriculum, their feelings towards the material, or change in attitude/motivation, and critical thinking abilities. These interviews will give qualitative data that will enrich the findings of the quantitative research.
Data Analysis
Quantitative Data Analysis:
The pre- and post-test questionnaires and achievement tests will be used as quantitative data instruments to assess the effectiveness of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) in enhancing students’ involvement and results. The quantitative data will be analyzed by using descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation and frequency distribution. In order to determine the changes in the scores of the experimental and control groups, paired t-tests will be used to compare the pre- and post- test scores. In order to compare the post-test scores of the CRP students with the control group students, independent t-tests will be administered. Further, the study will use regression analysis to determine the correlation between the use of CRP and change in student engagement and academic achievement controlling for variables like previous academic performance and socioeconomic status.
In order to control for extraneous variables, the study will employ a stratified random sampling method in order to choose an experimental and control group that are as similar as possible in terms of race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc. These factors will be taken into account in the regression model analysis and the resulting regression model will also be validated.
Qualitative Data Analysis:
The research data collected from the interviews will be analyzed thematically through a process of qualitative analysis. All the interviews will be taped and transcribed, and a preliminary list of codes will be established based on the research questions and the theoretical framework. These codes will then be used on the transcripts to look for patterns of students’ attitudes towards CRP and how the tool affected their activity and knowledge. Coding will be done in cycles with codes reviewed and upgraded when new themes are identified.
Mixed Methods Analysis:
This research will use both quantitative and qualitative data and the two data sets will be integrated to enhance the findings of the study. To show the overall importance of CRP, both the quantitative results and the qualitative results will be combined. For instance, the level of engagement and achievement will be quantified and the data analyzed alongside with the thematic analysis results.
Ensuring Reliability and Validity
The following measures will be taken to enhance reliability and validity. For the quantitative data, the reliability of the survey instruments will be measured using Cronbach’s alpha. This academic achievement test will also be validated by the content experts. In analyzing the study’s qualitative data, intercoder reliability will be conducted by having another researcher code a portion of the interviews. The research data will therefore be analyzed and integrated by using both quantitative and qualitative data and the qualitative data will in turn be checked by the participants.
Limitations
The study has several limitations. First, the fact that the study uses a quasi-experimental design implies that random assignment cannot be done, and thus selection bias may occur. Second, the study is carried out only in one school which may reduce the external validity of the research. Last but not the least, the use of survey data to measure engagement could be affected by response bias. Nevertheless, the study seeks to offer useful information on the effects of CRP on students’ participation and performance levels.
Philosophy of Teaching
Taren Brown | World History Educator
My philosophy of teaching is rooted in the belief that history is not just about the past—it is a tool for understanding the present and shaping the future. As a World History teacher, my goal is to create a classroom where students are actively engaged, challenged to think critically, and encouraged to see themselves within the story of history.
I believe that students learn best when instruction is meaningful, interactive, and relevant. In my classroom, I incorporate strategies such as Document-Based Questions (DBQs), simulations, debates, and real-world connections to move students beyond memorization and into deeper analysis. Whether students are examining the rise of empires, the causes of revolutions, or the impact of global conflict, I strive to create learning experiences that require them to question, analyze, and form their own perspectives.
Assessment plays a critical role in my teaching. I use formative assessments such as bell ringers, exit tickets, and discussions to monitor understanding daily and adjust instruction in real time. I also use summative assessments, including DBQ essays, projects, and unit tests, to allow students to demonstrate mastery and apply their learning in meaningful ways. Feedback is an essential part of this process, as it helps students recognize their growth and identify areas for improvement.
I am committed to meeting the needs of all learners through differentiated instruction. I recognize that students learn in different ways, so I incorporate a variety of learning styles into my teaching, including visual supports (maps, timelines), auditory learning (discussion and lecture), kinesthetic activities (simulations and role-play), and reading/writing tasks (DBQs and reflections). By doing so, I ensure that every student has access to rigorous and engaging instruction.
I also believe that strong relationships are the foundation of effective teaching. When students feel respected, supported, and valued, they are more willing to take academic risks and fully engage in the learning process. I strive to create a classroom environment that is structured, respectful, and inclusive, where all students feel empowered to contribute.
As an educator, I am continuously reflecting and growing in my practice. I am working to improve my ability to increase student engagement, strengthen lesson transitions, and refine my instructional delivery to create a more seamless and effective learning experience. I view teaching as a lifelong learning process, and I am committed to improving each day.
Looking toward the future, my goal is to continue growing as a history educator by teaching Advanced Placement (AP) History courses and eventually becoming a college-level professor. I am passionate about helping students develop advanced analytical and writing skills that will prepare them for higher education. I want to inspire students not only to succeed academically, but also to develop a genuine interest in history that extends beyond the classroom.
Ultimately, I believe that teaching history is about more than content—it is about developing critical thinkers, informed citizens, and lifelong learners. My purpose as an educator is to equip students with the knowledge and skills they need to understand the world and their place in it.