Blazing New Trails - Connexions

Increasing Student Success in Rigorous Courses 165
Figure 1. Framework for the Partnership Project.
Through collaboration with partners and shared leadership in planning interventions, through
an emphasis on rigor and curriculum alignment in courses, and through a focus on
personalizing the school environment with personal outreach and support to all GEAR UP
students, project objectives were attained in this fifth year of the project.
METHODOLOGY
The purpose of this qualitative study was to identify practices and processes that
specifically influenced increased student participation and success in advanced level courses
and ways the partner schools met identified challenges. Two primary research questions
guided the study: (1) To what do you attribute your success in increasing the participation and
success of secondary students in rigorous classes? (2) What were your lessons learned in
meeting identified challenges?
As Marshall and Rossman (2006) stressed, “A proposal for the conducting of any
research represents decisions the researcher has made that a theoretical framework, design,
and methodology will generate data appropriate for responding to the research questions and
will conform to ethical standards” (p. 24). A qualitative study was selected in order to
illuminate the practices, processes, and lessons learned of nine partner school districts that
participated in a GEAR UP partnership project which was designed to increase students’
participation and success in advanced level classes. Illuminating practices and clarifying
understandings are explicit goals in qualitative research (Merriam, 2009).While not intended
to identify findings that would generalize to all settings, the researcher sought to provide
understanding of practices that were successful in these settings and challenges that were
faced in meeting the goal of increasing student participation and success in advanced level
courses. Creswell (2007) pointed out, “Qualitative research involves “going out to the setting
or field of study, gaining access, and gathering material” (p. 17).
Nine focus group interviews were conducted on partner campuses with GEAR UP