Abstract:

Continuous Quality Improvement process is one of the ten critical factors of the integrated systems of management of the quality in education. Action Research methodology, is a qualitative research method, which was born in the field of social psychology, and is a very useful tool for the Continuous Quality Improvement in education. This paper analyzes the results of the application of the Continuous Quality Improvement methodology during one academic year to secondary school students in Spain (subject of mathematics). Controllable aspects (teaching method and anxiety towards mathematics), and non-controllable aspects (socio-economic and home situation, social class, gender, student repeaters, Hyperactivity Disorder with Attention Deficit (HDAD), new students, foreign students, ADHD, grades of previous years, socio-economic and home situation, and level of parental education) of the students were analyzed. The ANOVA test was used to study if there were significant differences between the students analyzed. The ANOVA test showed that the socio-economic and home situation and level of parental education aspects have no effect on the student's academic performance. However, the grades of previous years were one of the most influential aspects in the student's academic performance (relative importance of 46% with respect to the other aspects studied), while teaching method was one of the aspects that moderately influenced the student's academic performance. From this study it can be concluded that the Continuous Quality Improvement system with the Action Research methodology applied to analyze some aspects of the students can help to the future teacher to gain a better knowledge of the student's academic performance.

Keywords:

Continuous Quality Improvement Methodology; Teaching Methodology; Student's academic performance.