The Issues of Drug Use in Public Schools - Research Proposal Example

The paper 'The Issues of Drug Use in Public Schools' is a delightful example of a research proposal on education. 
Drug use among teachers and students in public schools is the main issue studied throughout this research. It is from this issue that the research problem, which is how drug users in these schools could be identified, is derived. The main research question is identified from this research problem: How could public schools detect drug users among their teachers and students? According to Martin and Bridgmon (2012, p. 1), “a research question is the primary reference point for interpretation and evaluation of any research study.” Subdividing the main research question into sub-questions enables an in-depth exploration of the research study. This could enable a deeper understanding of the main research question.

According to Gifford (2011), it has become an objective of educators to eliminate drugs in their schools. This has been due to the effect that the problem has caused to their work. In a school setting, educators peg their difficulties at work on students' and colleagues’ drug use. Therefore, to fight drug use in schools, both educators and school administration should be aware of the people involved in the abuse of drugs. Controversy always arises when it comes to how to achieve this. Some people propose that a drug-testing regime should be introduced while others think that this would violate the human rights of the teachers and students involved. This makes the question of how we should identify the teachers and students in public schools that use drugs for action a researchable one.

The first sub-question is the criteria that could be used to identify drug users among students and teachers in public schools. To undertake drug testing among all teachers and students in public schools is an expensive undertaking that could sometimes be unnecessary. This identified a sub-question would help the research team to come up with a way of determining the situations in which drug testing could be paramount. Samaha (2007) reveals that the use of drugs in our public schools has been increasing in the past years. However, the suspected drug cases are not equal in all the public schools in this country. Therefore, drug testing can be suitable in some public schools and unsuitable in others, and hence there is a need to determine specific criteria to be used to guide this activity.

Our second sub-question is about the rules and regulations for testing drug use among teachers and students in public schools. The sub-question is what rules and regulations need to be formulated to guide the drug users' identification method adaption? Such a sub-question would provide guidelines for implementing the adapted method of identifying drug users. This would minimize the negative effects that an adapted drug identification method could have on the teachers and students in public schools. An example of such a regulation is the testing of drugs in an institution only when there is suspicion that the members of that institution are involved in drug use (Maisto, Galizio, & Connors, 2010). However, such regulation is very general and thus, it could be ineffective; therefore, there is a need for more specific regulations.

The third sub-question identified from the main research question is how we can maximize the effectiveness of detecting drug users among teachers and students in public schools. Maximizing effectiveness would require us to adopt a drug testing technique with high positive impacts and no negative impacts. This could only be achieved by evaluating all the drug use identification techniques suggested by the first sub-question. Addressing this sub-question will assist the research team in adapting the best among the available ways of detecting drug users and, therefore, achieving the best solution to the problem of drug use in public schools.