Southern Technological Institute of the Philippines, Inc.

Andres Soriano Ave., Mangagoy, Bislig City

THE USE OF EXTRINSIC MEANS TO INCREASE THE LEARNERS’ ATTENTION

DURING TEACHING – LEARNING PROCESS IN STIP’S GRADE 7 STUDENTS

A CONCEPT PAPER IN ESP

An Action Research Proposal

By:
FERLEZA CAGAMPANG BASULGAN
ANELYN POLISTICO ANGUSAN
JORELYN ESTRADA OBSID
WHELLA MARIE GEROMIANO SALES
MARILOU CARMONA PENTON
CHERRY ANN SY VISCARA
MA. ANDRIA AMOR L. CAHILOG

LUCILLE CACHO- ABUNALES, Ph. D

ESP ADVICER
I. CONTEXT AND RATIONALE
Each new generation of students brings new educational challenges to teachers,

but one which is quite consistent is to keep them attentive during a lecture. Already in the

1970s, pedagogic research indicated that student attention evolves in waves, with drops

every 10-18 minutes. Today, where students can always connect to the Internet through

their mobile phone, they are easily distracted by social media, online games and other

notifications. This results in significant changes in student behavior: A recent study has

shown that the average human attention span has dropped from 12 to 8 seconds since

2000.

This is evident to the Grade 7 students of STIP, as this is a common problem

encountered by most of the teaching interns, who happens to be assigned in the said

grade level. This problem urged us researchers to make an action plan on how to deal

with students who have poor attention during lecture time, as this may affect their

academic performance if not addressed.

According to Lepper (1998), extrinsically oriented students have a tendency to

work with minimal effort, problems related to the context. That is to say, they expect to

achieve high recognitions assuming challenges with low levels of difficulty. And so with

Lucas and Ogilvie (2006) consider that there is a positive relationship between the

transmission of knowledge and extrinsic motivation. According to University of Cartagena,

GIMIFEC Research Group, Cartagena, Colombia, there was an established findings of

statistical association between extrinsic motivation and student attitude.

 This paper presents an overview of ideas, established and innovative means and

teaching approaches that contribute to higher students’ attention during lecture. The

objective is to collect teaching experiences about playful means that motivate students to

be attentive during a lecture. The proposed teaching approache which is an extrinsic

means of teaching fall into three categories: established teaching methods,

unconventional extrinsic methods, and tools. This study focuses on the extrinsic methods

and discuss illustrative examples of these approaches.

In this action research, the researchers would use the extrinsic motivation in

teaching approach to the Grade Seven students of STIP and determine its effect in

improving their attention span during teaching learning process.

II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The following are legit accounts, reports and observations from different countries

that used extrinsic means in teaching approaches.

Keeping the attention of students in class has long been an ever developing

concept within the field of education. In order to counter this issue in classrooms,

educators have developed various methods of teaching to ensure that students are not

only paying attention during class time, but also learning the course materials. First note

that measuring students’ attention is a non-trivial task: it requires a protocol or

methodology to provide an objective evaluation. Existing approaches are either based on

students’ self-report or on trained observers attending lessons, both assessing students’

engagement (motivation, behavior, cognitive) based on predefined criteria.

 The main drawback of students’ self- report methodology is the influence of the

student-teacher relationship, while the second type of measurement requires additional

resources (the observers) to be implemented. We now report existing approaches to

increase students’ attention. The University of Iowa has converted an “Introduction to

Environmental Science” course from a normal traditional lecture to an interactive

classroom with tasks assigned to small groups of students, online quizzes, and reducing

the amount of time the professor gave a lecture by ⅓. This led to increased student

participation and higher engagement with the course materials.

In addition, students reported they are more likely to take more courses in

environmental science. After attending a course on “Teaching Strategies for Millennial

Generation Students”, two faculties at Ohio State University decided in 2013 to change

the way their course is structured for Doctor of Pharmacy students. Instead of a traditional

lecture based class, they incorporated interactive learning activities with group work,

gaming, and direct application to their future lives as Pharmacists.

As a result there was a significant improvement in many areas, including students

earning overall higher grades than previous classes, students happiness with interactive

teaching methodology, students giving more positive and higher evaluation of teaching

faculty, and overall increased level of student comfort in prescribing medicines to patients

in the future.

A study conducted at the University of British Columbia, which measured student

attentiveness in watching a videotaped lecture. It showed that as time went on during the

lecture, students paid less and less attention and would fidget more and more. When
teaching students at a university, it is important to keep in mind the average age of these

students and how they learn. Most university students would be classified as part of the

Millennial Generation, born between 1980 and 1994. They have been exposed to

computers most if not all of their life, and prefer an interactive method for learning. In a

focus group conducted on an American college campus among undergraduate students,

more than 50% of students agreed that they wanted “hands on” and “interactive” activities

as their preferred method of learning in the classroom and more than 75% wanted what

they learned in the classroom to have a direct correlation with the real world. Closely

related to student attention is the issue of boredom during class time. It is very clear that

if students are bored due to the way material is presented, their attention span will be low.

In a focus group of 211 university students in a university in the UK, more than 50% of

the students find their lectures boring more than half the time, with the majority of students

attributing boredom in lecture to presentation style of the lecturer, particularly PowerPoint

slides. A study at the University of Houston echoes the sentiment that non-interactive

lecture style can result in boredom and as a result, poor grades.

III. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study seeks to determine the effectiveness of the 5E Learning Model on the

proficiency level of the pupils in Grade Six of Bislig Central Elementary School for School

Year 2016 -2017.

Specifically, this study seeks to answer the following questions:

1. The observable behavior of students who participates and pays attention during

lecture:
 1.1 Teaching with the use of extrinsic means

1.2 Teaching in traditional instruction.

2. Is there a significant difference between the attention of the control group and the

experimental group?

IV. SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

The study is limited to the Grade Seven Students of Southern Technological

Institute of the Philippines, Inc., Andres Soriano Ave. Mangagoy, Bislig City, for School

Year 2019 - 2020. This will include 15 students in the control group and 15 in the

experimental group.

A total of 30 Grade Seven Students from two different classes will be involved in

the study. They will be selected from the classes with the same level. They will be taught

by the same teacher.

The study will focus on the use of the extrinsic approach for the experimental group

and the traditional teaching strategy for the control group.

V. METHODOLOGY

A. Sampling

This study will employ quasi-experimental, non-random purposive sampling. Since

classes are already formed at the beginning of the school year it is not possible to assign

pupils randomly to both experimental and control group, but the group will be randomly

assigned to experimental and control group from the pre-existing classes.

 The study will be conducted to 15 experimental and 15 control students. The

selections of classes will be done through purposive sampling method. The 30

respondents will be divided into two. One half or 15 students will be assigned as the

“control” and another 15 will be assigned as “experimental” group.

B. Data Collection

The data gathering procedure will best use of recording device or a video recorder

so it would make everything well documented, and to ensure a reliable results.

The teacher will administer the experimental group employing the extrinsic means of

teaching, the established teaching methods, unconventional extrinsic methods, and tools

in 1 week. The established teaching method includes the following; Peer Instruction,

Flipped Classroom, ConcepTests, Problem Based Learning, and World Café. The

unconventional extrinsic method which includes; changes to the classroom environment,

the teacher’s behavior, or students’ rewards and penalties, interaction between students

and lecturer and the use of tools or the technology integration is a must during lecture.

Then, the group assigned as control group will be taught using the traditional

instruction in the next week.

C. Ethical Issues

In conducting this research these ethical consideration will be observed:

1. The researcher will write a letter asking for permission from the principal prior

to the conduct of the research.

2. The participants will be informed of the purpose and extent of the study.

3. Confidentiality will be maintained in the analysis and interpretation of the data.

D. Plan for Data Analysis

To answer the questions posed in this study the following treatment will be used:

1. For problem 1, to determine the number of students who participates and pays

attention during lecture in STIP’s Grade Seven students using the extrinsic method and

the traditional instruction: Mean & Mean Percent will be used.

2. For problem 2, to determine the significant difference between the attention of

the control group and the experimental group, the T-test will be utilized.

VIII. Work Plan

TIME TABLE

EXTRINSIC METHOD TRADITIONAL INSTRUCTION

December 2-6,2019 December 9-13,2019

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