Teaching with Chunking in Synchronous Classes: The Influence on University Students’ Intrinsic Motivation

Abstract

Virtual education has allowed for the formation of new forms of teaching during the synchronous classes, thereby replacing traditional expository teaching. The aim of this study was to analyse the influence of chunking synchronous classes on the intrinsic motivation of university students enrolled in different academic programs in a public university in Peru. A total of 114 students and three professors participated in the study. The classes were systematised to consider the beginning, development, and closing of the educational process. In the stages of chunking, strategies for the recovery and consolidation of learning were used through the implementation of technological tools. This study focuses on the methodology of participant-active research under the systematisation of experiences. Three categories emerged in the results: active participation in interactive spaces, active listening in virtual spaces, and the use of technological tools allowing for the managing of a new way of directing the online teaching-learning process through teaching via chunking. The opportunities for students to interact were thereby increased, avoiding dissatisfaction, fatigue, and distractions, as well as the incorporation of activities that served to motivate, provide feedback, consolidate, and reinforce the capacities of attention, concentration, and the assimilation of the lesson content. This study concludes that teaching through chunking in synchronous classes that influence the intrinsic motivation of university students, as well as consolidating their learning and improving teachers’ pedagogical practices.