In-class Participation Research Articles

Turkish language teachers' views and approaches to listening skills and assessing listening

Dinleme iletişimin vazgeçilmez bir ögesidir ve öğrenmelerin büyük bir bölümü dinleme ile gerçekleşir. Bu durum dinlemenin önemini belirginleştirmektedir. Öte yandan ölçme-değerlendirme, bir becerinin gelişiminin izlenmesinde ve denetim altında tutulmasında etkin bir rol oynamaktadır. Bu açıdan düşünüldüğünde Türkçe öğretmenlerinin dinleme becerisine ve bu becerinin değerlendirilmesine yönelik görüşleri ve yaklaşımları önem oluşturmaktadır. Bu araştırmanın amacı Türkçe öğretmenlerinin dinleme becerisine ve bu becerinin değerlendirilmesine ilişkin nasıl bir görüşe ve yaklaşıma sahip olduğunu saptamaktır. Olgubilim deseninde tasarlanan araştırmanın çalışma grubunu seçkisiz örnekleme yöntemiyle seçilen 23 Türkçe öğretmeni oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada veri toplama aracı olarak yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formu kullanılmıştır. Verilerin çözümlenmesinde içerik analizine başvurulmuştur. Araştırmada, katılımcıların büyük bir bölümünün 1. Dinlemenin duyuşsal niteliklerine yönelik herhangi bir ölçme-değerlendirme çalışması yapmadığı; 2. Dinleme becerisine yönelik ölçme-değerlendirme çalışmaları yaptığı, bu çalışmalarda daha çok açık uçlu sorular ve çoktan seçmeli testler gibi araçları yeğlediği ve bu süreçte anlamlandırmayı, dinleme kurallarına uymayı, yorumlamayı, sorulara yanıt vermeyi, özetlemeyi ölçüt aldığı; 3. Türkçe dersi dönem sonu notu hesaplama sürecine dinleme becerisini dahil ettiği ancak bunu genellikle ders içi katılım notu olarak işe koştuğu; 4. Dinleme-anlama sürecini olumsuz etkileyen etmenler arasında sınıfların kalabalık olmasını, doğru dinleme metinlerinin seçilememesini, olumsuz fiziki şartları öncelediği bulgularına ulaşılmıştır. Araştırmada elde edilen bu bulgular ilgili alanyazın ışığında tartışılarak çeşitli önerilerde bulunulmuştur.

Exploring the Relationship between Class Participation and Student Performance in Science

This study is a cross-sectional study and finds out class participation as an essential indicator in elevating the performance of the students. It explored the factors affecting the degree of class participation and its effect on science performance. Students of grade IX were selected as the sample for the study. In addition to a structured, self-administered questionnaire, the mid-term exam result was taken as an academic performance of the students. Appropriate inferential statistical tests, like the t-test and Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation, were computed to find the gender differences in-class participation and academic performances of the students and their relationships respectively. Further, an Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was performed to explore factors affecting class participation. The inferential statistics results indicated that while there is no statistically significant difference between class participation and academic performance in science by gender, there does exist a positive association between class participation and academic performance. The EFA results revealed three principal factors responsible for varying degrees of class participation, namely the students’ affective traits, students’ cognitive traits and teachers’ traits.

Scale of Attitudes Towards Online Formative Assessment: Teacher’ Attitudes during COVID-19 Pandemic

<p style="text-align:justify">Due to the pandemic in many countries, schools were closed in 2020. Therefore, education was suspended, and distance education was started. During the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, teachers gave lessons online in virtual classrooms. In this study, Scale of Attitudes Towards Online Formative Assessment (S-AOFA) for teachers conducting online and distance courses was developed, and the teachers' attitudes were examined with respect to demographic variables. In the study conducted in the mixed-design method, qualitative and quantitative data were collected for the scale development and survey. Data were obtained from 369 teachers (science teacher, mathematics teacher, classroom teacher, and teachers in other fields) working in school in Turkey. S-AOFA was made up of 20 items and two factors as a five-point Likert-type. When the teachers' attitudes towards online formative assessment (AOFA) was examined, it was found that the mean for the factor of "Assessment Systems" was lower than that of the "Assessment Approaches". In addition, the findings revealed that there was no significant difference in the teachers' AOFA in terms of gender and that no significant difference existed in AOFA with respect to the school levels of the teachers (elementary, secondary and high school). Moreover, the results demonstrated that there was a low negative significant relationship between the teachers' AOFA and the number of students in which virtual lessons were given online. Lastly, there was a low level positive significant relationship between the teachers' AOFA and the in-class participation percentages of the students who were taught online in virtual classrooms. S-AOFA could be used by researchers in different studies in future.</p>

Does learning happen? A mixed study of online chat data as an indicator of student participation in an online English course.

Student participation, as a significant indicator of class learning, has been investigated from various perspectives. The present research seeks to explore student participation by drawing on text data from the chat box of an online learning platform. The two main research questions concern the main types of student participation indicated by the online chat data as well as how extensively and frequently students had participated online in class. The written text messages of 84 university students in the chat box were recorded in an online English course for three months in consecutives. The findings revealed that students’ online chat data generally fell into five major types: students’ responses of factual information (62.77%) social interaction (15.74%), phatic communication (9.95%), tech-related messages (7.5%) and class schedule (4.5%). With 89% of participation concerning meaningful interactions and 11% of participation dealing with simple clarification of tech problems and class schedules, the findings suggest a highly active and meaningful online in-class participation. In addition, further descriptive statistics depicted the level of participation in terms of its frequency and breadth. Results showed that the active and meaningful online participation had been persistent over three months with an average of 74.52% regular participating students and average 410 chat messages sent one day. Implications were discussed in relation to the features of student participation.

The Implementation of Gamification System in Asian Higher Education Teaching

Low level of in-class participation can be a problem for lecturers when they teach Asian students. One of the reason is the characteristics of the Asian students, which are quiet and passive. Active learning is needed to solve this problem. Gamification is one of the things that can improve active learning. This study aims to understand how to design gamification system for higher education teaching, the factors contributed to the gamification system in higher education, and the impacts of the gamification system for students with the case study of Bina Nusantara University in Indonesia. The finding shows that there are several things to consider in designing gamification system. Factors in the system, the lecturers, the course, and the students also take important parts in the implementation. When it is done correctly, there will be a lot of positive impacts for the students and the teaching.

Factors Increasing Motivation of Tertiary Level Learners’ In-Class Participation

The prime purpose of this paper is to investigate the motivating factors that make university students participate in classroom activities and these factors correlate with their learning and grades. Furthermore, the study tried to identify whether intrinsic motivational factors drove them more to be part of in-class activities or extrinsic motivational factors. The topic under consideration required a qualitative case study with an exploratory design to identify these factors. The study was based at a renowned private sector university in Karachi. The research study used a purposive sampling method and gathered data by conducting semi-structured short interviews of students and faculty with some probing on the answers. The results led to a list of factors such as pedagogy, motivation, role of faculty attitude, role of student attitude, and marks-driven motivation. The findings support the notion that extrinsic motivators play a significant role in class participation of students at the tertiary levels.

Discourse Analysis of Teacher and Students in Pre-Intermediate English Class

This research will examine the classroom discourse and interactions between a teacher and students in an ESL class. It will analyze how discourse occurs and how it can facilitate language learning. The participants were adult university students or employees. Via live classroom observation and audio recording of classes, the data were collected. The findings suggest that the teacher controlled all students, and led all class activities and the teaching process. The teacher frequently used pronouns ‘you’, ‘we’, ‘I’ while teaching as well as words such as “perfect,” “correct,” and “very good” to motivate students in-class participation. Students mostly used the pronoun ‘I’ to answer the questions. Most of the questions were closed-ended, so students did not have a chance to elaborate or share their ideas. The discourse occurred in an “IRF” -- Initial, Response, and Follow up. Lack of coherence and cohesion were widely visible in classroom interaction and most of the sentences uttered were ungrammatical.

Think and pair before share: Effects of collaboration on students' in-class participation

Think-Pair-Share (TPS) is a teaching strategy thought to increase in-class participation, especially with shy students. After thinking for themselves, students talk to their seatmate to exchange their ideas and finally show their willingness to participate in-class by raising their hand. In the present field study, we tested TPS with 393 ninth-grade students against two variations, Think-Share (TS; first think, then raise hand) and Share (S; directly raise hand). Students reported on their shyness, and reported in each condition on their hand raising, state anxiety, and motives for (non-)hand raising. Analyses revealed that TPS led to more hand raising compared to the S condition. Lower levels of hand raising in TS were fully mediated by state anxiety. Shy students reported social evaluative concerns, and they raised their hand less frequently than their non-shy peers but also benefited from TPS. These results indicate the importance of peer collaboration for in-class participation.

Gender Disparities in Academic Performance in the Sciences

The gender disparity in numbers of students attending STEM programs has been a challenge since science began. But regardless of this disparity in numbers, differences of gender in academic performances have also been reported, including average GPA, performances during exams and in-class participation. The majority of these performance differences negatively impact women, potentially affecting retention, professional development and professional confidence, further impacting gender equity in the sciences. To analyze whether such disparities exist at the University of Ottawa, we have collated a dataset of the academic performance of all students registered at the University of Ottawa in the Faculty of Science between 2014 and 2019. This includes all students registered in the departments of Biology, Chemistry and Biomolecular Science, Earth and Environmental Science, Mathematics and Statistics and Physics, which represent over 4,000 students per year. The students’ cumulative GPA was used as a covariate to control for their prior academic ability. Initially, when combining all 122 classes included in this study, analysis of covariance and multi-covariate analysis of variance revealed no gender performance differences. However, when classes were analyzed individually, a gender performance difference was observed in 18 classes (p-value<0.05), and male students were favored in 83.33% of classes with a gender performance difference. The language of study (p-value of 0.001965) and class size (p-value of 0.03598) were factors associated with gender differences in academic performances. Classes which numbered more than 100 students were more likely to be less favourable to women and typically large enrolment 1st and 2nd year classes, regardless of the class subject, represented 14 of the 18 classes with gender differences in academic performances, all of which were more favourable to males than females. No 4th year classes had a gender bias and, curiously, of the only four 3rd year classes with a gendered difference in academic performance, 3 were more favourable to females than to males. Understanding the impact of gender, language and class size on our student population and their influence on academic performance will help us develop actionable measures to improve education outcomes for all our students. However, a deeper understanding of contextual conditions leading to gender disparities in academic performance are needed.

Active learning strategies incorporating Immunology based teaching examples for Health Sciences Education

Abstract Clinically relevant Immunology based teaching examples for postgraduate Health Sciences education offer valuable opportunities to support and reinforce understanding and learning of basic principles. The appropriate reference to significant health conditions as teaching examples that are of immediate relevance to specific population groups requires care. Active learning strategies that incorporate Immunology based teaching examples and references to Māori and Pacific population groups living in Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Pacific Region, are much needed to support Health Sciences education. The autoimmune condition known as Acute Rheumatic Fever (ARF) resulting from untreated Group A Streptococcal (GAS) infection of the throat and skin, and subsequent cardiac damage known as Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) that occurs if repeated or severe untreated ARF episodes happen, disproportionately affect Māori and Pacific population groups living in Aotearoa/New Zealand and the Pacific Region. These conditions were incorporated into active teaching approaches to support postgraduate Health Sciences students, with appropriate cultural context. Students participating in postgraduate classes that utilised active learning strategies with appropriate incorporation and reference to the ARF/RHD setting, demonstrated high levels of engagement and in-class participation, and as evidenced by formal and informal student feedback, fostered in-depth understanding of the Immunology principles being taught. This highlights the importance of appropriate reference and context for active learning strategies that incorporate Immunology based teaching examples when relating to specific population groups.

In-Class Student Questions and Take-Home Projects for Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics

We present the results of having applied a set of options in thermodynamics courses for encouraging a strong student in-class participation and engagement. Strong emphasis is given to planned ahead in-class student Q&As encompassing both thermodynamics and statistical mechanics and supplemented with take-home extra syllabus reading. Additionally, we designed research-oriented individual and group projects with the goal of promoting critical thinking, problem solving, and both oral and written communication skills. These projects involve quantum chemistry calculations of gas phase thermodynamic properties, solid state equations of state, and optional topics self-selected by the students from a list of provided possibilities. The execution of the Q&As and projects is beneficial and challenging for both the students and the instructor. Our practice demonstrates significant improvement in student’s interest in learning and increased enthusiasm in teaching performance.

Shifting Participation Grade Policies to Value More Kinds of Student Engagement

This is a story about discovering a bias that affected participation grades in my Introductory Physics for Life Sciences class. My expectation, that actively engaged students tended to talk frequently in my presence as their teaching assistant, would have erased two students’ outstanding performances if not for the participation grade policies described here. The two students, Diana and Alice (pseudonyms), both appeared to be Asian American women, which prompted a quick check for possible course-wide bias in participation grades by students’ gender and ethnicity. The quick check—a quantitative analysis—suggested that in-class participation by multiple different groups of Asian American women may have been undervalued on average by graduate physics teaching assistants, though this requires further analysis. My perspective of Diana’s and Alice’s top performances along with the informal check connects to published research on Asian American student experiences. I also present practical suggestions for physics educators, who could benefit from critically reflecting on what values and biases may be baked into their grading schemes.

Female In-Class Participation and Performance Increase with More Female Peers and/or a Female Instructor in Life Sciences Courses.

As we strive to make science education more inclusive, more research is needed to fully understand gender gaps in academic performance and in-class participation in the life sciences. Studies suggest that male voices dominate introductory biology courses, but no studies have been done on upper-level courses. Results on achievement gender gaps in biology vary and often conflict, and no studies have been done on the correlation between participation and academic performance gaps. We observed 34 life sciences courses at all levels at a large private university. Overall, males were more likely to participate than their female peers, but these gender gaps varied from class to class. Females participated more in classes in which the instructor called on most hands that were raised or in classes with more females in attendance. Performance gender gaps also varied by classroom, but female final course grades were as much as 0.2 SD higher in classes with a female instructor and/or a female student majority. Gender gaps in participation and final course grades were positively correlated, but this could be solely because female students are more likely to both participate more and earn higher grades in classes with many females in attendance.

The Effects of Referential Questions in Pre-writing Activities on Students’ In-class Participation and Written Production

Types of teacher questions play a crucial role in students’ foreign language development. Among teacher questions, referential questions asked to enable students to provide data not known by the teacher, express their views and exchange personal information and ideas are particularly important as they can affect students’ in-class participation and language production. Writing is a complex production process and pre-writing activities are defined to be an essential step to improve writing performance. In these activities, referential questions may act as effective means to encourage students’ in-class participation and written production. However, referential questions in pre-writing activities in English language teaching have not yet been investigated. This study aims to investigate the forms and functions of referential questions in pre-writing activities and teacher and student views about their effects on students’ in-class participation and written production. 63 English language learners and their writing instructor participated in the study. The data were collected by classroom observations and teacher and student interviews and analysed via conversation and thematic analysis. The findings showed that referential questions were used in a variety of forms and had productive, communicative, pedagogical and motivational functions. The teacher and students emphasized that referential questions had substantial impacts on in-class participation and written production. They were reported to attract students’ attention, enhance their motivation to speak, promote oral participation and lead to complex responses. Also referential questions were stated to provide guidance for the production of written outputs generated with the help of collaboratively constructed content in the classroom.

Exploring the Factors Affecting Saudi University Students’ In-Class Willingness to Communicate in English

This study explores perceptions of Saudi university students about the factors that affect their in-class willingness to communicate (WTC) in English. The study is conducted using a qualitative research approach. The sample of the study comprises 30 EFL students enrolled in the Preparatory Year programme at the Northern Border University (NBU) in Arar City, kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews and then analyzed using a thematic content analysis. The results revealed that there are 19 factors affecting the students&amp;rsquo; in-class WTC in English which can be categorized into three main themes that are learner-related factors (e.g., self-perceived communication competence, fear of making mistakes, fear of being laughed at, feeling of shyness, lack of confidence, being afraid of public speaking, previous communication experience), affective factors (e.g., motivation, second language communicative anxiety, evaluation apprehension), and classroom environment factors (e.g., topic interest, topic familiarity, instructional methods, instructional materials, time, classroom apprehension, instructor, class size, classmates). The study concludes with some pedagogical implications for EFL practitioners about L2 learners&amp;rsquo; in-class participation in the target language and provides some insights for the improving the learning experience of English as a foreign language.

ИННОВАЦИОННЫЕ ТЕХНОЛОГИИ СМЕШАННОГО ОБУЧЕНИЯ: РАЗРАБОТКА КУРСА ПО ОБЩЕМУ АНГЛИЙСКОМУ И ЕГО ВНЕДРЕНИЕ В ОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНЫЙ ПРОЦЕСС СТУДЕНТОВ ВУЗА

Data exchange in the 21st century becomes a crucial engine for all the processes, ideas, trends and breakthroughs in any professional sphere. This fact has two main implications: education as an institution needs revisiting; higher education must change in the most effective way to ensure professional success of the graduates. English as a professional and academic lingua franca should constitute an academic environment even in non-English speaking countries. The paper deals with the issues of blended learning and development of its online component. The objective of the research is to prove the positive influence of blended learning technology on educational outcomes in English as a foreign language (EFL) classes for university students of various CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference) levels in the digital era. The methods used include the literature analysis and the experiment with twenty groups of students having traditional and blended learning classes. The results of the experiment were assessed via 1) IELTS-type test, 2) Moodle statistics, 3) students’ in-class participation, 4) instructors’ feedback, and 5) students’ feedback. The results show that blended learning has improved students’ reading skills, enlarged their vocabulary, enhanced their grammar ability compared with the traditional classes without online management system support, but the most critical issue is that blended learning has optimized classroom practice, reduced teacher’s preparation time, and stimulated students’ efforts.

Considering Standards-based Grading

&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Rather than awarding points for a combination of worksheet completion, quiz performance, in-class participation, and essay writing, standards-based grading separates academics from non-academic factors and communicates students' progress towards mastery of course or grade-level standards. Some secondary schools are moving towards standards-based grading (SBG) in an attempt to produce more consistent grading practices, however the empirical evidence resulting from this change is mixed. The purpose of this article is to describe principles of standards-based grading, empirical support of SBG, and several common challenges secondary school leaders may face when considering this philosophical shift. Future research recommendations include exploring the perspectives of college students who graduate from high schools using SBG to understand the longer-term successes and shortcomings of the grading system.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

Evidence-Based Recommendations for Programming Quizzes to Improve College Student Behavior in Residential Courses

Several researchers have shown quizzes effectively support college student success; however, instructors can implement quizzes in multiple ways. We conducted a systematic review of the literature on quizzes in undergraduate courses using the PRISMA method (i.e., Moher et al. Public Libr Sci Med 6(7):e1000097, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000097 ). We searched peer-reviewed journals in the ERIC database and included studies in which researchers manipulated a quiz (or some aspect of a quiz) and measured the effects on out-of-class preparation, class attendance, in-class participation, and/or performance on exams in the context of a traditional face-to-face undergraduate course. We used this body of literature to develop evidence-based recommendations for how instructors can program quizzes to improve college student behavior within their courses and promote overall student success in higher education. Limitations and areas for future research are discussed.

고등학교 중국어 학습자의 학습신념 분석과 교육적 제언 : 부산 소재 일반계 고등학교를 중심으로

The purpose of this study is to understand ‘the beliefs about Chinese learning’ of Korean high school students who are learning Chinese as a second language. Using the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI. Horwitz 2010), this study surveyed and analyzed the beliefs about Chinese learning of 497 students who are taking Chinese at high schools in Busan. In addition, we examined the beliefs that differed from the analysis in the preceding studies, and analysed the particularly determined beliefs about Chinese learning. Finally, the relationship between beliefs about Chinese language learning and in-class participation was also analyzed by applying ‘the ordered logit model’. The analysis on the relation between the beliefs about learning and the class participation shows that which beliefs about Chinese learning should be attentively reinforced in order to enhance the motivation and in-class participation of students. This study also offered several suggestions that can be reflected in the various high school classroom scene.

The effect of teaching innovation on learning effectiveness among the students of Taiwan and Mainland China universities

&lt;p&gt;&lt;span lang="EN-AU"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt;This paper presents a teaching innovation that has proved successful in stimulating the in-class&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt; participation and learning effectiveness of Asian students. The sample population of the research&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt; was the teachers and the students of universities in Taiwan and Mainland China. Convenience&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt; sampling was used. Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) was used to explore the feedback of learning&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt; course. The research results showed that (1) students in Taiwan and Mainland China both have&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt; a good confience in attendance and teamwork projects at the beginning of the course and; (2)&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt; Taiwanese students are confient in their own creativity and application ability at the beginning of&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt; the course and students from Mainland China have a regular habit of reading relevant marketing&lt;span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 9pt; color: #231f20; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal;"&gt; books.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br style="font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;" /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;