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Christina G

Page history last edited by chewy_g10@hotmail.com 13 years ago

To Talk Or Not To Talk: A Study On Classroom Participation

Christina Gomez

 

By conducting this survey I wanted to find out if the research I gathered by doing the survey was similar to the information I obtain through the various articles that I found.  The information that I gathered from the surveys should that most students believe that they will truly benefit from participating in class.  Question 10 states “Do you feel that actively participating in class (doing the readings, participating in discussions) helps you to be a better student or get a better grade in the class why or why not?”  Of the fifteen students that participated in the study, every student said yes that they agree with the question.  I was surprised by this answer because I felt that most students would say that participating in class doesn’t matter that the only thing that matters is doing good on tests and studying.  But in fact there was not one student that even mentioned studying or tests. 

One thing that I found while conducting this research is that there were some students that did not raise their hand or participant in the class discussion at any time while I was conducting my research.  These few students stayed quite the entire time that I was observing the class.  Although they were not busy doing something else such as using their lap top or texting, they did not raise their hands or participate at all.  At first glance one would think that these students might not be paying attention and that they are just not good students.  At least this is what I thought while I was doing these observations.  But after doing further research I found that it is not always the case for all students.  Yes, there are students that slack off and actively choose not to participate but there are a select few students that are not from this country and have different ideas about what it is to be respectful in a classroom.  For example I found a study that focused on the experiences of Turkish students who came to the United States to go to school.  The study done by Tartar found that” It is not surprising that these students believed that excessive talk in the classroom is inappropriate and leaves fewer opportunities for students to learn.” (Tartar, 2005).  This proves a point that many instructors don’t take into consideration that a student might not feel that it is appropriate to speak out in class.  This is something that more professors need to become aware of.  Before conducting this study I had no idea that in some cultures it is considered rude to speak in a classroom unless you are a professor. 

 

Another thing that I found in my research was that if a student actively participated in a class they obtained a better grade in the class.  For example I noticed through my observation that the students who actively participated in classroom discussion were getting a much better grade in the class.  I noticed one student in particular that always raised her hand in class.  She always had the answer to the questions that the teacher had asked of her.  Thus leading me to believe, that she actually did the assigned reading for the class, and that she was very well prepared for the classroom discussion.  This leads me to another research question that I presented to my fellow classmates.  I asked them “When assigned reading for a class, do you complete the reading or just wing it? Why or why not? There were three possible answers to this question Yes, I do the reading/No I just “wing it”/ sometimes I do the reading.  I was surprised by my finding for this question most of the students response was that they only sometimes do the reading.  The reason that this surprised me is that most of the students in this class actively participate in the online discussions

 

Another thing that I found in my research was the fact that the only way for students to succeed in an online class is to be an active participant in the online discussions.  I found that it doesn’t matter what type of class you are in whether it be face to face or only online the only way you are going to pass a class successfully is to actively participate in the class.  Whether it be by doing the reading or participating in class discussions.  There is research that also backs up these finds in the study done by Nagel, Blignaut and Cronjé on students who were taking an online class they came up the conclusion that “Only students who contributed to the class or interacted with the facilitator completed the course successfully.” (Nagel, Blignaut and Cronjé, 2009) 

           

Throughout my research I found that most students felt that they needed to have an interaction with the teacher in order to better their learning experiences.  The research that I found on a study done about teachers allowing students to interview them on the first day is conclusive with the data from the survey.  The article states ”This interaction provides the opportunity to begin forming relationships with their peers early in the course.” (Hermann, 2008)  This was a useful piece of information because it shows that the interaction between the instructor and the student is a crucial aspect of the learning experience.  This statement also backs up the research that I found from my surveys when I asked the question “If you had the choice to take all online classes would you? Why or Why not?”  In response to this question one student stated “No I like having the teacher teaching me stuff and I like having her available to ask questions and to explain something.”

 

Another interesting thing that I found while conducting this research is that in my survey questions I asked my fellow students about online classes and whether or not they felt that a face to face class provided a better learning experience.  The results from this did not surprise me at all.  Every single student that participated in the survey answered that yes face to face classes were better than online as far as learning experiences are concerned.  There is research to the contrary on this subject.  In the study done by Serhan it states that “The results indicated that even with the disadvantages to online learning, without it some students would not be able to continue their studies.” (Serhan 2010)  This is contradictory to my research in that the students that I surveyed would rather take a class that is face to face. 

             

           

I found through the surveys that I gave that most students feel that in order for them to get anything from the class they have to actively participate in the class environment as a whole.  Whether that be doing the readings or even participating in discussions.  When I asked this question in the survey I got the same type of response from every student.  Some examples of the responses included.  “Participating in class discussions helps you to prepare for exams.”  Or “Yes being involved in the class helps me to be a better student because I know what’s going on and can hear it from different points of view.”  This being said there was a study that was conducted that wanted to find out whether face to face interaction better benefited the students.  The study found that “Students in the fully asynchronous class, in contrast, were inclined to continue a discussion thread, while those in face-to-face discussions generally tended to respond only to the instructor’s questions and not to each other.” (Vess, 2005)  This statement contradicts what I learned from the survey.  Most students who took my survey said that they enjoyed participating in the discussion or felt that they were important because they got to get different points of view from classmates.  But the results of this study tend to disagree because Vess found that the majority of the discussions were between the teacher and the student.   

 

 By conducting my observations of the class I felt that when the students were actively participating in the discussion they received many different points of view from other students as well as the instructor.  On some occasions there were students that took complete control of the situation and the teacher didn’t have to do anything but call on students who had their hands up.  On other days it was obvious that no one had done the readings and everyone continued to look down at their papers hoping the Professor wouldn’t call on them. 

            Taking into consideration the surveys and observation, I have come to a conclusion that has more than answered my research question “In what ways does participation in online and face-to-face classes impact student learning experiences?”  Given the vast amount of research on this topic I have come to the conclusion that participation in any way significantly helps to impact a student and greatly improve their learning experiences.  Whether this participation comes from participating in discussions online or face to face, or simply doing the work that is required for the class.  A student must put forth some type of effort so that they can in turn not just simply get a good grade but also take something away from the class.

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