Following The American Psychological Institution’s Guidelines Research Paper Sample

Instructional Learning and Student’s Leaving Class

Instructional Learning and Student’s Leaving Class
There are many issues facing teachers today. Students can have many problems that need addressed; one of the primary subjects tend to revolve around boredom and focus. Many students have a problem maintaining focus in certain learning environments, and sometimes even make excuses to leave specific learning environments because they become so bored. One such environment involves instructional learning. Researchers published an article entitled, “Student Instruction In A Student-Centered Peer Instruction Classroom,” that address these matters, and attempt to change them .
The area of focus for the article was primarily to learn about students’ level of focus, as well as how instructional learning affected their focus. The research, involving researchers Simon, Esper, Porter, and Cutts, involved both teaching and learning. Researchers wanted to assess the methods in which teachers were using to instruct students, and if peer instruction made a difference . The researchers also wanted to assess if students were able to learn differently, or manage to focus on a higher level in different instructional environments. The study lasted for approximately one month. The first two weeks sought to assess the focus level of students in instructional situations delivered by teachers, while the final two weeks were reserved for instructional situations involving peers . While the amount of time allotted for research was adequate, the scope of research was not. For example, there was no control; there should have been a group not subjected to instructional educational environments in order to gauge a student’s focus level regardless of delivery method in accordance with results published in Teaching and Teacher Education .
Concerning this specific research, there was no true locus of control. Researchers could control who was delivering instructions to the students, i.e. peers or teachers, as well as how interesting the material was . Researchers were also able to control how often students received instruction. However, if students were unable to focus based on instructional educational environments, which according to Nancy K. Martin and associates’ is possible, there would be no way for researchers to control the class’ level of focus regardless of the different instructional delivery methods . The data collection techniques were quantitative, as well as quantitative. For example, during instructional sessions, it was measured how many students attempted to find excuses to leave the classroom. Many would suddenly need to use the bathroom, go to their locker, or visit the nurse. Researchers rated the success of teacher to peer instructional value based on how many students attempted to leave the classroom. Results were also gathered qualitatively, based on how many students successfully passed tests given concerning the information during instructional sessions . Despite the fact that the researchers did not ask the appropriate range of research questions, the data collection was sound for the research questions covered. Fortunately, no ethical concerns were faced during the study during research.
The results revealed students were equally unreceptive to instructional education performed by teachers and peers, but for different reasons. It was found by researchers that the same students were unresponsive to both methods, causing researchers to assume there was an underlying cause to the lack of focus . Further research reveals several students who have difficulty focusing on certain methods of teaching essentially have difficulty learning in certain ways, or are possibly burnt out from excessive but predictable student stressors . Despite the alternate research findings, the researchers thus concluded many students were simply unable to focus during instructional education, primarily because varieties of instructionally educational methods were used. It was found to be at no fault of the educator, but that of the student; teachers and peers were both used to give instruction. Furthermore, they were both given a varying amount of material to use as instruction . The researchers assumed if the instructional education was interesting, students would focus. When the number of students lacking focus, attempting to leave the class, or receiving poor test scores did not vary, it was assumed the student was the failure.
I did not learn much directly from this study. Primarily, I realized that some studies are not performed to adequate proportions, thus leaving some vital information out of final reports. To illustrate, the primary research decided the students would not focus, rather than doing adequate research that would have explained simply that many students have different learning styles and find auditory learning difficult. Had the research included auditory instructional learning, as well as kinesthetic and visual, or any other combination of learning styles, it could have been found that it was not instructional education, but simply the learning style that students could not focus on. Moreover, it was students who continued to create excuses to leave the classroom during instructional periods. Different learning styles would have only needed to be experimented on this group of students in an effort to separate difficulty focusing from difficulty learning. For the final course, I will be happy to apply these lessons. I will not take research at face value, and I will make sure to perform extra research in an effort to obtain accurate answers.
In sum, the research did find many students had difficulty paying attention during instructional education sessions. Through qualitative and quantitative data collection, it proved to not matter whether peers or a teacher delivered the instructions. However, researchers neglected to study a control group. Additionally, they did not account for difficulty with specific learning styles, assuming the students simply refused to focus when their scores did not improve. While instructional education was not fitting for these students, and they attempted to leave class often, it did not mean they were intentionally attempting to avoid focus; they could have been predisposed to different styles of learning.

References

Martin, N. K., Sass, D. A., & Schhmitt, T. A. (2012). Teacher efficacy in student engagement, instructional management, student stressors, and burnout: A theoretical model using in-class variables to predict teachers' intent-to-leave. Teaching and Teacher Education, 546-559.
Simon, B., Esper, S., Porter, L., & Cutts, Q. (2013). Student experience in a student-centered peer instruction classroom. ACM, 129-136.