Research Exercise Report
Abstract
Teaching styles and activities have received considerable attention. A substantial evidence has indicated that the behavior of students is influenced by a number of factors which have long term outcomes to their success in school. There is some evidence that teaching styles and activities have had influence on the student’s class behavior. Concerning the relevance of adjustment in adaptive behaviors of the students and improved learning, this study was done to investigate the effect of teaching styles and activities on the student’s class behavior. The research focused predominantly on how the teaching styles and activities affect the student’s class behavior which is equally essential in the long term success of the student. The study compared a number of teaching styles and activities to the students’ behavior to characterize the effect of teaching styles and activities to their behaviors in class. The study relied on a mixed research method to study the behavior of students. The study findings indicated a positive correlation between the student’s class behavior and the teaching styles and activities. Considerably, the findings are effective since they have indicated a positive hypothesis. These findings have offered an empirical evidence to the well-established hypothesis that the student’s class behavior is significantly correlated with teachers’ styles and activities.
Methodology
Following by the time, the education industry continues to reinvent itself, proving that the teaching methods were gradually updated as well, and the situation promoted the birth of the flipped class. Compared with traditional type, the flipped class can better exchange the roles of teachers and students, and create a personalized as well as a cooperative learning environment, therefore; flipped class is a class that will interchange the part of delivering knowledge and absorbing knowledge (Zhang et al., 2012). At the same time, a better understanding of educational performance can help teachers better design classes and understand students’ learning aspirations. Educational achievement is measured as the student performance in the class, the teaching methods (Devadoss and Foltz, 1996). Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine whether students’ behavior would change with different class patterns.
In this paper, we will elaborate on which research method to achieve the research goal. Then, we will interpret the data collection and justified in detail, present the population and sample, and then analyze the data. Finally, ethical issues will be addressed. We will use a mixed survey method to conduct research. This research method is to select a group of objects as research samples, and then quantitatively and qualitatively investigate and analyze the data to better understand the research questions.
Quantitative research can be conducted on a sample of a better group, quantitatively or numerically describing the trend, attitude or opinion of the group, and summarizing or inferring the overall survey design method from the sample results (Creswell, 2014). However, qualitative research is flexible and often widely used to explain behaviors and attitudes, and is a complete variable, structure, and hypothesis (Creswell, 2014). The combination of the two methods can make the research results and data more accurate. In addition, some behaviors may be overlooked because of the use of quantitative analysis and will not appear in the questionnaire. Therefore, in order to further clarify the relationship between student behavior and the way of class, we will add qualitative research in this study.
Different methods have been used to study educational performance and collect relevant information. Most scholars use quantitative or qualitative research (Devadoss and Foltz, 1996; Hijazi and Naqvi, 2006; McLaughlin et al., 2013; Missildine, 2013; Szparagowski, 2014). Consider the need for this paper, we will utilize a mixed research method, that is, a combination of qualitative research and quantitative research to conduct semi-interviews in this research. Mixed research methods include collecting quantitative and qualitative data and mixing two forms of data to more fully understand research questions (Creswell, 2014).
Hypothesis
In order to verify these relationships, one hypothesis is based on the behavior of students in the class, which is developed based on the information collected in the questionnaire. It is assumed that the behavior of students in class as it is:
H1: The students’ class behavior is significantly correlated with the teachers’ class style and class activities.
Data collection
From this survey, the data were collected from one university – the Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (EAHM) – which has a student enrollment of approximately 500, respectively, in 2019. The data were collected during the 2019 autumn trimester from different grade levels, and about 120 students involved. Out of these students, only those were selected at random who were voluntarily willing to fill out the survey. All 120 questionnaires were filled with the response rate of 100% out of which 60 were males and 60 females. In addition, to ensure more accurate data, we selected 10 students for further interviews.
In order to collect the data, a self-completion survey was created using a five-point Likert scale, based on the finding of student educational wishes. Each survey took about 3-5 minutes and hand-by-hand which survey sent to the student. The survey was divided into the following 6 sections: (1) travel preferences; (2) educational preferences; (3) currently participate or would like to participate in during class; (4) identify studying in the flipped classroom or not; (5) motivate to participate in the flipped classroom by watching video; (6) demographic. The questionnaire used a Likert scale, among “1” stand for strongly disagree, “5” stand for strongly agree. Besides, in section 2, “1” stands for currently do, “3” stands for would not like do. And a mixed method was used, where semi-interviews were conducted with the student of the EAHM in order to obtain the relevant information. All interview questions are based on questionnaire questions. However, the additional question will ask in the semi-interviews.
With obtaining this information, it will help develop results to answer the research question and to know student educational wishes, and help the teacher to better design the classes. Before conducting any of the surveys, a pilot test was done with the RESH course instructor, where it followed the same structure of the surveys.
Population and Sample
The target population for this study is the student in the Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management (EAHM). A comprehensive list of the students of EAHM, as of October 2019, was used. The researchers believe that the list is the best representative of the actual population available. The students of EAHM were requested to complete a questionnaire, and the participation was voluntary. The theme of the study is “ Whether the behavior of the students will change accordingly by the difference in the teaching methods delivered”. As the researchers collected the data within the EAHM, it enables researchers to use the paper-based questionnaire for the quantitative method to collect the data without having to worry about low responding from the students. The purpose of the research questions is to understand whether students will act in a different way due to the delivering of the course change from tradition class to flipped class. As for the qualitative method, we selected ten students in the interviews and all of them agreed to participate in this study. Before the formal study took place, the researchers conducted a pilot study to make sure the research was able to present in better quality. The form of the interview is semi- interview, and below is the table of the demographic profile of the participants who were interviewed.
Ethical Concerns
Considerably, it was essential for the researcher to be aware and create awareness to the respondent about the research ethics. Research ethics is related to how the research will be carried out without significant impact to the respondent. The researcher had to ensure that they are within the responsibilities and obligations of a research to be truthful during the interview. The study was done with fairness and justice by elimination the potential threats and challenges that might occur during the research such as low responses from the participants. Permission to carry out the research was requested from the student participants that were involved during the study. The respect and dignity for the people engaged in the research was obtained since they were offered a chance to choose whether they will participate in the research or not. Confidentiality and anonymity of the data provided was highly valued and considered as well as the informed consent of the participant. Before conducting the research, the respondents were informed about the research, the significance of the research and how the data will be used. The participants were then asked to offer a verbal consent related to their willingness to be part of the research respondents.
Data Analysis
When the researchers finished collecting the data from the questionnaires and the semi-interviews, they started to analyze the data. The data were analyzed in descriptive statistics and the researchers utilized correlation tests to run the data. The correlation test determines whether there is any significant relationship between two variables (Investtopedia, 2019). Through running the data with correlation tests, it helped the researchers to understand the relationship between the behavior of the students and the teaching method of the class.
Usually, the data collected from the normal style of interview is analyzed by using content analysis. Within the content analysis, there are the most basic types, which are conceptual analysis and rational analysis (Palmquist, n.d.). The concept analysis from the researchers is through the number of topics and words that appears in the article to determine the crucial new topic, and find out any possible difference occurred (Palmquist, n.d.). As for the process of the method of rational analysis is that the researchers need to state the relationship between the main concepts, and how the two concepts can relate to each other (CSU, 2004). As the style of the interviews in this paper is semi-interviews, so the data isn’t as complete as the normal interviews, therefore; the researchers were not capable to use content analysis to analyze the contents.
Basis Analysis
Results show that the class behavior is significantly correlated to the with the teacher’s class style and class activities. Examining the correlations of the teaching activities and styles, it is clear that the styles vary considerably in their ability to influence the class behavior and varying student outcomes. As hypothesized, there is a strong correlation between the class style and activities to the class behavior. A strong correlation of 0.49 between flipped method of teaching and the ability of students to ask questions. The flipped method of teaching is whereby the lecture content is moved from face to face class time to before the teaching session through assigning it as homework. Considerably this allows for more interactive forms in learning that take place in the class. For instance, this may involve students watching the lecture content as videos which are given as their homework. Another strong correlation of 0.21 is observed between the traditional method of teaching and class listening. The student’s behavior in such a class is different but substantively significant. One possible interpretation of these results is that teachers that are able to improve the interaction of learning are effective in raising the behaviors and attitudes of the students.
Critical Analysis
The findings have indicated the perspectives of teaching styles and activities and their influence to class behavior. The teaching styles and activities have had great influence on the student behavior. According to the data obtained, it is clear that the teacher’s teaching style can increasingly affect the behavior of the students in class. The teaching style is not only the method of teaching that is used in class but also something that relates to the exchange and interaction of the teacher and the student in the learning environment. The teaching styles such as use of education games, flipped teaching and traditional teaching method among others show that they are positively related to the student’s behavior in class. For instance, the traditional method is where the teacher directs the student to study through recitation and memorization techniques. Considerably, this affects the student’s behavior since they fail to apply decision making and problem solving skills. On the other hand, flipped teaching method is whereby the student reads and watch assigned videos outside their class hours or as their homework. Students show a strong understanding and more focused during discussion and working on the activities to apply the theory or event to work on case studies. Flipped and education games have increased the student interaction in class since they can understand and apply the concepts during the class. This is because the students are allowed to consume the lecture content at their own pace. They are able to interpret and ask for clarifications during the class. The findings show that flipped classroom improve the interaction and engagement of students in class. The correlations between the student behavior and the teaching style are positive which creates an impression that the effectiveness of teaching is highly affected by the method used in class. The class behavior has been profoundly shaped by teaching styles and activities.
Reference
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Palmquist, M. (n.d.) Content analysis. Available from: https://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~palmquis/courses/content.html [Accessed: 10 November 2019].
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