THE EFFECTS OF TEACHER’S DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTIONS BASED ON STUDENTS’ LEARNING STYLES ON THEIR MOTIVATION

Aims, objectives and research questions of the research This study is supposed to examine the relationship among three concepts learning styles, differentiated instructions and academic

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Statement of the problem

The researcher has recently identified some questionable problems in her reading class: 1) the students were not motivated enough to actively join in class activities; 2) some students were somehow more involved in certain activities while sometimes the others even showed no interest in these ones at all Different activities may evoke different reactions and feelings from different students Moreover, because learning style is an influential factor on motivation, teacher’s accommodation to students’ different learning mode appears to probably raise the level of motivation For the aforementioned reasons, the researcher decided to start an action research

project named “The effects of teacher’s differentiated instructions based on students’ learning styles on their motivation.”

2 Aims, objectives and research questions of the research

This study is supposed to examine the relationship among three concepts

learning styles, differentiated instructions and academic motivation in higher

education classroom setting In the light of that general aim, some specific objectives are drawn up to outline the actual directions of the study as follows:

1) To identify the given class’s learning styles and current level of academic motivation;

2) To project and implement some instructional differentiations upon the students’ different learning modalities aiming to improve their academic motivation; 3) To evaluate the impact of the psycho-pedagogical intervention on the students’ motivation level

b Research questions

1) What are the students’ learning styles and their current level of motivation? (Identifying the problem)

2) To what extent does the new intervention cater for the students’ learning styles? 3) How does differentiated instruction approach affect the students’ motivation level in terms of their motivational intensity, lecturer evaluation and English learning desire?

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Key Concepts

1.1 Learning styles

a Definition of learning styles

Among these countless trees, there is one oak which should not and cannot be ignored The definition by Keefe (1979) has been mentioned in lots of learning style research (Reid, 1987; Willing, 1988; Coffield, 2004) “Learning styles are characteristic cognitive, affective, and physiological behaviors that serve as relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment … learning style is a consistent way of functioning, that reflects the underlying causes of learning behaviors.” (p 40)

b Learning style theories, models and measures

Dunn and Dunn’s VAK/ VAKT models

Dominant learning styles

V: Visual A: Auditory K: Kinesthetic T: Tactile

Joy Reid’s VAKT model

Reid’s VAKT was basically similar to that of Dunn and Dunn with more than two styles These two, group and individual were also very important in student’s process of gaining and retaining knowledge Hence, from the researcher’s viewpoint, Reid’s model was more complete to some extent As a result, in the scope of this research, Reid’s model will be used thoroughly

1.2 Differentiated instruction (Teaching style/ teaching approach)

Differentiating instruction means teachers’ “adjusting the curriculum and presentation of information to learners rather than expecting students to modify themselves for the curriculum” (Hall, Strangman & Meyer, 2003)

To differentiate instruction is to recognize students' varying background knowledge, readiness, language, preferences in learning and interests; and to react responsively Differentiated instruction is a process to teaching and learning for students of differing abilities in the same class The intent of differentiating instruction is to maximize each student's growth and individual success by meeting each student where he or she is and assisting in the learning process.

(Hall, Strangman & Meyer, 2003) 1.3 Motivation

a Definition of motivation

In this study, the definition by Wlodwoski (1985, p 2, quoted by Root, 1999) will be used thoroughly Motivation is regarded as “the processes that can (a) arouse and instigate behavior, (b) give direction or purpose to behavior, (c) continue to allow behavior to persist, and (d) lead to choosing or preferring a particular behavior.”

b Motivation model - Components of motivation

Based on Gardner’s construct and these studies, Dörnyei has integrated all the components into one construct with three components specifically as follows:

Figure 5: Components of foreign language learning motivation

(Dörnyei, 1994, p 280)

2 Related studies

2.1 Evidence of effectiveness of differentiated instruction as a classroom practice

When reviewing the studies about differentiating instructions, Hall, Strangman and Meyer (2003) noticed that there was not much existent empirical research to

prove the theory validity As a result, the gap in the literature of this area can be acknowledged and further studies in future should be necessarily encouraged

Despite the shortage of empirical research, a significant quantity of testimonials and classroom examples were provided by the authors of several publications and web sites Tomlinson (2000) reports the promising results (improvements in classrooms) of the application of the full model of differentiation in some educational settings Initially, this instruction process was introduced to gifted learners who did have much difficulty in acquiring the content

The main drawback of this approach is teachers’ unfamiliarity with this concept when they all can picture exactly how a “single-size instruction class” is due

to their experience over many years It means the difficulty which teachers must encounter when it comes to imagine what a differentiated instruction class look and feel like (Tomlinson, 2001)

2.2 Differentiated instruction and learning style

The link between differentiated instruction and learning style can be recognized easily The latter is possibly considered as the motivational cause for the former According to learning style theory, no learners are alike In other words, they are of different abilities, interest, learning needs and learning styles (characteristic cognitive, affective, and physiological behaviors) Differentiating instruction which has been employed for gifted and talented students for the last two decades is definitely not new Now it is used widely as an effective teaching tool to address students’ different learning style and thereby engaging them to make learning progress

2.3 Differentiated instruction and ESL/ EFL motivation (In the world and

in Vietnam)

Differentiating instructions in classroom provides a wide range of activities, which helps every student “find learning a better fit much of the time” (Tomlinson, 2001), thereby increasing their motivation to attend class

Tulbure (2011) who did research to investigate the correlation among three key terms learning styles, differentiation and intrinsic motivation found out that differentiating instructions according to pupils’/students’ learning styles contributes to the improvement of the level of intrinsic academic motivation and achievement

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

1 Participants

The class which was investigated and took the intervention consists of 26 second-year students They had just finished their first year at university and were going to start the second year when this study was undertaken Their ages range from

19 to 21 years old (with the vast majority born in the early 1990s) The female numbers which account for roughly 89% of the total outweigh the number of males The class students come from different hometown: 23% from cities or the suburbs, 57.7% from countryside, 11.5% from coastal area in the Central and 7.7% from mountainous area Although the same curriculum by the Ministry of Education and Training applied in every primary, secondary and high school in Vietnam, students from different areas will receive different education due to the conditions of facilities and the quality of teaching staff in each region (not mention students’ intrinsic difference)

2 Research instruments

a Learning style inventory

The researcher decided to adapt Perceptual Learning-Style Preference Questionnaire (PLSPQ) developed by Reid (1984) as the measuring instrument of students’ learning styles, particularly for learners of foreign language

The survey was validated by the split-half method Originally, one subset of the learning styles consisted of 10 statements which then were reduced into 5 each after a correlation analysis The “user-friendly” PLSPQ consisted of 30 randomly-ordered

statements which should be responded on the 5-point Likert scale ranging “strong disagree to strongly agree” Some questions were repeated to increase the internal consistency of the questionnaire after being paraphrased a bit The PLSPQ questionnaire also included its scoring sheet which guided the user how to elicit the respondent’s learning styles via 30 questions

b Motivation questionnaire (adapted from Gardner’s AMTB)

The questionnaire consists of 30 items which can be divided into 3 categories (ten item each): motivational intensity, English writing teacher evaluation and desire

to learn English Among 10 items of each scale, there are positively keyed and negatively keyed ones However, all of these items are presented randomly in the survey without the three category names (see Figure 10) Each item can be responded on

a 6-point scale Likert (omitted the middle scale in a seven-point scale: undecided or neutral for a “forced choice” survey)

Scale Positively keyed Questionnaire item no. Negatively keyed Motivational Intensity 1, 5, 8, 13, 14 20, 22, 25, 26, 30

English reading teacher

evaluation 2, 4, 6, 9, 11 16, 17, 19, 23, 28 Desire to learn English 3, 7, 10, 12, 15 18, 21, 24, 27, 29

Figure 10: AMTB questionnaire keys

c Interviews with the students

Semi-structured interview is selected for this study because of its flexibility and its possibility of efficient data elicitation (Dowsett, 1986, quoted in To and Nguyen, 2009) Some guiding questions are prepared in advance to guide both the interviewer and the interviewees to keep on right track of the study purpose and avoid wasting time with off-track questions All the questions are in the form of open-ended ones so

as to draw out the most information from the interviewees The interviews with students are undertaken to gather the data about the students’ motivation Two interviews were conducted after the first and second time of delivering the AMTB after the intervention Three students were selected, based on the marks and the most significant change in their marks between the first and the second AMTB

d Classroom self-observation checklist or teacher-researcher’s reflection

Because this was an action research, the teacher-researcher self-observed herself in class This brought both advantages and disadvantages Observations in other kinds of research sometimes may come across some obstacles such as teacher’s objection to observation, teacher’s unreal simulation or students’ discontent Self-observation could happen quite naturally, flexibly and smoothly However, taking two roles at the same time could occasionally distract her from either of the task (usually the observation task) because of total concentration on the other As a result, self-reflection form was needed for the teacher to fill in right after the lesson so that she could remember exactly to every detail which took place in class time

3 Procedure of data collection

/

/

/

Phase 1: PLSPQ and AMTB questionnaire + interview with some students

Self-observation

Interview with the students

Phase 2: Intervention (differentiated instructions

by learning styles)

Figure 11: The research first cycle

4 Procedure of data analysis

The AMTB motivation questionnaire will be collected and analyzed according

to the scoring sheet (see Appendix 4) Each items of the AMTB survey has a

numerical value ranging from 1 to 6 Positively keyed items have ascending value from “strongly disagree” (1 point) to “strong agree” (6) while negatively keyed ones have descending value from “strongly disagree” (6) to “strongly agree” (1) The maximum mark a respondent can gain is 180 when he/she chooses all strongly agrees for positively keyed items and all strongly disagrees for negatively keyed ones One the other hand, the minimum mark is 30, which means choosing all 1-point-value alternatives The mark can be interpreted as: the more points a person gets in this survey, the more motivated he/she is The interviews with the students, classroom observation and student’s diaries will be coded, transcribed, analyzed and quoted as the evidence in the study All the collected data cooperated to help the researcher gain

a thorough overview on the problems and seek out the best solutions

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

1 Research questions 1: the students’ learning styles and their motivation level before the intervention

1.1 Learning styles

The students’ learning preferences and their performance in each learning style are displayed in Figure 12

Self-reflection

54.5

62.5

71

30

20.3

75

46

37.5

30

50

62

8.4

12.5

21

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Learning Style Preferences

Major Minor Negative

To sum up, the students in the class did have different preferences when learning Tactile, kinesthetic and auditory were the learning styles most of them found comfortable and good to learn in, visual learning style was the minor learning

modality of the majority of the class whereas these students expressed their strongest

negative preference for working individually

1.2 Motivation level before the intervention

Figure 13: The participants’ level of motivation before the intervention

In short, the students’ intrinsic motivation level is quite high, but it seems to be badly influenced by the “uninteresting” and “inappropriate” teaching methodology Therefore, the motivational intensity is also decreased moderately

2 Research question 2: the teacher’s differentiated instructions cater for the students’ learning styles

2.1 Description of new intervention (differentiated instructions)

Differentiation must provide a balance of learning for all students to expose their unique learning styles so that they could have the best chance to gain necessary skills, knowledge and thereby achieving success (Anderson, 2007, cited in Fenner, Mansour & Sydor, 2010)

The intervention called differentiation project was conducted over a six-week period from September 2012 to October 2012 In light of the research objectives, a set

of stages had been planned:

 Differentiate class activities to cater the students’ learning styles to raise motivation