CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 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.” 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 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) 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 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) 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 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 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 Motivational Intensity English reading teacher Questionnaire item no Positively keyed Negatively keyed 1, 5, 8, 13, 14 20, 22, 25, 26, 30 2, 4, 6, 9, 11 16, 17, 19, 23, 28 evaluation 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 Selfobservation 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, selfreflection 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 Procedure of data collection Phase 1: PLSPQ and AMTB questionnaire + interview with some students / Selfobservation Interview with the students Phase 2: Intervention (differentiated instructions by learning styles) / / / Figure 11: The research first cycle Selfreflection 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 to 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 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 Figure 12 Students’ Perceptual Learning Style Preferences 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 10 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 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 11 • Evaluate the students’ motivation each month to keep track of their progress Procedure of the intervention Teacher’s self-observation and reflection helped record what happened in the classroom The intervention was a week-by-week action project which lasted for six weeks According to the syllabus, the 3A course started at the beginning of September and lasted for fifteen weeks The researcher project tried to cover half of the semester (before mid-term test) Week and week in the syllabus were pre-process stages in which problem was identified with the first surveys and interview with the students The intervention was adapted starting from week to week of the syllabus 2.2 The extent of the accommodation to learning styles by differentiated instruction strategies The first thing was the integration of different skills into one reading lesson Secondly, a wide range of assignments was used to offer the students of different levels and ability good opportunities to learn contribute and expose their strength (drawing, presenting, critical thinking, etc.) About grouping, working individually, in pairs, small groups and the whole class were used alternatively and flexibly in the class to avoid the monotony and vary the chance every student could work in the environment they feel the most comfortable In addition, the roles of the teacher were changed from a powerful instructor into “a conductor of the orchestra” The teacher sometimes provided the students with necessary knowledge or simply told them what to search for and let them it themselves By giving as much responsibility as possible to her students, the teacher had more time to observe the class and support the low-performing students Research question 3: the progress of the students’ motivation level during the intervention The results of three times of delivering the AMTB were presented together as follows: 12 Figure 14: Motivational intensity over a six-week period (Sept to Oct 2012) The first line graph indicates the change in motivational intensity of the students involved in the research from September to October 2012 The most notable trend belonged to the highest grade group 41-60 points Meanwhile, the number of those who got less than 20 points declined considerably from nearly 27% in September to only 7.8% in October Unlike these two vibrant groups, the other mark group (21-40 points) remained quite stable with a slight fall in October Overall, over the investigated period the intensity of motivation among the students appeared to grow significantly 13 Figure 15: English teacher evaluation over a six-week period (Sept to Oct 2012) The above line graph reveals another component of the students’ motivation: teacher evaluation during the same two-month period of the research project It is quite easy to recognize both upward and downward trend from this graph Like motivational intensity, the lowest grade group (10-20 points) tended to drop rapidly during the intervention Likewise, the percentage of the students in middle group showed a moderate fall in September before rising slowly in to end at 46.1% in the last week of October The highest group increased quite sharply by October, but then reduced its growing speed in the second half of the period In short, the students seem to evaluate the teacher in a more positive way 14 Figure 16: Desire to learning English over a six-week period (Sept to Oct 2012) The last component named English learning desire was shown in the third line graph above The most noticeable thing is no students seemed to long to study English; therefore, all the students gained more than 20 points in this section The highest grade group experienced a gradual increase in the first month and has remained constant since then The reverse pattern was true for the last group CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSIONS The results of the study showed that: 15 First of all, learning style was investigated to be the foundation to which the teacher could tailor suitable teaching method The most fundamental finding of this research was to figure out the major (tactile, kinesthetic and auditory), minor (visual) and negative learning styles (working individually) Therefore, the chosen intervention was differentiation which suggests a various methods (both matching and mismatching along with others) to cater for a large number of students instead of some The second finding of this study shows that differentiated instructions of the teacher had tailored class activities to fit all kinds of learning styles A particular learning style has chance to learn in their best condition, but simultaneously step out of their comfort zone to approach other learning styles to learn more flexibly and increase their adaptability The last finding, also the most important one of the study was the increasing level of the students’ motivation The motivation was raised significantly in terms of motivational intensity, teacher evaluation, and learning desire Some conclusions could be drawn from the major findings as follows: - Students are not alike in their learning, so their LS should be identified and understood thoroughly - Teachers' instructions should be tailored and differentiated in accordance with students' learning styles for motivation - Different methods should be employed to both accommodate students' learning styles and encourage them to step out of the comfort zones 16 ... 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. .. cater the students’ learning styles to raise motivation 11 • Evaluate the students’ motivation each month to keep track of their progress Procedure of the intervention Teacher’s self-observation... 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,