Action Research: Increasing students’ performance as to

develops their class participation in the KCAST institution.

Context and Rationale

On many college and university campuses, classroom participation is a feature of
many course designs. It can result in insightful comments and interesting connections
being made by students, and can foster a high level of energy and enthusiasm in the
classroom learning environment. However, poorly managed participation can also lead
to instructor frustration and student confusion. As Hollander (2002) discusses the need
to present participation as a collective responsibility of the class rather than just an
individual responsibility. In order to facilitate a conversation where connections are
made, students need to view their participation as a contribution to a shared experience.
Asking students to respond to a peer’s response helps to facilitate a conversation. As
well, positively reinforcing such contributions builds this sense of collectivism.
In the Philippines, as stated by (et al., 2013) Class participation is required in
many college courses. Some courses, particularly in higher-level business courses, give
heavier weights to class participation a survey by Townsend (1986) found that up to
94.3% of Strategic Management courses included it as a component in a student’s
performances and grade. What constitutes as “class participation” varies among
professors, researchers, and students. According to Fritschner (2000), faculty classify
student participation into six discrete levels, with each higher level represents greater
quality of engagement. These levels include: breathing and staying awake; coming to
class, taking notes, doing assignments, writing reflective and thoughtful papers; asking
questions in class, making comments, and providing inputs for class discussion; doing
additional research and coming to class with additional questions, and making oral
presentations where students become the teacher.
In addition which noted above and evidenced in the literature, from the student
point of view, Young (2000) formulated seven factors to measure course involvement,
namely working hard; interacting with the instructor outside of class; refraining from
negative behavior during class; displaying good group citizenship; exhibiting positivity;
punctuality and attendance, and; participating in class discussions. The study found that
students considered displaying good group citizenship and attendance as more
indicative of course involvement, compared to participating in class discussions. Many
studies have suggested that what constitutes as “class participation” be broadened. For
example, Vandrick (2000) proposed that class participation should include nonverbal
cues and written work by more quiet students. Steel (2013) recommended aligning the
course towards a “reflective engagement with classmates as part of a community of
learning and social development.” As such, simply sitting quietly and listening actively
can be considered as valid participation so long as the student’s reflections can be
shared in class in some way since the numbers of students where have less class
participation was identified by instructors and administrators is considerably smaller
than the amount identified by anonymous surveys administered by many researchers.
In KCAST way back in time where one of these steps is to prevent students from having
less class participation in the classroom. Banning electronic equipment such as cell
phones, PDAs and laptops should help prevent students from having distraction and
being distracted or losing their focus in the classroom wherein it can less the
performance of the students. It is very important to have such rules and regulations in
the classroom to help the students focused on the classroom to give there 100% class
participation. Every student would be required to read the activities policy and sign their
name to acknowledge that they have read it and agree with its requirements. At the very
least, the policy should indicate that losing their focus maybe be affected not only their
progress but also their grades and performance that they needed to in order to be more
productive as a students.
In relation in today’s educational framework which is the blended learning system
in the institution of Kapalong College Agriculture Sciences and Technology where is the
primary medium in learning is the students availability in technology, as per mentioned
above, students class participation nowadays are very low in compared to before.
Students nowadays are less passionate to their studies and become lazy and became
more irresponsible. Students will ne easily deceived and distracted by any factors that
can cause distraction to them, they become irresponsible wherein they even not did
their 100% efforts in answering modules and examination, they more become
dependent. With regards to this problems, Teachers and the institution must made an
action wherein students must give their full participation in every learning task and
activities that will be given to them. In order to the students to be more productive and
more participative, institution and teachers must find alternative to address this
problems that occurs. Instead of giving too much modules and wherein answering
multiple choices and explanation, why not make some entertainment activities where
students will be entertained as well as learned. So in this way students must give their
full participation and become more productive as a students.
As conclusion, Academic integrity of KCAST, as established in the research and
discussed above, faces numerous obstacles at a variety of academic institutions.
Student engagement in class is a vital feature of their education. Students learn to
communicate themselves in a way that others can understand when they speak out in
class. They learn how to collect information to improve their own comprehension of a
topic by asking questions. Teach kids the abilities they’ll need to take part. It’s possible
that students lack the necessary abilities to participate effectively. Ask your students
how they engaged in past classes and whether they might use some help in a
conversation about the qualities of good participation.