AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF ABSENT-MINDEDNESS AMONG HIGHER SECONDARY STUDENTS IN ACADEMIC LEARNING

An inquiry into the causes of absent mindedness among higher secondary students in academic learning

This research work tries to focus on making an inquiry into the causes of absentmindedness among higher secondary students to achieve content. This study was conducted based on my internship programme during B.Ed degree. Learning of any subject requires some conscious awareness among students to achieve the content knowledge in academics. So as to analyse the classroom behavior I conducted this study which simply focuses on their lapses of conscious awareness among higher secondary students. Higher secondary level of education is something that requires a concentrated pace of learning. The problem of absent mindedness heads a greater effect on their academic achievements. This problem is identified because this affected the whole classroom adversely. It makes the learning in a difficult way.

MAJOR CAUSES RELEVANT TO THE PROBLEM

 The study was mainly focused on the absentmindedness of the students in the classroom. Generally the classrooms become drier due to the dryness in syllabus and content areas they have to be covered. It creates a stress to students to cover the content areas within a period of time. I observed that students show lack of interest in learning. When I reached the class they seem to talk each other at loud sound. When I asked anything in an informal way they seems to be more enthusiastic for answering it and when I starts teaching the academic content students seems to be out of the world. And another cause I found that is the low state of span of attention. Students get bored due to the increased content which is beyond the normal memory capacity. From further observations I finalized that the absent mindedness is due to the intense attention to a single process of focus on learning that makes a person oblivious to events around them. Improper conveying of meaning of the content is a major problem. Lack of attractive layout of the textbook is also a major problem for easy learning. And also students may get distracted by the irrelevant thoughts or other environmental events. Teaching strategies and methods used had a greater effect on student attention. Due to the ineffective teaching strategies and methods adopted by the teacher students may get inattentive and that lead to absent mindedness in classroom situation. Students always learn what they feel right. All the contents that studied nowadays has no practical relevance. Teacher should be efficient enough to supply the environment which fosters practical support of the learned content. If the students does not feel that something is right that they sit simply absent minded. Students want to learn what they actually understood. If they are unaware about something they will not show any interest. So, understanding content and subject matter is important. And the analysis helped me to understand that family problems or family background situations is a major cause for absent mindedness . And proper learning will be difficult when if they have any learning difficulties. Non challenging syllabus is a major problem for learning. Every learning has a purpose. If the purpose is not known to students they get absent minded. And also another major problem is the information overload. These are all the major relevant causes that I have identified about the problem.

SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEM

                 The major solutions that I have drafted are as follows:

1. Make the student realize the importance of content.

2. Teacher should use positive reinforcement strategies

3. Teacher should pay individual attention to students.

4. Ask a random question in between lecturer is one way to let students participate in lecture.

5. Create an appealing learning environment, letting the students enjoy what they learn

6. Teacher should develop a friendly relationship with students.

7. Teacher should use innovative teaching strategies

8. Give the students more responsibilities in the classroom itself.

9. Inculcate more activities in learning or teaching the content

10. Inculcate ICT enabled methods in teaching. 

EVALUATION AND RESULTS

1. Teacher used the positive reinforcement and students reacted to it in a positive behavioural attitude.

2. Asking random question in between lecturers helped teacher control the class in a better way.

3. It helped the teacher to create an appealing learning environment,letting the students enjoy what they learn.

4. This helped the teacher to create friendly relationship with students.

5. Students were attracted more towards the innovative teaching strategies used by the teacher.

6.  As a result and reaction to the well used teaching strategy students carefully listened to the lecture.

CONCLUSION

 The present study focuses on absent mindedness of students in academic learning. Absent mindedness is a major threat in academic learning of students. The problem of lack of attention and loss of focus point reveals the problem. The problem of absent mindedness is a serious problem in academic learning. The main reason for being absent minded is due to lack of focus and attention. When they are not attentive they do not remember well what they have heard in the class. The study recommended that the teacher should develop a positive relationship with students and stress classroom activities and implement various peer learning activities that will reduce the student lapses of conscious awareness in classroom learning. This study helped me a lot in understanding the teacher’s problems in absent mindedness of students and also the problems and solutions that are introduced by teachers to make up the problems.