Study of attention getting behaviors of secondary school teachers in learning-teaching process with regard to the opinions of teachers and students

This research was conducted in order to investigate the attention getting behaviors of middle school teachers in the learning-teaching process, levels of inclusion in these behaviors and factors affecting the attention with regards to the opinions of teacher and students. The study was figured as a descriptive study in the screening model. The population is composed of teachers who work in secondary schools in the province of Adana (Seyhan, Yüreğir, Çukurova, Sarıçam) and students who attend these schools in the academic year 2014-2015. Proportional cluster sampling method was used to determine the sample of the study, and 20% of the existing schools in each district were selected based on the principle of neutrality. 432 teachers and 1023 students participated in the survey as a volunteer from 40 schools. In the collection of data, "Teachers' Attention Getting Behaviors Questionnaire-TAGBQ" was used which was developed by the researcher in line with the relevant literature and expert opinion. The questionnaire was developed for teachers and students in parallel and consists of three parts. In the first part, there are questions about getting personal information of participants. The second part is organized in 5-point Likert type and consists of 50 teacher behaviors aimed at attracting the attention of the students in the learning-teaching process. In the last section, there are open-ended questions about the subject. The data were collected during the academic year of 2014-2015 in April-June by visiting the schools by the researcher and the teacher practices were completed in 20-25 minutes on average and student practices were completed in 30-35 minutes on average. Student practices were made without disrupting teaching, in the classroom environment within a class hour determined by the teachers, teacher practices were made during breaks and lunch times. In the analysis of the research, quantitative data, the arithmetic average, and standard deviations of the scores each of the teachers and students obtained from 50 items in TAGBQ are calculated. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was conducted to examine whether there were any significant differences in the scores of students and teachers in terms of the variables studied, and it was examined whether the measurements at each level of each variable met the normality premise. The data were analyzed by non-parametric tests (Mann Whitney U-Test, Kruskal Wallis) as the results showed that the measurements did not meet normality premise. In the analysis of qualitative data, descriptive analysis technique was used. As a result of the research, it was observed that teachers perceived themselves more positively than the students about the frequency of giving attention getting behaviors in the learning-teaching process. Attention getting behaviors of teachers differed in terms of gender, branch, years of service, perceptions of students' academic achievement and attention levels. The most frequently exhibited behavior of teachers who think that they are not having difficulty in attracting the attention of students are responding to questions, appreciation of positive behaviors, appropriate course processing at the student level, providing silence in class, making associations with new knowledge, changing the tone of voice and emphasizing important places of subject. The least used strategy for getting attention was humor, and it was found to be used by male teachers more frequently. The results of the students have shown that teachers are trying to attract attention to the lesson mostly by providing silence and by saying question in the examination. In terms of gender-girls, in terms of class level fifth graders with students who perceive themselves as careful and academically successful indicate that teachers are showing getting attention behaviors frequently. Research revealed that teachers did not see themselves as a factor in the distractions experienced during the lesson and found that they perceive this situation as a problem related to the characteristics of the students. Students emphasized that as well as they agree with their teachers about the problems they have with attention are related to their failure to fulfill their particular academic responsibilities, in the second place they emphasized the negative effects about teachers' characteristics. Unlike their teachers, the students indicated that the family environment was not interested in distractions. Obtained results showed that distraction in lesson was noticed by both students and teachers but the teacher and student's views differed in terms of prevention of distraction. Teachers at this point pass the buck on students and indicated that students have to control themselves, school management and their families need to raise awareness on students. When his attention distracted, by focusing on teacher, student's expectation from teachers who are trying to establish eye contact with teacher is to show more interest in students, do not behave negatively when they are distracted and performing the lessons non-monotonically. Key Words: Learning-teaching process, attention, getting attention, teacher, student, secondary school