What techniques can be introduced to improve behaviour and concentration amongst boys? Mat Harman, Year 5 Teacher and Mathematics Co-ordinator, Oakridge School Introduction Our school target this year is to raise achievement in writing in all subjects so that children make at least expected progress. It has become apparent, not just in my class but others too, that boys appear to be less engaged in their learning and I wanted to find out the reasons for this, and try to implement new strategies to increase their behaviour, concentration and participation in all lessons. Boys are generally less motivated to work hard at school than girls and this is typical in a British school, but why is this? Could it be that the way we teach in primary schools is more girl orientated? Or are boys really just not interested in learning and therefore have no motivation to work hard. Collins, N (2013), wrote an article for The Telegraph, stating ‘Official figures have shown that boys begin to lag behind girls by the age of five, with past research blaming the "gender gap" on biological differences, different learning styles, teachers' attitudes, a lack of male role models and even the "feminisation of the classroom".’ My main concern as a class teacher is, if the boys in my class are not motivated to learn, how can I engage them and help them want to achieve the grades and make the progress that they require? My chosen area of focus is looking into how boys can be motivated in a primary setting and the impact that a successful intervention will have upon boys’ attainment.
Research In carrying out a review of current literature on the topic of getting boys to be motivated and concentrated, strategies such as using extrinsic rewards is appropriate for primary school children. Within the primary setting, it is important that motivational techniques are of the extrinsic nature as research shows these work best. Intrinsic motivation is embedded in most children during certain tasks, subjects or activities and, as a teacher, we want all of the children we teach to have a certain degree of intrinsic motivation, as we want children to just want to do well. This is not always the case and children need something external to give them that extra motivation to succeed. ‘While most people would suggest that intrinsic motivation is best, it is not always possible in each and every situation. In some cases, people simply have no internal desire to engage in an activity’ (Cherry, K; 2015). I decided to give my class golden time as a reward for working hard, being polite and following instructions. The condition of this golden time was that it had to be earned; this would be done by gaining cubes each time the class had done something well. This would give the children, as a collective, 1 minute per cube towards their golden time. This would be the extrinsic reward that the boys would, hopefully, need to be motivated to want to work hard. For my study I used five boys with motivation, behaviour and/or concentration issues alongside boys of similar level, age and issues from the parallel year 5 class to give a comparison to validate my research. Through conducting a questionnaire, it was clear that these boys did think that they were lacking in motivation and concentration and choose their preferences on how they thought they would be motivated best. This was how the golden time idea came about.
Findings Once the research project had been completed it was clear that the intervention had worked as pupil motivation and concentration had increased. It was visible to me and the boys also agreed in their post-research questionnaire.
A bar graph to show the impact of intervention on boys’ concentration and motivation 12 10 8
Concentration before
6
Concentration after
4
Motivation before Motivation after
2 0 Child 1
Child 2
Child 3
Child 4
Child 5
The bar graph shows the improvement of both motivation and concentration before and after the research. It shows a 70% increase in concentration and 60% increase in motivation. It shows just how effective extrinsic rewards can be on raising boys’ motivation. This increased motivation also led to the boys being more creative and their writing had also improved as a result. Students overwhelmingly liked using the reward system and all agreed that it was better for them as they got to earn their golden time. This meant that the golden time they received was more valuable as they knew they had worked hard to get it. “I like the cubes system because it is the one thing that motivates me and gets me started working,” child A. “The thing that I like about it is that it helps me improve my behaviour,” child B. I decided to check whether this intervention had truly helped or whether it was just the novelty of doing something new, so I decided that, for 1 week, I would not do
golden time or the cubes in a jar to see. The result was how I had hoped; the boys had reverted back to their ‘cannot be bothered’ attitude and they were once again not motivated. Doing this helped make my results more reliable. Recommendations As a result of this research I am going to work alongside senior leaders and adapt the behaviour policy with my findings in mind and make earned golden time a real focus in our school to reinforce positive behaviour. I am going to continue to use the cubes in a jar technique and roll out this system for teachers to use to aid in their golden time. I am going to continue to do boy-focused topics to keep the boys engaged in learning.