Self-Regulation and Training of Students with Learning Disabilities in an Inclusive Setting Using ICT

Abstract

Methods that improve the learning performance of students in heterogeneous learning groups are constantly being sought after. The aim of the present study was to explore the possibility of using the smartphone to improve student classroom preparation. For this, a free app was used, which reminded the students on the content that needed to be learned and tasks that needed to be finished. This was done with the help of the devices that the students bring themselves (“Bring Your Own Device” – BYOD). The results of the study indicate a possible greater learning achievement by the users of the app when compared to the non-users. However, the use of the students’ self-managed devices was also the cause of significant problems. These were identified through the use of log sheets which discovered the root cause of success or failure. The study was conducted in two eighth grade classes, with a total of 48 students from a middle school in the subject of chemistry. The study’s finding, that the use of reminder apps significantly raises learning outcome, is significant for chemistry lessons.

1. Introduction

In Germany, since 2009, students with a recognized need for special support during learning, e.g. children with mental, physical or learning disabilities, have the right to an inclusive education ¹. The convention was ratified on march 23^rd, 2009 and resulted in a significant increase of students with learning disabilities entering common schools ². As a result of this, more attention must be given to the individual learning processes and the assistance of students over and above what was already mentioned in the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) study from 2000 or the TIMMS study (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) of 1995 with regard to heterogeneous learning groups. Considering the Hattie study ³, it became apparent that the most effective factor of learning is self-regulation, which has an effect size of d = 1.44 [ ³, p. 53]. According to Klieme, Artelt and Stanat, “The core area of self-regulated learning is the ability of students to select, combine and coordinate learning strategies” [ ⁴, p. 175]. It is here that the planning of the learning objective and the use of necessary resources required to achieve the learning objective are of great importance. In this case, students with learning disabilities participated in the study side by side with students without disabilities, in an inclusive setting.

We chose this topic to investigate the daily experiences of teachers in German schools. It has become apparent, that the colleagues who teach in inclusive classes are not trained for such tasks and thus cannot meet the requirements of neither pupils nor parents regarding a mutual, yet individual education. Smaller problems arise due to not knowing to whom to turn for help as well as a lack of knowledge about corresponding support systems.

The first author of this study, being headmaster of a school, was able to gain insights into the situation of pupils, regardless of their status as inclusive children or not. In addition, other teachers from this school repeatedly reported being overwhelmed by the conditions of inclusive education. The combination of both aspects motivated us to deal particularly with the subject of inclusion. It is of main interest for us to explore criteria for improving learning, such as to provide both students and teachers with practicable tools for meaningful interventions in an inclusive classroom setting.

Hattie states that learners can assess their level of performance relatively accurate ³. Here, he is referring to a study by Kuncel, Crede and Thomas ⁵ However, this study also states that “… this applies to all learners, except those from minorities, who have lower grades than non-minority learners.” [ ⁵ p. 52]. This suggests that students with disabilities could belong to these minorities. On the other hand, according to Hattie, these expectations of success can also lead to the possibility of” (…) only showing the degree of performance that corresponds to their own expectations of their performance” [ ⁵, p. 53]. Therefore, the satisfaction of the students’ own performances was investigated in this study, as it provides information about the expectations of success which a student has for himself. Criticism of Hattie’s conception is practiced, amongst others, by Terhart ⁶. Terhart draws from Beywl and Zierer, who explicitly point out “(…) that an isolated consideration of the effect sizes of individual factors is questionable” [ ⁶, p 173]. On one hand, they cite factors that have a low effect size but, when combined with other factors, produce powerful groups of factors. Hattie himself explicitly described this. He states that “team teaching […] has a low effect size of d = 0.19 but in combination with for example peer tutoring (d = 0.55) this results in a powerful bundle of factors “[ ³, p.9].

Since teaching and learning are always influenced by many different factors, such as the students’ prior knowledge, the interaction between student and teacher, the interaction between the students, the motivation in the respective subject and the subject matter, etc., it is questionable as to whether it makes sense to look at individual factors in isolation and to then draw conclusions. In such complex contexts it, thus, becomes necessary to focus on one effective variable and hereby enabling an investigation into how strongly a change in this one factor has an effect on the result. From our point of view, teachers often ask for individual adjustments that would enable them to focus on just one thing without having to question all their teaching and also safeguarding against losing track of their lesson preparations. This is why we deliberately chose self-regulation as an effective factor, as well as to achieve statistically meaningful results in the research part of the study.

In order to improve teaching outcome, it is necessary to identify and change individual influences and thereby to improve the quality of teaching in terms of lesson results. Consequently, it must be borne in mind that, in the context of this work too, the findings cannot be regarded as separate from other teaching activities taking place in a classroom. For instance, self-assessment of one’s own performance level involves a high correlation of reflection in cooperative learning processes.

This resulted in the following research questions:

1. Can students be provided with learning companions to be reminded of their homework automatically without significantly afflicting teachers even further?

2. Can smartphones that are owned by students themselves be used?

3. Can the learning performance be enhanced by reminding the students of their homework with their own devices?

4. Are students even willing to use their own devices for this kind of reminder?

Current literature provides many examples concerning the issue of inclusion and digitalization in chemistry. Amongst others, A. Adesokan and C. Reiners dealt with the inclusion of hearing-impaired students in chemistry class ⁷. J. Huwer and R. Brünken, in their leading article “natural sciences in new paths” ⁸, dealt with the individualization in teaching with the aid of tablets. ICT was inspected with regard to its function as learning companion, learning tool and experimental tool. In the article “successful inclusion with media integration (“Gelingende Inklusion mit Medienintegration“), meaning “successful inclusion with media integration”, M. Brüggemann, S. Welling and A. Breiter illuminate the possibilities for the potential of individual support of learning processes and the possibility to flexibly match these learning processes to the needs of most different users ¹⁰. A. König, M. Risch and R. Reuter are taking a different path with their studies on the potential of digital learning guides with a view to the diverse functions of information and material offerings ¹¹.

This exemplary excerpt from current literature shows that the impact of digital learning companions as a reminder on homework performance through the use of a to-do-app has not yet been the subject of research.

3. Results

In the preparatory survey 92.3% of the students in the inclusion class were dissatisfied with their results i.e. their grades; 7.7% were satisfied with their performance. In the regular class, 71,4% of the students were dissatisfied with their results and 28,6% of the students were satisfied with the performance or grade. At this point it should be mentioned, that the satisfaction says little about the grade, but about the expectations of success which a student has for himself. Some students were satisfied with their grades because their grades reflected their willingness to exert themselves or were in accordance with their self-esteem. Thus, for example, students with grades below five, stated they were satisfied because, “I did not make an effort”.

The reasons students gave for their poor performance were as follows: 58,3% and therefore the biggest group said “they forgot”, “they did not feel like it” and “they did not do the work”. A further 16.6% of the students said that they had lost their experimental protocol.

Another result of the survey was the self-assessment of the students regarding their performance: 16.6% of students said they were dissatisfied with their performance because of “their bad grades”. This leads to the assumption, that some students were just dissatisfied of their performance because they got the bad grade, which, again, reflects their own expectations of success. Further reasons given were: “The experiment did not work” with 4,2% and one two participants stated that their “German skills were insufficient” with another 4,2 %, thus, not enabling them to fill out the experimental protocol.