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The Clearing House, 83: 217–222, 2010 Copyright C© Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0009-8655 print; 1939-912X online DOI: 10.1080/00098650903505407

Students’ Choice: Recommendations for

Environmental and Instructional Changes in School

LAURA L. SAGAN

Abstract: This study investigated 134 middle school stu- dents’ suggestions concerning environmental and in- structional changes based on their individual learning- style Inventories. The results of the study determined that students could suggest environmental and instruc- tional changes that differed from the accustomed tradi- tional environments and instruction encountered on a daily basis.

Keywords: student choice, learning styles, designing, classroom environment, environmental and instruc- tional change, classroom organization

A nyone who has spent time with middle schoolstudents knows that they are unique learners with ever-changing bodies, active hormones, and se- vere mood swings.They also are asserting independence from their parents and other authority figures, gradu- ally developing from intellectually concrete into abstract thinkers (Toepfer 1993). Adults are often impressed by the mature young person before them one moment and are completely baffled by that adolescent’s transforma- tion into an immature child the next. During the 1970s the Middle-School Movement emerged from the need to address 10- to 15-year-old students socially, emotion- ally, physically, and academically (Paul 1999).

The Problem As students progress through their academic careers,

they first experience flexibility in the form of many choices while learning in the elementary grades; in sharp

Laura L. Sagan, EdD, is an assistant principal at the Lakeland Copper Beech Middle School for the Lakeland Central School District, Shrub Oak, NY.

contrast they find increased structure as they progress through middle school. According to Dunn and Dunn (1993), the reverse should occur. Research has con- firmed that in most middle schools, direct instruction by the teacher remains the primary mode of instruc- tion (McEwin, Dickenson, and Jenkins 1996). Unfortu- nately, teachers often lecture to these youngsters just at a time when many need to explore and interact in small groups (Scales 1996). Indeed, Paul (1999) reported that middle school education is characterized by teachers filling empty vessels with knowledge, which suggests that “in most classrooms, the teaching/learning expe- rience is unchanged; oral presentations by the teacher and seatwork by the students consume almost all of most class sessions” (9). Instead of requiring children to “conform to what others deem important,” children should be provided multiple options so as to increase their interest and curiosity (Sarason 1990, 159).

Middle school students often complain that their classes are boring and that the only reason they come to school is to socialize with friends. Many become dis- engaged from the learning process because they lack interest in school and feel little personal responsibil- ity for their own education (Adams 1996). Some can- not envision the long-range positive effects that educa- tion produces over time. Schools should be communi- ties of learning by providing a climate that enhances intellectual development, has high expectations, and challenges every student with an integrated curriculum (Jackson and Davis 2000). The Office of Educational Research and Improvement (1990, 1) recommended that “schools needed to be places where students take

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FIGURE 1. Dunn and Dunn Learning-Styles Model.

schooling seriously, where they are motivated and ready to learn, and where they are engaged in school work.”

According to Sarason (1990, 157), “schools exist primarily for students” who typically are at the bot- tom of the educational reform pyramid. Historically, legislators, boards of education, and/or administra- tors are the stakeholders who recommend instructional change. Levin (1995, 17) noted that, whereas literature on school-based management “advocates (more) im- portant roles for teachers and parents, students usu- ally are omitted from the discussion.” Fullan and Stiegelbauer (1991, 182) supported Levin’s position when they wrote: “We hardly know anything about what students think about educational change because no one ever asked them.” They further noted that people drive educational change and that students, no matter how old, are people too. “Unless they have some mean- ingful (to them) role in the enterprise, most educational change, indeed most education, will fail” (170).

School-reform efforts support increased student achievement and motivation through the attainment of higher standards (Jackson and Davis 2000). Edu- cators continue to prescribe activities, curriculum, and standards for students without ever considering what students perceived about their personal school experi- ences. In the discussion of tougher standards, students’ points of view and the impact on their learning is left out almost entirely (Kohn 1993). It is likely that most teaching techniques are effective, but not necessarily for every student (Dunn and Dunn 1993). Kohn (1993, 26) advised that “unless we attend to how students feel

about what they’re doing, it’s less likely that they will become excellent learners.”

The use of learning-style strategies is one way to respect the uniqueness of individual learners. Studies conducted using the Dunn and Dunn Learning-Styles Model (Dunn and Dunn 1993; see Figure 1) revealed statistically higher gains in student achievement, atti- tudes, and behaviors when their unique learning-style traits were addressed with responsive treatments (Dunn and DeBello 1999; Dunn et al. 1995). Fullan and Stiegel- bauer (1991, 170) asked what would occur “if we treated the student as someone whose opinion mat- tered in the introduction and implementation of reform in schools?” More to the point, what would happen if middle school students were asked to recommend en- vironmental and instructional changes based on their first-hand knowledge of their own learning styles? By asking adolescents how instructional environments and strategies could be improved to help them learn more efficiently and effectively, we may generate reform that produces the desired results-increased student achieve- ment and motivation.

Research Study A research study was conducted to determine if mid-

dle school students who were taught about their unique learning styles could suggest changes in their school and classroom environment related to how they were taught (Sagan 2002).

The main purpose of the study was to determine if there were differences between the traditional school

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environments and instruction and what the students recommended as an outgrowth of their knowledge of themselves and their peers. For the purpose of this study, the following definitions were used. Learning style was the way each learner began to concentrate on, pro- cess, internalize, and retain new and difficult informa- tion (Dunn and Dunn 1993); learning-style inventory (LSI) (Dunn, Dunn, and Price 1996) was an instru- ment used to assess an individual’s learning style in grades 5 through 12. The LSI was a 104-item, self-report questionnaire that uses a 5-point Likert-type scale rang- ing from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”; envi- ronment included the elements of light, sound, tem- perature, design (Dunn and Dunn 1993) and mobil- ity, intake (food and drink), and time of day (Theis 1999–2000); instruction was a series of strategies used to deliver information (Saphier and Gower 1993) and included the elements of structure (organization and directions), sociological grouping (alone, peers, group, adult), perceptual strengths (auditory, visual, tactual, and kinesthetic), and global/analytic processing styles (Dunn and Dunn 1993); and the traditional classroom was defined as the transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the child, which relied on getting the child to listen to lectures, read textbooks, and practice skills by completing worksheets seated behind their desks while the teachers were found at the head of the classroom “drilling knowledge into their charges” (Kantrowitz and Winget 1989). It was hypothesized that if students had a working knowledge of their learning style, they would propose ideas that were significantly different from the traditional environments and instruction they were ex- posed to on a daily basis (Fine 2003; Honigsfeld 2000; Mitchell 2000).

The subjects for this study were students in grades 6 through 8 attending a small middle school located in a county in the eastern part of New York State. The sixth grade included 98 adolescents (52 males and 46 females), the seventh grade included 100 students (59 males and 41 females), and the eighth grade included 108 students (62 males and 46 females). Of the total population of 306 students, 134 were interviewed—27 sixth graders (13 males and 14 females), 27 seventh graders (13 males and 14 females), and 80 eighth graders (45 males and 35 females).

All students were introduced to the Dunn and Dunn Learning-Styles Model (Dunn 1999–2000) in their sixth-grade year. Students then were administered the LSI (Dunn, Dunn, and Price 1996). All LSIs were scanned, and individual Learning-Style Profiles and Homework Prescriptions were printed for every pupil. Of the 306 students who attended the school, all but four received a valid Learning-Style Profile.

Once all students were assessed for their learning styles and profiles were explained to the participants in each grade level, individual interviews began. The in-

tent was to explore students’ perceptions of their learn- ing styles and possible recommendations for environ- mental and instructional changes based on that knowl- edge. Each interview lasted approximately 25–30 min- utes. Students were scheduled for interviews during their study halls or lunch periods.

First, the students were asked if they remembered their learning style. A brief discussion followed concerning what they noticed about how they learned. Once stu- dents could verbalize their style, the interview began. The interview was comprised of three parts. The first part was a learning-styles quiz based on questions found in the assessment Learning Style: The Clue to YOU (LS:CY!; Burke and Dunn 1998) to confirm that the students un- derstood their own learning style. This quiz consisted of 14 multiple-choice type questions. However, there was no right or wrong answer because students made choices based on their individual styles. The second part of the interview consisted of 13 open-ended questions or statementaires to generate student recommendations for how they would change the environment or instruc- tion in the school (see Appendix 1). The last part of the interview included five structured interview questions (see Appendix 2) to generate further recommendations and to verify recommendations previously made during the open-ended responses.

Each child was assessed with the LSI. Using a series of one-way ANOVAs, each of the questions in the learning- style quiz was compared to the elements of the LSI to de- termine if students’ answers on the quiz corresponded to their learning-style profile. The statistical analyses in- dicated that student’s responses to the questions on the learning-style quiz confirmed the learning-style element that each question assessed. Each of the learning-style elements assessed in these questions were highly signif- icant at the p < .001 level. The only exception to this finding was that the learning-style element for tactual was significant at the p < .01 level and the element for kinesthetic (whole-body learning) was significant at the p < .05 level.

A manual was developed for the purpose of coding in- dividual student answers for the 13 statementaires and the five structured interview questions. Rater reliability was secured through the use of a jury system to main- tain the accuracy of coding students’ answers. Once data were collected, the researcher analyzed the frequency for which a particular code had been used.

Student Recommendations for Environmental and Instructional Changes

Frequency distributions were used to determine if middle school students could propose environmen- tal and instructional changes that differed significantly from the traditional schools environment and instruc- tion. To answer this question, statementaires 8, 10, 11, and 13, as well as structured interview questions 2, 3, 4,

220 The Clearing House 83(6) 2010

and 5, respectively were coded and analyzed for student responses.

Statementaire 8 asked students the following thought, I wish school would . . . In the area of design (seating preference), student responses were coded as yes (de- sign should be changed), no (design doesn’t need to be changed), or it wasn’t mentioned. In regard to the learning-style element of design, 80.6 percent of the students interviewed believed that a change was needed and 19.4 percent believed no change was needed. For the element of sound, 23.9 percent responded that more sound (music or white noise) was needed, 9.7 per- cent stated that less sound (quite) was needed, and 66.4 percent did not mention sound in their responses. In the area of light, 10.4 percent recommended that there should be more light, 16.4 percent believed there should be less light, and 73.1 percent did not mention light in their responses. Students did not make signifi- cant recommendations for the elements of temperature, intake, structure, sociological preferences, or time of day.

Statementaire 10 asked students to complete the fol- lowing, I wish my teachers would. . . Of the 134 students that responded, 69 percent wished that their teachers would provide an informal design (comfortable seat- ing), 27.6 percent wanted their teachers to incorporate more visual and tactual resources into the lessons, 19.4 percent desired more structure in their classwork and as- signments, and 16.4 percent wished their teachers were more global in their approach to presenting material.

Students were asked to complete the following for statementaire 11, If I were the teacher, I would . . . Of the answers given to this statement, 32.1 percent pertained to the learning-style element of structure and 30.6 per- cent pertained to the element of choice, 26.8 percent of the responses regarded the use of tactual materials and 24.6 percent chose kinesthetic activities, 20.2 per- cent responded they would plan creative and amusing projects, 18.7 percent included the use of more visual resources, and 15 percent would utilize more of an in- formal design.

A Pearson product-moment correlation was used to asses whether the responses that students gave for statementaire 11 corresponded to their learning styles. The analysis reported that students who would offer structure if they were the teacher correlated with the learning-style element of being authority-oriented (p < .05); those who would provide choices correlated with needing less authority (p < .05). Perceptions of those students who would provide kinesthetic activities if they were the teacher correlated significantly with the learning-style element of tactual (p < .001), kinesthetic (p < .001), and the need for mobility (p < .001). Stu- dents who thought they would assign amusing and cre- ative projects if they were the teacher significantly cor-

related with the learning-style elements of being moti- vated, responsible, teacher motivated, in need of struc- ture, and tactual (all at p < .05).

Statementaire 13 asked students to respond to, School would be a great place to learn if . . . Approximately 11 stu- dents (8.9%) believed that school was already a great place to learn. However, 34.3 percent of the students responded that they would like school to be more com- fortable and 15.7 percent wanted additional choice of what they learned and in their assignments. A Pear- son product-moment correlation was employed to de- termine if students’ responses to this statement corre- sponded to their learning style. It was found that those students who believed that school was already a great place to learn correlated with the learning-style element of being teacher motivated (p < .05) and being moti- vated (p < .01). Students who wanted school to be more comfortable correlated with the elements of peers, learn- ing in several ways, tactual, needing intake, evening for time of day (all at p < .05), and the element of design (p < .001).

For the last part of the survey students were asked a series of structured interview questions. With ques- tion 2, students were asked to respond to the follow- ing: Based on your understanding of your learning style, how might this school need to change the environment to meet your learning needs? Students’ recommendations included providing informal design (73.1%), dim light (35.0%), intake and a late morning (31.3%), sound (27.6%), and mobility (17.2%). Question 3 asked stu- dents how instruction would need to change to meet their learning needs. Recommendations included the use of tactual materials (56.7%), visual resources (44%), kinesthetic activities (24.6%), working in pairs (22.4%) and with peers (20.9%), and the teacher providing more structure (15.7%). Question 4 asked what other changes they might want to make to the school. Stu- dent responses included starting school later in the day (29.8%); adding couches, soft chairs, or beanbags to classrooms (26.2%); purchasing better gym and recess equipment (19.5%); and improving the facilities and fields (18.4%).

The final question that generated recommendations was: Based on your understanding of your learning style, how would you have to change school so that you had a more equal chance to learn? Student responses included pro- viding for informal design (39.6%), tactual resources (31.3%), dim light (19.4%), visual materials (18.7%), more structure to assignments (16.4%).

These student recommendations for environmental and instructional changes were different from the traditional procedures for organizing classrooms and delivering instruction. In addition, these students’ suggestions supported the literature advocating what is considered good middle-level education as outlined

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by the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (1989), the Essential Elements (New York State Edu- cation Department 2000), and Turning Points 2000 (Jackson and Davis 2000).

Conclusions The data supported the assertion that middle school

students proposed environmental and instructional changes that differed significantly from the traditional school environments and instruction. Environmental recommendations advocated changes that included an informal design; less light, intake, and sound; and scheduling school later in the morning. These recom- mendations are in sharp contrast to schools that begin early in the morning and classrooms that have a for- mal seating design with desks in straight rows; quiet, bright light; and no intake allowed. Instructional rec- ommendations advocated the use of tactual, visual, and kinesthetic resources and more options for group work either in pair or peer configurations. These recommen- dations also differed from the traditional classroom of lecture-based teaching supplemented with the use of the chalkboard and individual worksheet assignments.

Students made recommendations, regardless of their individual learning styles, for changing the environment of and instruction in schools based on their knowl- edge of how they and their peers learned best. This re- search strongly suggests that students be included in the decision-making process that affects what happens in their schools. Can educators afford not to listen to stu- dents’ recommendations if they truly believe that every student can learn? Can they continue to ignore what stu- dents believe would make a difference in how successful they are in school?

Boards of education in school districts across the country should mandate that students be included as a valuable component in the shared decision making that takes place on the plethora of committees that impact their education. Administration needs to encourage an atmosphere in which students’ opinions are welcome and encouraged. Principals would benefit from con- ducting monthly student forums, as is often the prac- tice with faculty meetings and parent forums, to elicit student reactions, opinions, and suggestions for the im- provement of their school. Teachers should foster par- ticipation in the classroom by involving students in the development of classroom rules and procedures at the beginning of the school year. Students should be taught about their learning style and how they can accommo- date for their style at home and at school. Students also may feel empowered in their education when teachers provide choices concerning how students will learn new and difficult information. By addressing the needs of the students through student involvement, schools will begin to provide an environment that is conducive to

student learning and increases their motivation to take responsibility for their successes.

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APPENDIX 1 Statementaires

1. The subject I like the best in school is . . . 2. The subject I like the least in school is . . . 3. What I like best about school is . . . 4. What I like least about school is . . . 5. A good student is . . . 6. My learning style is . . . 7. The best place for me to study and learn is . . . 8. (Based on the above answer) I wish school would .

. . 9. I learn best when the teacher . . .

10. (Based on the above answer) I wish my teachers would . . .

11. If I were the teacher, I would . . . 12. If I were the principal, I would . . . 13. School would be a great place to learn if . . .

APPENDIX 2 Structured Interview Questions

1. Using your learning-style profile, would you please describe for me what your learning style is?

2. Based on your understanding of your learn- ing style, how might this school need to change the environment to meet your learning needs?

3. Based on your understanding of your learning style, how might this school need to change the way in- struction is delivered to meet your learning needs?

4. Based on your understanding of your learning style, what other changes might you want to make to this school?

5. Based on your understanding of your learning style, how would you have to change school so that you had a more equal chance to learn?

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