Journal of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics
ISSN: 2707
- 756X
DOI: 10.32996/jeltal
Journal Homepage: www.al
- kindipublisher.com/index.php/jeltal
An Investigation into Factors Affecting Concentration of University
Students
Hanh Vy Le
Ho Chi Minh City University of Food Industry, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
ARTICLEINFORMATION ABSTRACT
Corresponding Author: Hanh Vy Le, E-mail: [email protected]
Received: May 05, 2021 Concentration is one of the most influential decisive factors in student’s
Accepted: June 04, 2021 learning quality. The higher the student's level is, the less concentration
Volume: 3 they pay in class, especially university students. Owing to this low level of
Issue: 6 concentration ability, many lecturers find it hard to maintain their
DOI: 10.32996/jeltal.2021.3.6.2 enthusiasm when teaching students from this level, and also those
students find it hard to achieve the best outcome when graduating from
university. For that reason, this article will provide an understanding
of all the distractions that undergraduate students may have during their
KEYWOR class. Also, the roles of a teacher will be put into a discussion so that
DS readers as teachers from all levels can have a better and deeper look into
Attention span, distractions,
solutions, teacher’s roles, this academic job, with the hope that they may find it useful for any of
concentration, university students their changes later if they think it is necessary so that their learners can
have better experiment with them in class. And after all the analysis, this
article will suggest some good and applicable solutions that can be applied
to improve the situation. Hopefully, this would advance the teaching and
learning quality in the university environment.
1.Introduction 1
1.1 Definition of attention and concentration
Attention has been an appealing subject for many researchers for many many years. According to Kumar (2003),
concentration is acquirable and is referred to the mental state in which all the senses and mind of the human
are focused on a particular subject. Also, attention can also be understood as a process that “encodes
language input, keeps it active in working and shortterm memory, and retrieves it from long-term memory”
(Robinson, 2003, p. 631). This can be explained that if one maintains their concentration well, all the knowledge
or information given to them are received well and not only they can use those to deal with the current
situations and later apply it them in the long term. In addition, to understand more about attention, there are
also other points of view. First, according to (Kahneman, 1973, 2011; Tomlin & Villa, 1994), attention is generally
considered as the restricted intellectual ability of oneself, which (Hlas et al. (2019) explained "one is limited in
regard to how much they can pay attention to at one time" (p.2). Second, Rusmita Kurniati (2009) states that
there are forms of behavior of learners which can give us a better and deeper understanding of what one's
concentration is like, such as the willingness of learners to listen to teachers' explanations, perform assignments
given by teachers, record important materials, view images or media used, listen to friends' opinions, answer
teacher questions, and be calm in class. For (Al’Omairi & Al Balushi, 2015) , attention is a significant component
of one's learning.
1.2 Importance of attention and concentration
Teachers always want their learners to have a high concentration in class as the closer the students' attention is,
the higher learning outcome and knowledge gain the student will have. The role of attention is essentially
undeniable in students’ learning process. For Al’Omairi and Al Balushi (2015), attention is a significant
component of one's learning. Moreover, Hariyanto (2021) once said: "If the learner is really paying attention,
then the learner will follow and carry out the learning activities well". Not only attention can decide a student's
participation in class, but also greatly influence their learning outcome because if there is good concentration
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An Investigation into Factors Affecting Concentration of University Students
during a lesson, students can be able to deal with ease all the questions relating to the learning materials so as
to obtain good score as well as learning achievement. (Hariyanto, 2021). On the other hand, according to
Hariyanto, those who paid
Published by Al-Kindi Center for Research and Development,
United
Kingdom. Copyright (c) the author(s). This open access article
is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0
license
less intention in class will struggle with receiving the following learning material, resulting in the left-behind
condition and possibly feeling overwhelming and depressed with the rest of the course (2021).
1.3 Studies on attention
Even though the more prolonged the attention span is, the more influential the student's learning process will be
(Kahneman, 1973, 2011; Tomlin & Villa, 1994). There have been many studies conducted to prove this
statement. For example, Egeth (1971) believed that a college student's focusing ability has a specific boundary
through an experiment. In addition, Stuart and Rutherford (1978), through an experiment with medical students,
concluded that students were at thier best concentration within the first 10 to 15 minutes of the lecture and then
declined gradually until the end of the instruction. With the same goal about student's focusing limitation, Burns
(1985) conducted another experiment that once again proved the maximum length of time of student's
attention is around 15 minutes. So both of the mentioned studies concluded that the first 15 minutes was
believed to be when students have obtained information given by the instructors.
2.Factors affect students” attention
A variety of factors have been considered to positively or negatively affect students' concentrating ability. So
many factors, even the smallest one, can influence deeply on student’s attention span, and not all of them can
be controlled or adjusted by the instructors. However, there are still subjective factors that can maximize the
student’s concentration in class if instructors or lecturers put in many efforts. As shown in Figure 1, there are two
main factors that affect attention span: internal and external factors.
Figure 1. Components of attention span span
FACTORS
INTERNAL EXTERNAL
Internal factors are those within students or lecturers themselves. For example, boring is an internal factor since
it is a feeling from inside oneself. It is self-created emotion. Normally, internal factors are controllable which can
be changed. On the other hand, external factors are those outsides, usually out of lectures or students’ ability to
manage (for example, the noise of the plane taking off). Finally, teachers or lecturers can take all these internal
and external factors into account to minimize distractions, improve teaching quality, and expand students’
concentration level.
2.1 Internal factors
Students’ interest and understanding ability broadly determine their concentration in class as (David et al., n.d.)
once said:” Interest is the determiner of good attention, and interest is always behind the actions of an attentive
student” (p.26). Students’ interest is one of the internal motivations that keep them engaging effectively in
class. The more passion and eagerness they have for the subject, the more curiosity and the more focus they
will pay in the lesson to gain more knowledge about what they care about. And for Gerschler (2012), lesson
design plays an essential part in maintaining students’ interest in the class. This is to say, teachers or lecturers
cannot expect students to find the dry, poor-prepared lesson to be inspired. Nonetheless, with the lesson that
has more investments, more materials will maintain all the participants’ concentration well and constantly
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attract students' attention during the whole class hours. Likewise, students’ comprehension of the lesson
content and lecturer’s instruction during class can also cause either better focus or frustration, leading to the
loss of their attention for the rest of the class. It is essential that lecturers keep track their students well so that
students can be assisted in time whenever they need. Furthermore, it is also a bad situation in which students
do not understand just one lesson and then they leave out all the following sections since normally all the
sections relate to each other. For this reason, according to Gerschler (2012) :” it is important that the teacher
ensures that students have the experience necessary to understand the lesson, and that guidance is provided
when questions arise.” (p.7).
JELTAL 3(6): 07-12
Students’ physical and personal characteristics can be considered internal causes that influence attention in
class. For physical aspect, for example, if students suffer from sickness, hungriness, tiredness, they will find it
hard to keep their focus well throughout the whole lesson because their body and their mind are not well enough
to enable them to absorb knowledge like Cicekci and Sadik (2019) confirmed through their research that
students “coming to school without sleep, hungry and tired makes it difficult for them to collect their attention in
the classroom (p. 19). About the characteristic aspect, students who are stubborn tend to develop their own
purposes when coming to school, which is largely not about knowledge. With the different mindset, they come to
class just to meet their friends, kill their spare time, play games, and do not pay much attention in class and
they may also behave badly which negatively affects other students’ attention.
2.2 External factors
While internal factors can be managed or changed, external factors are normally uncontrollable. They can be
understood as objective factors around both instructors and students and greatly affect their performance
during lesson time. There are countless external elements, but, in this paper, the writer would classify them into
main four categories, which may assist whoever needs later to have a clear and systematic understanding of all
the possible factors to come up with ways to minimize their effect.
The first is the school system itself. According to Ceicekci and Sadik (2019), it is “Education Policies and
Practices”. The syllabus is the first component that plays a vital role for this factor. A well-designed syllabus may
prevent students from getting lost or missing in term of many important things like the course goals or
objectives, marking policies, assessment and evaluating standards, homework, activities (Slattery&Carlson,
2005). However, suppose the syllabus provided to students is poorly written. In that case, students may face
vagueness in firming their goals for the course. They also get confused with what target knowledge they will
gain. They cannot define which direction they should follow. They cannot make a specific plan to meet the
desired expectations of both themselves and the course, so all of these lead to their less eagerness in class and
consequently not have enough motivation to pay good attention in the lesson. Besides the content, the length of
the syllabus itself can also lessen student’s observation. The longer the duration of courses, the more impatient
and boring students may show. These negative feelings will notably distract students from their gaining
information process.
The second is the school or classroom environment. Raca and Dillenbourg (2013) presented a video showing that
even trivial factors in class like the placement of students' seat or the utilization of visual advancements can
significantly impact students' attention in class. The environment can refer to all the elements within the class.
The first is classrooms’ facility like the arrangement of chairs and tables, the quality of a light system, the quality
of the cooling system, the modernity of assisting technology. The second is relating to students themselves, like
the total number of participants in a class or the noise made by other students. For instance, if the class are too
crowded, students find it is not comfortable to sit. Also, some distracting students keep doing disturbing
behaviours, with the most focusing students, these factors somehow still make them find it challenging to
maintain their concentration well. With the elements coming from outside the classroom environment, there are
factors that interrupt students’ attention, like the noise of the plane taking off, the noise of building
constructions nearby, etc.
Apart from all the mentioned factors relating to student’s attention during their time in class, parents’
contribution is another factor that cannot be ignored. What are the family factors that can have a
straightforward effect on student’s concentration level? According to Betancort and Cabrera (2013), we have
“parents’ level of education, family size, parents’ expectations about academic achievement, parents’ control
over the student’s homework, etc” (p.171) which create a profound impact on student’s academic achievement,
and especially the ability to put their mind in the right in class. About the family size aspect, it is undeniable that
if one family has 4 or 5 children, parents may have to deal with the cost burden and do not pay much attention
to each child’s learning process. For this reason, students end up finding that their parents do not have high
expectation for their academic achievement, so they do not be motivated to try, which eventually leads to less
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An Investigation into Factors Affecting Concentration of University Students
ambition to participate in the course. This can be proved by the fact that most studies coincide that children’s
academic results worsen when the number of family members increases (Guo and VanWey 1999; Downey 1995;
Martínez 2002). The family’s factor seems to have a surprising connection with each other. A family with a low
income tends to have less expectation for their children. However, parents who are well paid have to have a
high level of education for that amount of salary, so it is predictable that they wish their children to be like them.
Students who have parents with hope tend to pay more attention in class as they wish to please their parents
with their sound learning achievement; their homework and knowledge are checked more frequently than those
whose family condition is not ideal.
Besides family, teachers or instructors also directly influence students' performance in class. The first and most
pivotal factor from instructors is their teaching method. Lecturers who insist on keeping one way of teaching
easily discourage students and eventually lack interest in participating in class. In terms of teaching method,
there are still many professors in universities today use instructor-centred methods to place themselves in the
role of being a master of the subject matter. Also, in his paper, (Burke
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& Ray, 2008) also showed his opinion toward the whole-class method which is also called directing method. He
considered this method was not very effective since it just embraced the role of the instructor, not the students,
so it is very easy for students to lose interaction with their instructor. However, this whole-class lecture is
somehow a dominant teaching technique among various teaching methods since it is applied regularly by most
or all college instructors, regardless of discipline, worldwide (Brown and Atkins 1988; Titsworth 2004). In
addition, teachers' professional competencies, teaching handling-class techniques, and teacher’s attitude are
also factors that equally influence students' focus ability. The teacher who has abundant teaching experience
and high educational level impress students more than others, due to their teaching experience, they are more
flexible in using their skills and teaching methods in class to keep students’ mind in the lesson, also with their
source of knowledge, they can deal with any questions raised by students in class. We have (Rahiminia et al.,
2020) conducted a study and through which readers understand that instructors' rich source of knowledge and
deep understanding of teaching content and information plays an important role in controlling learners' focus
and improving the quality of the teaching-learning process. And for the attitude, it is understandable that if
instructors coming to class with eagerness, friendliness and make students feel they are approachable, students
would feel comfortable and be more interested in class. Shah (2009) once said:” Teacher’s personality in the
attitudinal sense is a significant factor in teacher’s behavior and it has a great impact on student’s
achievement” (p. 1).
3.Solutions
Once instructors acknowledge all the possible distractions from both inside and outside, it would be much easier
to look for solutions that can minimize negative influences and maximize students’ interest and understanding
by using various necessary teaching strategies to take full advantage of students' lengthened attention span.
The following solutions are aimed at instructors hoping that they can find new ways of teaching to improve both
their and students’ motivation in class. Moreover, the below solutions are given based on the author’s personal
experiences and hope that these will be applicable for all the instructors from different subjects.
3.1 Increasing students’ interest
There are many reasons behind the decreasing learning’s motivation for students, but the most affecting
reasons are students' lack of enthusiasm in the lesson. It is pivotal that instructors help them set up the correct
learning aim, which means students have good consciousness of their learning. When students know exactly
what they will gain after the course and what knowledge they can apply in their reality, their enthusiasm and
activeness will keep them interest for a long time.
3.2 Teaching students appropriate level according to their competency
Students’ level should always be the basis for any lesson plans made by instructors. The level of content of the
lesson should not be higher or lower than students’ competency since it will easily demotivate students and
make them lose their excitement for the class. The ideal lesson plan would include extra information related to
students’ previous lesson to extend their knowledge on the same subject. Also, the knowledge of new lesson
should be selected carefully so students would not be overwhelming yet still relate to the materials they have
already learned. By making connections and being selective with all the materials, students have a higher
chance of understanding and grasping the lesson's content while still maintaining their attention well during
class.
3.3 Giving clear instructions
All the instructions in class should be presented in a way that all the students in the class can understand.
Instructors should also base on the students' level to use appropriate language level, presenting speed, and
gestures to make sure that instructors’ intention for the lesson will be delivered fully to all the participants in the
class.
3.4 Using a variety of teaching methods and learning activities
Instructors should avoid repeating the same teaching strategies in class. So in order to maintain students’ focus
in class, lessons should be conducted in “a variety of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic techniques” (Gerschler,
2012). It is not only the teaching methods. Letting students experience different learning activities is also an
advisable solution to prevent boredom and inattention. If students constantly complete their assignments with
different activities like group work, games, role-playing, they will feel the diversity of learning methods and be
more curious about what they will do next, which will hopefully help them keep their enthusiasm and increase
their information retention.
3.5 Develop a good relationship with students and their family
Many instructors now have a good connection with students’ family, which will help them easily inform students’
learning process with the parents. With the constant exchange, both parents and instructors can closely observe
students’ learning and make appropriate and in time interferences. Also, different students, different family
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An Investigation into Factors Affecting Concentration of University Students
problems, even though an instructor may not make so much change for the student’s family circumstance, they
can make the student feel cared for and empathise if the
JELTAL 3(6): 07-12
instructor understands and encourages them when needed. By doing this, instructors gradually develop a good
relationship with students and possibly make timely encouragements and consolations to maintain the spirit and
enthusiasm of the students.
3.6 Giving feedback constantly to the school management system
Besides focusing on teaching in class, instructors are also responsible for assuring students have the most
comfortable and convenient learning environment. Whenever there are aspects broken like the light system, the
cooling system, the projector, instructors should inform who is in charge of fixing the problems as soon as
possible. All the problems in term of the classroom’s facilities are not something to be ignored. Even though they
seem trivial, they also affect students’ attention in class. For example, if the projector is broken, teachers would
be limited in the ways they present the lesson, students cannot see any videos, clips or presentations, this will
influence not only the effectiveness of the lesson but also the eagerness of students in class.
3.7 Improving instructor’s own knowledge
With the fast development of the world, knowledge is also constantly updated. In order to impress students and
be able to deal with all of their random questions, instructors should equip themselves with a rich source of
information, including both old and new ones. Not only the knowledge but also the teaching methods are the
ones that should always be innovated. This will make the instructors more confident in their ability to teach and
draw students’ attention.
4.Conclusion
Maintaining student’s focus is both a challenge and a motivation for teachers to change themselves if needed
for the better. Even though countless factors can affect students’ ability to keep their focus well, there are also
solutions. Solutions have given above maybe not the best to deal with all the distractions, especially the
uncontrollable ones, yet they can be one of the ways for instructors to minimize as much as possible the
negative effects and maximize students’ attention span. Also, instructors are advised to apply every possible
way in their ability. Furthermore, instructors should not be discouraged when a method fails because as long as
there is love for the profession, everything can be solved.
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