(Đồ án hcmute) a research on students attitude towards brainstormings as pre writing activity and factors that affect interactive brainstorming groups

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND EDUCATION CAPSTONE PROJECT FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES A RESEARCH ON STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS BRAINSTORMING AS A PRE-WRITING ACTIVITY AND FACTORS THAT AFFECT INTERACTIVE BRAINSTORMING GROUPS INSTRUCTOR: TRUONG THI HOA, M.A STUDENT: HUYNH THI HONG NHUNG S K L 009932 Ho Chi Minh City, August 2017 HCMC UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY & EDUCATION FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES Instructor: Hoa T Truong, M.A THESIS A RESEARCH ON STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARDS BRAINSTORMING AS A PRE-WRITING ACTIVITY AND FACTORS THAT AFFECT INTERACTIVE BRAINSTORMING GROUPS Huynh Thi Hong Nhung ID student : 13950064 Ho Chi Minh City August, 2017 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my instructor Mrs Truong Thi Hoa for the continuous support of my study and related research, for her patience, motivation, and immense knowledge Her guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis I would like to show my gratitude to her useful comments for finalising my research My sincere thanks also goes to Dr Dang Tan Tin, Dr Trinh Ngoc Thanh who provide me comprehensive knowledge related to completing a research and enlighten me the benefits of SPSS program Without their precious support it would not be possible to conduct this research Last but not the least, I would like to thank my family: my parents and my sister for supporting me spiritually throughout writing this thesis ABSTRACT This research was conducted to investigate the students’ attitude towards brainstorming as a pre-writing activity in Writing classes besides examining factors that affect the impacts of brainstorming on interactive brainstorming groups The participants are FFL learners at Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education who are taking Writing classes with instruction as well as exercises to practice and apply brainstorming activity in their writing The research uses the questionnaire which employs quantitative approach and interview session that makes use of qualitative approach as two main means for collecting the data The findings reveal that students possess positive perspective in terms of cognitive and emotional attitude, yet having an unclear attitude of behavioral aspect towards brainstorming Moreover, the factors which affect interactive brainstorming are the fear of negative feedback, unbalanced effort contribution, idea interference, and the self-deprecation of some members Due to the fact that the instrument derives from a new topic, the findings are not absolutely convincing It is advisable for other researchers who are interested in brainstorming technique to use instrument with a higher level of reliability for their study Moreover, because of the research’s type which is a descriptive one, other aspects related to brainstorming have not been figured out like real methodology for doing brainstorming and its effectiveness; therefore, these issues need to be explained carefully in future research Table of Contents LIST OF TABLES Chapter 1.1 Research background 1.2 Rationale 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Organisation of the study Chapter Literature review 2.1 Definitions and constituents of attitude 2.2 An over view of brainstorming 2.3 Brainstorming’s variations 2.3.1 Nominal Group Technique 10 2.3.2 Team idea mapping method 11 2.3.3 Group passing technique 12 2.3.4 Electronic brainstorming 12 2.3.5 Directed brainstorming 13 2.3.6 Question brainstorming 14 2.3.7 Individual brainstorming 14 2.4 Impacts of brainstorming 15 2.4.1 Effects on Group vs Individual 15 2.4.2 Effects on teaching and learning context 17 2.5 Definitions of pre-writing stage 19 2.6 Pre-writing strategies 19 2.6.1 Graphical representations 19 2.6.2 Free writing 20 2.6.3 Clustering 20 2.6.4 Journalist questions 21 2.7 Evaluation tools for created ideas 21 2.7.1 Quality scale 21 2.7.1.1 Originality 22 2.7.1.2 Effectiveness 22 2.7.2 Counting approach 23 2.8 Conceptual framework 24 2.9 A summary of literature review 27 Chapter 29 Methodology 29 3.1 Research method 29 3.2 Respondents of the study 29 3.3 Sampling technique 30 3.4 Research design 30 3.4.1 Questionnaire 30 3.4.2 Interview questions 33 3.5 A summary of the chapter 33 3.5 Reliability 34 Chapter 36 4.1 Students’ attitude towards brainstorming 36 4.1.1 Behavioral aspects 36 4.1.2 Cognitive attitude 37 4.1.3 Emotional attitude 37 4.2 Factors that affect interactive brainstorming groups 38 4.3 Interview data 39 4.4 Discussion 41 4.5 A summary of data analysis and findings 42 Chapter 43 Conclusion 43 5.1 Summary of the study 43 5.2 Theoretical contribution 43 5.3 Methodological suggestion 44 5.4 Limitation 44 5.5 Implications for further research 45 REFERENCES 46 APPENDICE 49 Appendix 49 Appendix 52 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 2.1 Evaluation scale: Originality 22 Table 2.2 Evaluation scale: Effectiveness 23 Figure 2.3 Conceptual framework 26 Table 2.4 A summary of Literature Review 28 Figure 3.1 The gender proportion of participants 29 Table 3.2 An over view of questionnaire 33 Table 3.3 A summary of research methodology 34 Table 3.4 Reliability of “Behavioral attitude” variable 34 Table 3.5 Reliability of “Cognitive attitude” variable 34 Table 3.6 Reliability of “Emotional attitude” variable 35 Table 3.7 Reliability of “Factors affect interactive brainstorming groups” variable 35 Table 4.1 Mean and standard deviation of Behavioral attitude 36 Table 4.2 Mean and standard deviation of Cognitive attitude 37 Table 4.3 Mean and standard deviation of Emotional attitude 38 Table 4.4 Factors affect interactive brainstorming groups 39 Table 4.5 A summary of data analysis and findings 42 Chapter Introduction 1.1 Research background In recent years, the importance of English has been recorded To keep abreast of the globalization context, individuals need to capture essential knowledge in English, including four important skills namely reading, listening, writing and speaking These skills seem to have their distinct difficult traits; however, writing skill appears to be problematic to most students Having a good command of writing skill has never been an easy task, especially for young learners Despite its difficulties, it is very important for many students because through writing, they can show their knowledge in content areas (Hinkel, 2006) Actually, to become adept in writing, there are numerous processes that students need to follow Among these, brainstorming which is considered to be one of the most important pre-writing techniques tends to play an instrumental role in which students can get a wide range of advantages like useful ideas and appropriate organization Besides, students’ critical thinking is also enhanced significantly by using this technique to address problems stated in writing task However, after nearly years studying with EFL (English as Foreign Language) students at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, I realize the fact that despite receiving instruction about brainstorming, EFL (English as Foreign Language) students often ignore this important stage, regardless of time when they are forced to In fact, students not brainstorm frequently prior to their writing Actually, they seem to ignore pre-writing step, including brainstorming which is consistent with the previous research that the most neglected step is pre-writing (Tompkins, 2001).Generally, students’ habits during this stage is different from one to another This is proved by another research that skillful writers often spend more time than inexperienced writers in prewriting stage (Kozma, 1991) or “Poorer writers tend to spend little time planning, rushing to commit words to the page, and holding tight to their initial formulations of a problem” (Hull, 1989) Actually, brainstorming can be conducted either in groups or individually For that reason, various studies have been taken to examine the effect of brainstorming in both cases Throughout the decades, various forms of brainstorming have been identified, including interactive groups in which learners produce ideas through communication with each other and nominal group teachnique which offers learners chances to work basically alone to produce their own ideas 1.2 Rationale For the mentioned context on which students often ignore pre-writing activities in general and brainstorming in particular, the research aims at figuring out students’ attitude towards this stage, which later provides both learners and teachers practical insights regarding teaching and learning writing On the other hand, the research is conducted to grasp a general view on the factors that affect interactive brainstorming groups which were found in the previous study These factors include the fear of negative feedback, the unbalanced effort contribution, idea interference, and the self-deprecation of some members Due to the fact that these previous studies were done in such a long time ago; moreover, they originated mostly in different countries leading to the fact that these results may be different from those of Vietnamese context For that reason, this study will investigate again these factors to find out specific results for students at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education 1.3 Research questions For the mentioned problem as well as purposes, the research aims at answering the following questions: members, thus increasing the chances to demotivate eager students who provide valuable ideas for the whole group The third factor that gets 39.2 and 7.8 per cent students agree and strongly agree is idea interference The item illustrates the fact that when some members raise their ideas in brainstorming stage, others are not able to think of their own ideas In other words, this situation is responsible for idea interference Although it is proved that brainstorming by discussing in groups is likely to enhance the quantity, thereby boosting the quality of ideas; however, if this stage is not conducted carefully, the chances for idea intervention are prone to be immense Finally, the reason for conducting an ineffective interactive brainstorming group is self-deprecation of some members in terms of their knowledge This reason obtains totally 35.3 per cent for positive options and 33.4 per cent for negative options in general Even though the two trends of ideas are quite controversial, they need to be taken into consideration SD D NI Statements Brainstorm in interactive groups is difficult because I fear being received 15.7 21.6 negative feedback by others (Item 27) I not like to brainstorm in interactive groups when some members appear to 9.8 17.6 35.3 contribute less effort than others (Item 28) I can not brainstorm in interactive groups effectively because I can not think of ideas 23.5 27.5 when other members present their ideas (Item 29) Interactive groups make brainstorming difficult when some members compare 5.9 27.5 31.4 themselves to be inferior about their knowledge than others (Item 30) Table 4.4 Factors affect interactive brainstorming groups No 4.3 A SA 47.1 13.7 31.4 5.9 39.2 7.8 29.4 5.9 Interview data Generally, there are five participants chosen randomly for the interview session Their answers are combined into one consistent table As illustrated in the graph, all of participants have quite good accomplishment in Writing courses Their points fluctuate 39 from 6.5 to 8.5 to be exact However, the obstacles are relatively the same among five respondents In fact, the common hindrance encountered is idea It is believed that ideas contribute an important part in a writing task However, finding appropriate ideas is not an easy task For that reason, it is considered to be one of the most challenging parts before students actually start their writing Besides, there are other formidable obstacles such as grammar shortage, idea incomprehension or vocabulary deficiency Four out of five participants state that they often use brainstorming prior to their writing for their own styles While some of them write whatever ideas come to their mind, others list out shortlisted ideas or just think of them in mind The brainstorming styles mainly depend on individual learning styles or even the writing teacher’s methodology that affects them Despite the differences in terms of how students brainstorm to get their own ideas, it is beneficial to each student in different ways Some students prove that brainstorming helps them write faster while others recommend that it helps them get a better outline for their writing pieces Besides, the coherence is also enhanced to be one of the advantages that brainstorming is likely to offer students Participants Average point Obstacles when starting to write Lack of ideas Lack of vocabularies and grammar Frequency of brainstorming The way of brainstorming Not often Free writing Often Effectiveness of brainstorming yes 8.5 6.5 Lack of Lack of ideas Lack of ideas, ideas Cannot academic understand vocabularies the topic Often Often Often Free writing Think of ideas in my mind yes yes List out the main ideas, and give examples as well as evidence for them yes Make the outline by listing main ideas and examples yes 40 The benefits of brainstorming 4.4 Clear outline and clear way to write More ideas, More unity List out Make my the writing ideas faster that you need Clear outline to follow Table 4.8 A summary of interview data Write faster Discussion This study has collected some important results including students’ attitude towards this strategies, the difference between male and female students in this aspect; moreover, the factors that effect interactive brainstorming groups have been recorded as well On one hand, students adopt positive emotional and cognitive attitude; however, their attitude towards behavioral aspect is not completely clear In other words, students obtain good emotions and understanding about brainstorming, yet they not have a clear tendency of using this technique in the pre-writing stage Furthermore, the data shows that there is no difference between males and females in their attitude towards this technique This finding is consistent with one research of Fakeye, which shows that students’ attitude is not related to gender (as cited in Shahrzad Eshghinejad, 2016) In that study, two variables include attitude and academic ability were put into consideration to see whether they have influence on students’ achievement in English language In contrast, another study reveals that the attitude of female students towards English is slightly higher than that of their male counterparts (Abidin et al.,2012) On the other hand, the affecting factors including the fear of negative feedback, the unbalanced effort contribution (Mullen et al., 1991; P B Paulus, Dzindolet, Coskun, & Putman, 2002), idea interference (Nijstad, Stroebe, & Lodewijkx, 2002), and the selfdeprecation of some members in the groups (Karau & Williams, 1993) really affect the 41 students’ favourable forms of brainstorming, especially to interactive brainstorming This is demonstrated by the high percentage of agreement in these statements 4.5 A summary of data analysis and findings From the data that has been analysed, the main results are ported in the following table No Variables Constituents Results Students’ attitude towards brainstorming Behavioral attitude Students disagree Cognitive attitude Students agree Emotional attitude Students agree Factors affecting interactive group brainstorming - Fear of negative feedback (1) (1): 41.1% participants agree and 13.7% of them strongly agree - Unbalanced effort contribution (2) - Idea intervention (3) - Self-deprecation (4) Findings Students have quite positive attitude towards brainstorming Four factors namely fear of negative feedback, unbalanced (2): 31.4% effort participants agree and contribution, 5.9% of them strongly idea agree intervention, and self(3): 39.2% participants agree and deprecation 7.8% of them strongly have a strong impacts on agree students’ (4): 29.4% favourable participants agree and brainstorming 5.9% of them strongly forms which is agree interactive group brainstorming Table 4.5 A summary of data analysis and findings 42 Chapter Conclusion 5.1 Summary of the study The study was conducted with the contribution of second-year students who took part in Writing classes with instruction and practice of brainstorming The main purpose of the study was to find out students’ attitude towards brainstorming and its relevant issues including the factors that affect interactive brainstorming groups In particular, students perceived good attitude in terms of cognitive and behavioral ones In other words, students adopted favorable belief and emotions in brainstorming; however, they did not have a clear tendency of using brainstorming when they had the choice Moreover, the research also recorded a flow of agreement from students about some affecting factors in interactive brainstorming groups including the fear of negative feedback, unbalanced effort contribution, idea interference, and the self-deprecation of some members It is essential to see that these factors need to be reduced or eliminated to maximize the possible effects that brainstorming can offer 5.2 Theoretical contribution According to the results collected, the research can offer some feasible conclusions Firstly, although Writing students have a belief and feelings that brainstorming can assist their Writing results, they still not have a tendency of using brainstorming whenever they write Having said that, except for time in Writing classes which students are given chances to be exposed to brainstorming for the tasks, they may not use this useful technique in other times Secondly, there are some factors that need to be reduced or eliminated for better idea results in interactive brainstorming groups including the fear of negative feedback, unbalanced effort contribution, idea interference, and self-deprecation of some members in the group 43 5.3 Methodological suggestion In the context of a teacher-led brainstorming session, some useful strategies for an effective brainstorming are provided in the book called The Landmark Method for Teaching Writing (Tarricone, 1995) Firstly, teachers have to obtain a clear goal in mind about where they want the discussion to go to aid their students’ writing In other words, teachers need to predict what students are likely to discuss, then provide feasible ways to help students approach the appropriate directions Secondly, teachers should accept almost any relevant ideas from students’ contribution It is clear to see that this advice is totally consistent with brainstorming’s rule (Osborn, 1953) Having said that, students should be given chances to free their mind during the brainstorming session, which boosts the chances for them to generate creative ideas In other words, if their contribution is ignored, they are not willing to take part in this session next time Thirdly, teachers should provide students appropriate brainstorming session In fact, it is impractical for students to brainstorm a topic which is not equivalent with their level Students will be inspired to brainstorm for topics that they already have some knowledge about them, thus increasing the chances to get good ideas Finally, it is vital to set a time limit for each brainstorming session Actually, students are easy to get bored if the activities for brainstorming go too long regardless of whether they are funny or not As a result, setting up an appropriate time limit for the activities is a prerequisite of an successful brainstorming session 5.4 Limitation The research enountered the problem related to the shortage of prior research related to the topic In fact, the research had difficulties in terms of constructing a good measure to collect the data due to the lack of prior research which focused on the same topic Actually, there was various research concerning brainstorming, yet no article had been found on the topic of students’ attitude towards brainstorming session or other matters related to the field of research including the affecting factors with interactive 44 brainstorming groups Subsequently, the devices for collecting the data were synthesized or adapted from other studies relating to the field, thus reducing the validity, reliability of the items For that reason, some variables cannot reach the highest level of reliability analysis 5.5 Implications for further research From what has been collected, the research can find out students’ attitude towards brainstorming as a pre-writing activity in Writing classes Moreover, some relevant issues including the frequency of using, the favorable forms, and the students’ opinions towards affecting factors are also revealed However, the particular ways for conducting brainstorming are not fully illustrated For that reason, some experimental research on real methodology for doing brainstorming and its effectiveness needs to be carried out for teachers and even students can have a critical view on what they have been doing and how effective they are, thus helping them to produce more valuable ideas in the brainstorming session 45 REFERENCES Abidin, M J Z., Pourmohammadi, M., & Alzwari, H (2012) EFL students’ attitudes towards learning English language: The case of Libyan secondary school students Asian Social Science, 8, 119-134 Al-maghawry, A (2012) Effectiveness of Using the Brainstorming Technique to Learn Some Basic Skills and Collection of Knowledge for Beginners in Volleyball World Journal of Sport Sciences, 6(4), 361-366 Amoush, K H (2015) The Impact of Employing Brainstorming Strategy on Improving Writing Performance of English Major Students at Balqa Applied University in Jordan Journal of Education and Practice, 6(35) Bohm, D (1998) On Creativity (Vol 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(and How to Get Started Immediately), from litemind.com Paulus, P B., & Dzindolet, M T (1993) Social influence processes in group brainstorming Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 575-586 Paulus, P B., Dzindolet, M T., Coskun, H., & Putman, V L (2002) Social and cognitive influences in group brainstorming: Predicting production gains and losses European Social Psychology Review, 12, 299-325 Paulus, P B., Larey, T S., Putman, V L., Leggett, K L., & Roland, E J (1996) Social influence processes in computer brainstorming Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 18, 3-14 Paulus, P B., & Yang, H C (2000) Idea generation in groups: A basis for creativity in organizations Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 82, 76-87 Rao, Z (2007) Training in brainstorming and developing writing skills ELT Journal, 61, 100-105 Rao, Z (April 2007) Training in brainstorming and developing writing skills 61(2), 100106 Roland, J (1985) Questorming: An Outline of the Method Tarricone, J G (1995) The Landmark Method for Teaching Writing United States: Landmark Foundation Tompkins, G E (2001) Literacy for the 21st Century: A Balanced Approach Columbus,OH: Merrill Prentice Hall Weinburgh, M H (1998) Gender, ethnicity, and grade level as predictors of middle school students’ attitudes toward science, from http://www.Ed.Psu.Edu/Ci/Journals/1998aets/S5_1_Weinburgh.Rtf 48 APPENDICE Appendix Questionnaire This questionnaire is designed for finding out “The attitude of EFL (ENGLISH AS FOREIGN LANGUAGE) second-year students towards brainstorming as a pre-writing technique in Writing” Your assistance in completing the following questions is greatly appreciated All the information provided by you is of great use and sorely for the study purpose Thank you! You are  Male  Female A Attitude towards brainstorming What is your attitude towards brainstorming? For each statement, please put an “x” under the appropriate answers: 1-Strongly Disagree 2-Disagree 3-Neutral Idea 4-Agree 5-Strongly Agree No Statements Brainstorming helps me to have a good relationship with my friends When I hear a student in my class brainstorm well, I like to practise with him or her Brainstorming helps me to improve my personality I am relaxed whenever I have to brainstorm in class 49 I not feel embarrassed to brainstorm in front of other students Brainstorming in English anywhere does not make me feel worried I feel enthusiastic to come to class when brainstorming is being thought I have more knowledge and more understanding when brainstorming I am satisfied with my performance in brainstorming stage 10 Brainstorming is difficult and complicated 11 Brainstorming covers many fields of knowledge 12 People who brainstorm well are very knowledgeable 13 Brainstorming in English helps me communicate effectively 14 I brainstorm just to pass the exams 15 Brainstorming is enjoyable to 16 Brainstorming makes me have good emotions 17 Being good at writing in English with brainstorming at the initial stage to get ideas is an important 50 goal 18 I look forward to the time I spend on brainstorming in English writing class 19 I prefer getting ideas by other ways rather than by brainstorming B Affective factors in interactive brainstorming groups What are your opnions to the following statements? For the following statements, put an “x” under the apropriate answers 1-Strongly Disagree 2-Disagree 3-Neutral Idea 4-Agree 5-Strongly Agree No Statements 20 Brainstorming in interactive groups is difficult because I fear receiving negative feedback by others 21 I not like to brainstorm in interactive groups when some members appear to contribute less effort than others compared with when they work alone 22 I cannot brainstorm in interactive groups effectively because I cannot think of ideas when other members present their ideas 51 23 Interactive groups make brainstorming difficult when some members compare themselves to be inferior about their knowledge to others Appendix Interview questions What is the average point of your writing? What are the obstacles when you start to write? Do you often brainstorm prior to your writing? How you conduct your brainstorming? Do you think brainstorming is effective? To what extent brainstorming is effective to your writing? 52