Research School Network: What does the research say about student attention? A review of some of the research around the importance of student attention or inattention on academic outcomes.

Let’s be honest, it would be pretty tough against the notion that attention is important to education and academic outcomes. The idea of students being able to resist distraction is a key component of various educational theories, and is quite understandable when you consider the complexity of achieving a strong education.

How important is attention?

In his excellent blog Michael Hobbiss sums up the issue perfectly – ​“we simply cannot process what we don’t let in”. He goes on to describe our attention capacity to be like a ​“bottleneck”, and that if, through distractibility, we allow irrelevant information to enter our memory, our working memory is likely to be unable to process and manipulate the information as we desire.

There is a growing body of evidence that attention skills or tendency to be distracted can strongly predict academic achievement, with Breslau et al (2009) noting that attention problems are the principle predictor of diminished achievement relative to expectations on the basis of a child cognitive ability. Importantly for secondary educators the detrimental impacts of inattention become more significant the further a student progresses through education (Merrel et al, 2016). Although this is not to say inattention in earlier years should be ignored, with various studies identifying links between inattention ratings/​scores at school entry (4−5 years) at end of KS2 performance and even to age 17.

In their study, Breslau et al (2009) assessed the behavioural competencies (including attention capacity) and IQ of 693 children aged 6, and then compared these assessments to academic achievement of the same children in maths and reading at the age of 17. What they found was a clear correlation between poor attention skills and reduced achievement, which they attributed to attention deficient students being less efficient learners and being unable to acquire basic skills in early years. They also noted that teacher expectations were often reduced for such students. These results have been mirrored by the work of Merrel et al (2016) in their longitudinal study of the impacts inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity on academic achievement at age 11. The study included 46,369 students from 18,112 schools, who were assessed on entry to the school on a number of criteria items (9 related to inattention, 6 to hyperactivity and 3 to impulsivity). This data was then compared to statutory assessment data in English and Maths taken at the end of the same children’s primary education. As shown in the diagram below the study found a clear negative association between number of criteria met on the inattention items and academic achievement. While the box plot does indicate some variation between individual students, suggesting some become more capable of managing their behaviour and attention as they progress through the school, the median values show a clear decline in achievement as the number of inattention criteria are met.

The negative association is such that a child meeting all 9 inattention criteria achieved almost one standard deviation lower in English and Maths than a child meeting none of the criteria but with similar cognitive ability and socio-economic background.

How can we improve attention?

Despite their being little research into the matter, many experts and experienced practitioners regularly attest that a student’s attention will normally begin to wain after 10 – 15mins (Wilson and Korn, 2007). Of the little evidence looking to actually test this belief much has been done in the field of university lectures rather than the classroom, and subsequently any findings should be treated with a degree of caution when applying into the school classroom. While slightly dated, Johnston and Pericval (1976) study into observable lapses in concentration of students attending university lectures does highlight some worrying results. The study found that in the first 5 minutes of a lecture a student is likely to experience a 2 – 4 minute lapse in concertation as they and their peers settle. Once settled students will be able to pay attention for between 10 – 18 minutes before experience another 2 – 4 minute lapse. By the end of a 50 minute lecture students were observed to experience a lapse in concentration every 3 – 4 minutes.

When considering how we can improve or support student attention, Bunce et al (2010) notes that as educators should be aware that students are unlikely to pay attention for the full 50 minutes of a lecture and that we should consider the attention cycle of students by breaking down lectures into smaller segments divided by activities that require the students to be actively engaged in the material – i.e. through quizzing. As discussed much of the research into enhancing attention is in relation to university lectures and it is likely that school lessons are likely to be less of a one-way street of delivery.

Wilson and Korn (2007) also argue for instruction to be broken up by opportunities for quizzing. They further consider the impact of how the lecture material is presented on attention, noting that students are more likely to maintain interest for longer when the topic is interesting, delivered with clarity (which serves to emphasise the importance of teacher subject knowledge) and enthusiasm.

Attention is also intrinsically linked to educational theories behind the concept of challenge. Teaching material must strive to ensure students are in the ​“struggle zone” so that the content is not so challenging that they can not access it, but also so that it pushes students to the limits of their ability and as such leaves little room for distractions. There has also been significant research into the causes of distraction within the class, with factors such as wall displays, background noise, peers and the educator themselves all being identified as potential attention dividers. Teachers can attempt to combat such potential sources of distraction by considering how their seating plan enables or dissuades peer distraction or external distraction such as windows and doorways (Guardino and Fullerton, 2010). Teachers may also wish to consider how wall displays can have unintended consequences of distraction. There has been much debate on the role and impact of all displays which we do not have time to go into here.

In conclusion, despite much research into the detrimental impacts of inattention on school student achievement, there still remains a paucity of research on how to improve that in the school setting. However, what the research clearly suggests is that while almost bound to happen we must attempt to minimise the amount of attention lapses from the very first stages of education to the last if we are going to be support our students.

Ben Crockett is Head of Geography at Durrington High School. He is also a Research School Associate and will be running a 1 day workshop focusing on effective and evidence informed teaching in Geography

References:
Breslau, J., Miller, E., Breslau, N., Bohnert, K., Lucia, V. C., & Schweitzer, J. (2009). The Impact of Early Behavior Disturbances on Academic Achievement in High School. Pediatrics, 123(6), 1472 – 1476.

Bunce, Diane M., Elizabeth A. Flens, and Kelly Y. Neiles. ​“How long can students pay attention in class? A study of student attention decline using clickers.” Journal of Chemical Education 87.12 (2010): 1438 – 1443.

Guardino, Caroline A., and Elizabeth Fullerton. ​“Changing behaviors by changing the classroom environment.” Teaching exceptional children 42.6 (2010): 8 – 13.

Johnstone, Alex H., and Frederick Percival. ​“Attention breaks in lectures.” Education in chemistry 13.2 (1976): 49 – 50.

Merrell, C., Sayal, K., Tymms, P., & Kasim, A. (2016). A longitudinal study of the association between inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity and children’s academic attainment at age 11. Learning and Individual Differences.

Wilson, Karen, and James H. Korn. ​“Attention during lectures: Beyond ten minutes.” Teaching of Psychology 34.2 (2007): 85 – 89.