Effect of ‘incomplete handout’ on students’ attention during lecture

Abstract

Abstract: The lecture is still the most common form for transmission of content knowledge. Maintaining student’s attention throughout a lecture is one of the greatest challenges facing the teacher. The use of “incomplete handout” as attention maintaining strategy was supposed to improve attending and listening in a number of academic situations such as lecture. This study aimed to identify the effect of incomplete handout on the student attention during the lecture. Two matched groups, experimental and control group were included in this study conveniently, forty five students for each, with their mean age of (18.69 ± 0.99) and (19.04 ± 0.82) respectively. The experimental group students utilized the incomplete handout, as an attention maintaining strategy while the control did not. Pre, post, and follow-up tests, in addition to lecture quizzes, were applied for the two groups. The results revealed a non-significant difference between the two groups regarding pretest while revealed a highly statistically significant difference between them regarding post and follow-up test at (p<0.001) that conclude a great maintenance of attention throughout the lecture for the experimental group students versus the control group students. Recommendations of the study included the use of the “incomplete handout” as a note-taking strategy in maintaining the student attention throughout the lecture. new