Knowledge on active participation in classroom among nursing and midwifery students

Received Jan 27, 2020 Revised May 17, 2020 Accepted Jul28, 2020 Effective learning-teaching process is ensured when students interact and actively participate in the learning process. Though most instructors stressed the value of active participation in classrooms of universities and colleges, achieving success in eliciting it appears more difficult. There is high tendency of instructors in higher institutions to cover the tasks and responsibilities of their students. The main aim of this study was to assess the knowledge of and to identify strategies for improving active participation in classroom among nursing and midwifery students. Institution based cross-sectional survey was conducted in Jimma University onrandomlyselected 126 students (81 nursing and 45 midwifery). The collected data were coded, checked and cleaned and entered into SPSS version 23 for analysis. Simple descriptive statistics was used to see the frequency distribution whereas cross-tabulation and Pearson Chi-square test were used to see the association between variables. Majority, 106 (84.1%) of the students had good knowledge about the benefits of active participation in classroom and they suggested strategies to be used by regular classroom teachers to improve students’ participation. Students’ academic year has shown statistically significant association with their knowledge about active participation. The authors of this study strongly recommend instructors to use active learning methods and department heads need to follow teaching methods implemented by their respective faculty.


INTRODUCTION
Learning is a process that requires the interaction between students and instructors in a classroom. Instructors/lecturers or teachers are considered the main players in educational process while students play the complementing role. This is because instructors bear the duty to teach, guide, motivate and shape students to become advantageous, confident and competent citizen whereas students should accept, aspire and apply the skill and knowledge entertained in the learning process [1].
Students' interaction and active participation in the classroom is crucial for achieving effective learning and teaching process. The participation level of students in classroom may range from passive to active participations. Some students may just sit quietly, taking notes, listening, doing something else, or asking questions while some of them give their opinions, or answering raised questions [2]. Liu categorized students' participation into four forms as full integration, participation in the circumstances, marginal interaction, and silent observation [3]. Currently, Ministry of education (MOE) of Ethiopia advocates the interactive type of learning i.e. use of active learning methods to help students interact with their environment and discuss issues with their colleagues freely. Even if we are using interactive type of learning methods to some extent, most of the students are dormant to participate in the classroom. This type of learning teaching approach may be contributed from different factors like extended classrooms with more students, low awareness of instructors to use interactive type of teaching, less interest of students to be active participant shows that much is left to be done.
Although active participation in learning activities is very indispensable work habit that enriches students with opportunities to learn and practice new knowledge and strategies, to explain their reasoning, to examine their thinking processes and allows teachers to scrutiny their students' thinking processes and learning, to identify learning problems, to evaluate students' academic progress, to provide cognitive support for their students, students still do not actively participate satisfactorily.
In the contemporary world, education has been transformed as to be a means for achieving ones' personal demand & problem solving means at individual as well as in the national level which can be accomplished by implementing interactive/active learning. In the previous times, students were considered simply as passive receiver of one directional flow of information from the instructors/teachers without an active involvement of students during learning activities. This type of passive participation of students is not uncommon in most of our higher education institutions in Ethiopia. The objectives of this study is to assess the knowledge of active participation in classroom and to identifythe strategies suggested to improve participation among nursing and midwifery students of Jimma University, south west Ethiopia, 2019

RESEARCH METHOD
The study was conducted in Jimma University institute of health school of Nursing and midwifery. Jimma University is found in Jimma town which is located in Oromia region, South West Ethiopia at about 357 KMs from Addis Ababa, capital city of Ethiopia. The climatic condition of the area is Woinedega and the altitude is 1735KMs above sea level. Jimma University was established in 1983 and currently has 2 institutes, 7 colleges and over 40 departments hosting more than 45,000 students on regular, summer and continuing and distance education programs. It is the pioneer university in community based education in the Ethiopian history. Currently, Jimma University Nursing and Midwifery school is running four Bachelor and two masters program in regular basis and one evening and one weekend program hosting a total of over 700 students. From these, we conducted the survey on 81 nursing and 45 midwifery (second and third year) giving a total of 126 students in the 2019/2020 academic year.Institution based cross-sectional descriptive study design was used to assess the students' knowledge of and strategies they recommend to improve active participation in the classroom. We randomly selected two-third (126) of the students by using computer generated random numbers based on the students' list in each class.
Ethical approval letter was obtained from Jimma University Nursing and midwifery school head. Oral informed consent was obtained from the respondents after briefly explaining the aim of the study. Participants were assured that if they want to refuse to participate, their lesson or dignity would not be compromised in any way since there was no relationship between participation in the study and teaching learning process. All information obtained from the students were kept confidential.Self-administered questionnaire was adopted and distributed to the students in the four categories. The collected data were coded, checked and cleaned and entered into SPSS version 23 for analysis. Descriptive statistics was used to see the frequency distribution of the students by their socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge about the benefits of active participation in classroom, and strategies they suggest to be used by regular classroom teachers to improve students' participation. We did cross tabulation and Pearson chi-square test to see the association between students' knowledge and socio-demographic characteristics. Finally, the result was presented by using narrative texts, tables and figures.

Socio-demographic characteristics
In this study a total of 126 students were involved. From these 126 respondents 65(51.6%) were aged less than or equal to 20 years with the overall age range of 17 to 28. More than half of the respondents 67(53.17%) were male. Concerning their academic year 75(59.52%) were 2 nd year and with regard to their department 81(64.3%) were nursing students. Only 11(8.63%) of the students followed their preparatory education in rural areas whereas 33(26.19%) in semi-urban areas. With regard to their parents occupation 51(40.48%) and 7(5.56%) of the students reported that their fathers' occupation is government employee and daily laborer respectively, whereas 41(32.54%) reported their mothers occupation to be housewife. Majority, 119(94.4%) of the students replied that they are supported by their families. As it is seen from the below some of the students hesitate to report some of the variables, for example, 7(5.56%) and 13(10.32%) students did not reported the occupation of their fathers and mothers respectively and 2(1.59%) and 14(11.11%) students did not reported about who support them and source of income of their supporters respectively.

Students' knowledge about active participation in the classroom
We used eleven item questions to assess students' knowledge about benefits of active participation in the classroom. Accordingly, the responses of students to the question "What is/are the benefit/s of active participation in classroom?" indicate that 93(73.81%) of them replied it always add interest for students to learn, 87(69.05%) said it always engage students in learning activities, 79(62.70%) of them replied that it help students control what is happening in the class, 88(69.84%) reported that active participation help students share their views, ideas and benefits about the content under discussion and 84(66.67%) of the students said it give opportunity for students to practice using the language of the discipline. As it is seen in the following table in general, only few of the students undermine the benefits of active participation in classroom. For example, only 1(0.8%) student denied that active participation add interest for students, 1(0.8%) do not agree that active participation promote students preparation, and only 2(1.6%) of the students do not accept that active participation help students to share their views, ideas and beliefs about the content under study. The Table 2 shows for detail. As it is seen in the following pie chart 106(84.13%) of the students had good knowledge about the benefits of active participation in the classroom, illustrated in Figure 1.

Perceived reasons why students do not actively participate in the classroom
When we see the students response for the question "What are the reasons why students do not participate in the classroom?" 17(13.49%) and 19(15.08%) respectively replied very high and high that they (students) don't know the language, 21(16.67%) and 15(11.90%) respectively replied very high and high that they fear other students, 22(17.46%) and 54(42.86%) of the students replied very high and very low that they are very busy doing other learning activities respectively. In addition, 6(4.76%) and 41(32.54%) of the respondents replied very high and very low that teacher doesn't give them an opportunity to talk respectively and 19(15.08%) and 36(28.57%) of the students replied very high and very low that they fear teachers face when s/he looks at them respectively. The Table 3 shows for detail.

Suggested strategies to be used by the regular classroom teachers to increase students' participation
In this study we utilized a question containing 18 items all filled in five point Likert Scale. More than half, 70 (55.56%) of the respondents suggest that teachers must consider the convenience of the classroom environment before the class discussion started, 69(54.76%) of them suggest that teachers should let students teach each other, another 69(54.76%) of the students suggest teachers should devise activities that elicit participation. More than half 75(59.5%) and 71(56.3%) of the students suggest that teachers should ask students to assess their own participation and teach students skills needed to participate respectively. Majority of the respondents 103(81.8%) suggest that regular classroom teachers should make the content fit to the available time to make active participant in their classroom. From the total students 20(15.9%) do not agree that teachers need to assess students' prior knowledge to implement appropriate learning methods and 46(36.5%) do not want to be busy by teachers/classroom activities. The Table 4 shows for detail.

Cross-tabulation to see the presence of associations between sociodemographic variables and knowledge about active participation in classroom.
We have conducted cross tabulation and Pearson chi-square test to see the association between students' knowledge and socio-demographic characteristics. Accordingly we run the cross-tabulation for age, sex, academic year, place of origin, department, father and mother occupation and who support them. Finally only students' academic year has shown statistically significant association with their knowledge about the benefit of active participation in the classroom at 95% confidence interval and P-value of less than 0.05. The Table 5shows for detail.

DISCUSSION
In this study majority of the students 93(73.81%), 87(69.05%), 79(62.70%) and 88(69.84%) replied that active participation classroom add interest for students to learn, engage students in learning activities, help students control what is happening in the class and help students share their views, ideas and benefits about the content under discussion respectively. This is supported by other studies which reveal that students' interaction and active participation in the classroom is crucial for achieving effective learning and teaching process [2] contributes to learning & motivates students to learn [4,5] and is fundamental action to achieve effective learning and plays significant role in the success of academic and personal development of students [6].
Regarding the reason why students do not participate in their classroom this study revealed that 36 (28.57%), 36 (28.56%), and 22(17.46%) of the respondents replied that students don't know the language of interaction in the classroom, they fear other students and they are very busy doing other learning activities respectively. In addition, 6(4.76%) of the students said teachers didn't give them an opportunity to talk and 19(15.08%) report that they fear teachers face when s/he looks at them. This is similar with other study which depicted important factors that affect students' active participation in classroom is the characters and skills of the lecturer. Teachers/lecturers' characters such as being supportive, understanding, approachable, giving smiles and nodding for admitting the answers that are given by students, affirmative and open-mindedness are among the encouraging factors [12].
Concerning the possible suggestion made by students 70 (55.56%), 69(54.76%), 69(54.7%) and 75(59.5%) suggest that teachers must consider the convenience of the classroom environment before the class discussion started, should let students teach each other, devise activities that elicit participation and should ask students to assess their own participation respectively. This result is supported by another study that revealed engaging the students in classroom activities provides them opportunity to receive input from fellow students, to apply their knowledge and to enhance public speaking skills and it also help teachers to get a more accurate idea about the understanding level of students on the concept he/she is teaching [16]. Currently, Ministry of education (MOE) of Ethiopia advocates the interactive type of learning i.e. use of active learning methods to help students interact with their environment and discuss issues with their colleagues freely.

CONCLUSION
This study was focusing on assessing students' knowledge about active participation in classroom and identifying suggested strategies to be used by regular classroom teachers to improve students' participation. Accordingly, as it is indicated in the result majority of the students had good knowledge about the benefit of active participation in classroom though not practicing it adequately. The students also depicted the reasons why students do not actively participate in classroom. Majority of the students highly recommended eighteen (18) strategies to be utilized by the regular classroom teachers to help students actively participate in classrooms.
Based on the finding of this study we strongly recommend the following points for concerned bodies. As it is known the government/ministry of education's direction is to make students critical thinkers, rationale and productive society. Therefore to achieve this goal the contribution of regular classroom teachers is of paramount significance in shaping the students and improving their classroom participation. Students who are active participant in their classroom will develop their sense of self-esteem, self-confidence, communication skill, and also productivity, therefore, teachers should use the suggested and other strategies used to improve students' classroom participation. Department/school heads should regularly follow the activities of regular classroom teachers and encourage them to use active teaching methods. Students should be motivated to be active participant in their classroom and they should be committed and self-confident to participate as free as possible. The universities should minimize the number of students per class and make classroom environment convenient for implementation of active teaching -learning methods. Course delivery method should also be semester based rather than block course to give students and teachers enough time for preparation and implementation of active learning methods.
As both departments/disciplines require active engagement of the students during their study period to be equipped with necessary knowledge and skill needed to meet professional expectations.This study is extremely important to give insight for nursing and midwifery instructors to use active learning methods that make their students active participant in teaching learning process.