RESULTS OF THE INQUIRY OF TEACHING
FACTORS AFFECTING STUDENTS' ATTITUDE
IN THE CLASSROOM
RESULTADOS DE LA INVESTIGACIÓN SOBRE LOS
FACTORES DOCENTES QUE AFECTAN LA ACTITUD
DE LOS ESTUDIANTES EN EL AULA
Blanca Román Ortiz
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, México
Karina Guadalupe Valencia Cruz
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, México
Irma Erendira Meléndez Machorro
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, México
Gilda Torres Román
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, México
Manuel González Pérez
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, México
María Luisa Juárez Hernández.
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, México
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.37811/cl_rcm.v8i2.10701
Results of the Inquiry of Teaching Factors Affecting Students' Attitude
in the Classroom
Blanca Román Ortiz1
blanca.ro@personal.uttecam.edu.mx
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3308-0433
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco
México
Karina Guadalupe Valencia Cruz
karina.vc@personal.uttecam.edu.mx
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5364-6230
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco
México
Irma Erendira Meléndez Machorro
irma.mm@personal.uttecam.edu.mx
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6663-962X
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco
México
Gilda Torres Román
gilda.tr@personal.uttecam.edu.mx
https://orcid.org/0009-0007-4950-1462
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco
México
Manuel González Pérez
m.gonzalez.perez@personal.uttecam.edu.mx
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8700-2866
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco
México
María Luisa Juárez Hernández
rectoria@uttecam.edu.mx
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9735-0186
Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco
México
ABSTRACT
After some research done inside the Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, it was reflected that
the professor’s behavior has a big impact on students' English learning process. It was seen that students
can feel confident if the professor shows them empathy while having classes and, it can have a bigger
impact if the professor supports them while facing some learning problem. Also, if there is a rapport
after the activity it motivates even more the students’ enhancement. According to a previous paper
research students feel alone in the challenge of learning English at the Universidad Tecnológica de
Tecamachalco, so a questionnaire about their emotions was applied to obtain information about support,
motivation, regulation of emotions, enhancement of mnemonics, and positive rewards to accomplish
goals.
Keywords: rapport, learning, attention, enhancement, motivation
1
Autor principal
Correspondencia: blanca.ro@personal.uttecam.edu.mx
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Resultados de la Investigación sobre los Factores Docentes que Afectan la
Actitud de los Estudiantes en el Aula
RESUMEN
Después de algunas investigaciones realizadas dentro de la Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco,
se ha reflejado que el comportamiento del maestro tiene un gran impacto en el proceso de aprendizaje
de una segunda lengua, Inglés. Se observó que los estudiantes pueden sentir confianza sí el profesor
muestra empatía durante la clase y puede tener un mayor impacto sí el profesor los apoya en el momento
de enfrentar algunas dificultades en el proceso de aprendizaje, también, sí hay una interacción
armoniosa después de la actividad motivando aún más la mejora de los estudiantes. De acuerdo a una
investigación previa, la cual muestra que los estudiantes se sienten solos ante el reto de aprender inglés
en la Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, por lo que se aplicó un cuestionario sobre sus
emociones para obtener información referente a apoyo, motivación, regulación de emociones,
potencialización de la mnemotecnia, y recompensas positivas para cumplir metas.
Palabras clave: interacción armoniosa, aprendizaje, atención, mejora, motivación
Artículo recibido 20 febrero 2024
Aceptado para publicación: 25 marzo 2024
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INTRODUCTION
At the Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco, some students have a low level of English and, there
are many reasons why that happens, so we were compelled to find them. The first research done at this
university showed that students felt alone while learning English; after that, a big question emerged: If
students are motivated by their English professor to achieve attainable goals and objectives, then the
professor often motivates them to do their best.
Inside the classroom motivation has an important role because it is a process where students'
expectations are related to their beliefs and abilities to fulfill tasks, another one is the relevance of the
evaluation of achieving goals and the last one is an effective element presented in the emotions which
each student experiments during the task development Figueroa, et al (2024). Moreover, students
usually have some expectancy about the activities to develop. There are some needs that students are
required to cover while learning something new; for example, new challenges trend to complete an
activity or to become competent but the most important is to interact with the aim of feel confident and
in this way have a chance to succeed in other words empower them.
To fulfill students’ expectations the instructor must show enthusiasm, so students can follow this lead.
Most of the time the instructor’s enthusiasm comes from the content, but mainly comes from the
confidence. It is important that what is going to be taught should be interesting and challenging for the
students. It can involve breaking the routine and having a variety of activities for a course. One of the
main particularities of teaching is seizing attention. Mora (2013) mentions that attention is the required
brain mechanism to be conscious about anything. To enhance the wish to know new concepts and retain
them for longer times using curiosity, he affirms that it is a main component of emotion to open the
attention windows mentioning at least 4 different kinds of them.
An instructor must consider three fundamental questions to have clear goals that are pretentious to
achieve: What originates or initiates students’ arousal or activity? What causes a student to move toward
a goal? What causes a student to persist in striving toward a goal? Any task has three components
Graham, (2020): attainment value (the importance of success in meeting needs, such as self-esteem or
competence), intrinsic value (the extent to which the task is inherently interesting or enjoyable), and
utility value (the importance of success for attaining long-range goals).
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Students who felt more connected to their instructors reported a concurrent increase in interest in the
content presented, as Tichenor and Tichenor (2005) mentioned by Korkmaz, Fahrettín, & Unsal,
Serkan. (2020) refers to five main characteristics of professionalism when teaching: character,
commitment to change, subject knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and working relationships.
When instructors took the time to share personal stories, made space for interpersonal interaction, and
showed empathy for the learning process, those simple human gestures worked in harmony with the
cognitive side of learning to generate deeper interest and increase engagement (Miesner. E., 2023),
Cetin (2006) mentioned by Korkmaz, Fahrettín, & Unsal, Serkan. (2020) developed a scale to determine
professors´ attitudes using 3 factors: love, value, and harmony. Also, emotional support is essential,
according to Mora (2013) emotions are the most important base to sustain all the learning and memory
processes to reach the learners solidly and convincingly.
Due to these facts, our proposal was based on the analysis of the result of data obtained from a
questionnaire inspired by Lev Vygotsky’s development zone to learn about Socioemotional Skills and
learning experiences of Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco (UTTECAM).
METHODOLOGY
Trying to learn without companionship is frustrating because it can impede new knowledge acquisition.
During the first months of 2023, a questionnaire was applied to students from Senior Technician to
Engineering, to know how they saw the learning and Teaching process and how important the
professor's companionship was while staying in college. The questionnaire was administered online to
534 women and men students from nine careers in the UTTECAM. The questionnaire contained ten
questions rated 1 to 5, 1 was the lowest level, and five the highest one.
The questions were designed using the Liker scale. The students answered about how they considered
their English professor's performance in class. Once the questionnaires were applied, each question was
put into a pie chart, to facilitate that one by one could be analyzed to have a better understanding of
how the professors’ attitudes can affect students' learning.
RESULTS AND DISCUSION
The results of graphing students’ answers to the questionnaire were ten pie charts. The first question for
students was:
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Graphic 1 How well do you feel you have a supportive learning relationship with your English professor?
As can be seen, most of the students felt in the middle, with 32%, which means that 173 students felt
they had a supportive learning relationship. Of the least,18 students, 4% felt they did not have a
supportive learning relationship with their English professor.
The second question was related to motivation.
Graphic 2 How often does your English professor motivate you to reach achievable goals and objectives?
Most of the students, 167 which means 31.3%, chose number 4 which means they felt motivated by
their English professor to reach achievable goals and objectives, and once again the lowest answer with
3 % (18 students) felt that their English professor does not motivate them to reach achievable goals and
objectives.
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Graphic 3 The third question was: how often does your professor motivate you to do your best?
As it was mentioned before number five was the highest agreement while talking about the professor’s
performance inside the classroom, 192 students (36%) agreed that the professor motivates them to do
their best. But 4% of the students do not think that.
The fourth question mentioned: how often does your English professor regulate his or her emotions
before beginning the class?
Graphic 4
The fifth aspect was the highest and 37 percent of the total students mentioned that their English
professors regulate their emotions. It implied the English professors controlled themselves and they
focused on their classes. The students could observe this because nobody answered with the lowest
number, which is number 1.
Question number 5 was related to the professor as a motivational figure. The question was: to what
extent do you consider your English professor as a motivational figure?
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Graphic 5
As it can be noticed, the students consider their English professors to be important to feel motivated.
34.3 percent of the students agree with this idea.
The question number 6 is focused on the students’ security. The question is how often does your English
professor support you to speak and participate in English class? The total result is divided between the
three highest options. According to the result shown in this graph, the students feel their English
professors help them in class and they feel secure when they speak and participate in class.
Graphic 6
Question number 7 is related to dealing with stress and tension during the class asking students about
a healthy sense of humor that could make them feel good. This question is focused on knowing if a
sense of humor could be a tool to promote learning and a bondage to improve the retention of
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information or a relaxing practice of the English language. The results show that 33 % of students
admit their professors use a good sense of humor.
Graphic 7
Question 8 is associated with the frequency with which professors share techniques to help students
with long-term memory. The English language requires some memorization of verbs and vocabulary,
and mnemonics is required to recall those words. The results show that 60% of students get help from
their professors to get prolonged information storage because their answers fluctuate between 4 and
5.
Graphic 8
Question 9 relates to the emotional rewards the English professors could use to break bad habits in
class like inefficient note-taking, missing classes, allowing distractions, etc. Some of those emotional
rewards could be empowering students to have a positive change in their academic performance,
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setting goals, improving the weakest skills in language, managing time, feeling like part of a
community, etc. Sadly only 32 % of students perceived some of those rewards.
Graphic 9
The last question is about the perseverance of professors to help students build their self-esteem based
on the accomplishments they get to class after class, praising them when they do a good job and
encouraging the ones that have difficulties to develop the four skills because the social context besides
being rural has no other way to practice the English language. The results show that 32 % of students
marked a low interaction with professors to improve their self-esteem and 28% showed a high interest
in improving it.
Graphic 10
CONCLUSIONS
The study was based on a questionnaire that covered the emotional aspects that a professor can represent
in the classroom, such as a healthy sense of humor, motivation to learn the language, and security,
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among others. The graphs studied during the analysis showed that in all the questions, approximately
40% to 50% of students consider that each of the aspects is at a high or very high level of achievement,
that is, half of the learners feel supported by their professors. Nearly 50% of students consider that
emotional support is insufficient or average.
It is realized that the perception of 40% of the students is that their professors do not use a sense of
humor in an outstanding way in class. The above could cause apathy, lack of interest, or feeling alien
to the language, that is, there is a lack of ease in the class. On the other hand, it is understandable that
the pass-fail rate does not reside in a single aspect such as humor, but in a complex constellation of
things happening in the classroom.
The lack of motivation could raise negative features such as insecurity and anxiety in students.
Concerning the above, the motivation to achieve major objectives and goals has a direct relation effect
on the motivation imparted by the professor. Finally, it is evident that although most students feel the
professors have a good level of emotional enrollment in the class, a good part of them perceive average
or poor support, this is reflected in the failure rates of the English class subject, which is the highest
of the subjects of the Universidad Tecnológica de Tecamachalco.
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