SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE 1: TO IDENTIFY IF THE STUDENTS INCREASED THEIR CLASS PARTICIPATION AFTER THE USE OF QUIZIZZ AND SMARTPHONES AS A WARM-UP STRATEGY.

In order to analyze if there were any changes on the students’ participation after working with the intervention strategy, two instruments were used. The teacher journal served to record impressions and details related to the strategy and participants’ behaviors and attitudes in the classroom. Besides, The classroom map was used to register the student interactions while they were using Quizizz. For the analysis of both instruments a thematic analysis was used, showing the most recurrent themes and sub-themes presented during the observation process.

Table 1 shows the main theme related to the use of Quizizz and smartphones as a warm-up strategy and the most recurring sub-themes related to both intervention groups in the study. The first theme presented was the Quizizz and smartphone warm-up strategy, where the teacher, along with participants registered some recurrent characteristics and sub-themes as shown in Table 1. It is presented how many times each group mentioned and related these sub-themes with the Quizizz warm-up strategy.

Table 1: Use of Quizizz and smartphones as a warm-up strategy 

Source: own elaboration from the data provided on the main themematic analysis

Regarding the impressions expressed by the teacher, one of the most recurrent sub-themes presented was Students’ familiarity with the strategy as it seems that all participants were used to working with their smartphones and technology in their daily lives. It appears that it was easy for them to interact with the Quizizz as a warm-up strategy. Therefore, all of them were willing to participate during the implementation with no further problems.

Even though the 37 participants were part of the strategy and completed it, some of them had some drawbacks as shown in Table 1, where students showed some difficulty with certain questions that were part of the strategy, it was also observed that there were problems with the students’ backwardness.

Nine students were left behind while the rest of the participants had finished with Quizizz, so these students had to wait for the others to end the strategy. Even though Quizizz had a time set for each activity, between 35 and 100 seconds to answer each Quizizz item, some of the students were faster than others.

Finally, it was noticed that in two occasions the instructions given to participants might not have been clear so they asked the teacher again in order to explain it in Spanish for a better understanding. This situation may have occurred since most of the students from the two groups had a poor understanding of English and in most of the lessons the teacher had to clarify the instructions and content in their mother tongue in order to simplify the information given so they could carry out the different activities during the lesson.

A second theme was related to the warm-up activities applied during the three sessions through the technological tool Quizizz supported by smartphones. In each of the three sessions of the intervention, a different warm-up activity was employed for both groups such as: Matching pairs, Memory games and Vocabulary surveys, respectively.

It seemed that even though these warm-up activities were developed once in each group, the students showed a different and better disposition to work and participate than in previous traditional warm-up activities.

Prior to the implementation of the intervention, participants were exposed to the same warm-up activities but their interest and level of participation were lower, possibly because they were not attracted to them, they were afraid of participating in front of the class or they were not used to using Quizizz in most of their other courses. Most of their courses were lectures where they were just seated and had to listen to their teachers. The methods used to present these activities were not appealing to their multiple intelligences or communicative needs.

It is important to note that even though The students’ perception scale was not meant to be used for this objective, some of the students’ comments noted at the end of the scale were beneficial to this purpose as seen in Table 2 and Table 3.

Table 2 shows a third theme allied to the technology used during the three sessions and some examples were extracted from the qualitative comments that students wrote in the comment section in The students’ perception scale. These observations were expressed during the first and last day of implementation. Smartphone, WI-FI connection and Quizizz sub-themes were recurrent subjects associated to the use of technology in the classroom.

Table 2: Use of technology 

Source: own elaboration from the data provided on the secundary themematic analysis

Concerning the use of technology, three sub-themes were mentioned as shown in Table 2. From the participants’ perspective showed in the students’ comment section, the pedagogical tool Quizizz was helpful to motivate them to participate more during the lessons, they also mentioned it was interesting and fun to play with it.

Nevertheless, it seemed that for some participants, that the use of this strategy with a smartphone may exclude some of them due to the fact that they may not have this kind of technology required to be part of the lesson, so they would not be able to participate during the strategy. Furthermore, while the strategy was applied, the WI-FI connection failed, thus, some of the participants could not keep working with the Quizizz section activities but they continued with their partners.

With this in mind, it seems that participants’ positive perceptions about Quizizz, support the thesis that participants modified their behavior by improving their willingness to participate during the lessons. Likewise, by introducing a strategy related to participants’ interests, they would feel more motivated to be part of the English lessons. However, before the strategy was applied, students had almost no interest and did not show any excitement to participate in the lessons.

During the observations, it could be noticed that they were very interested in the lessons and they encouraged themselves to continue playing with Quizizz and smartphones used as a warm-up strategy. As some of them mentioned in The students’ perception scale comments, it was easier to continue with the next activity due to the fact that the strategy introduced them to the new vocabulary or the topic that they were going to learn and practice in the course of the lessons.

A fourth theme was showed in relation to participants interactions, through The classroom map there could be identified the most recurrent interactions that participants held during the implementation of the strategy. During the three intervention sessions per group, all participants interacted at some point with the strategy, with a frequency of 111 times. One of the most recurrent interactions was student-student (156 times) as they were asked to work in couples and discuss their answers to each other during the intervention strategy.

Finally, the student-teacher interactions were related to asking about instructions and answering questions about the strategy at the end of Quizizz, with a frequency of 136 times. The teacher-student interactions occurred with a frequency of 120 times, where the teacher explained the instructions and answered questions.

Participants were uncommonly active in relation to the lesson interaction while the intervention strategy was applied. Even though participants were usually exposed to similar activities before the intervention, their level of interaction was very low as they preferred doing the activities by themselves or did them in their mother tongue.

After the use of this intervention strategy the two groups of participants changed their willingness to participate during the lesson. Participants increased their participation compared to the lessons before the action research intervention. From the teacher’s observation, during the intervention they seemed more comfortable, excited and willing to work, spoke in English and shared with the rest of the class.

Group 1 asked the teacher constantly to work with the intervention strategy and participated actively in the lesson. Before the intervention, they had a low class participation since they were A1 level students and were afraid of making mistakes. Even though Quizizz showed how correct their answers were, they did not feel embarrassed to share their answers with the rest of the class. Similarly, Group 2 enjoyed the activities and, according to them, this allowed them to have a better understanding of the vocabulary and topics studied during the lessons.

In Figure 3, there is an example of The classroom map, which was used in one of Quizizz and smartphones warm-up strategy sessions to identify the position of the participants in the classroom and the interactions promoted by the intervention strategy.

Source: Own elaboration to show an extract of the classroom map

Figure 3: Extract from map 1 on students’ interactions (group 1-session 1) 

A numberless of ideas arose from the comments that participants gave during the application of The students’ perception scale. Students expressed their beliefs and opinions about Quizizz and smartphones used as a warm-up strategy, as well as their thoughts related to their participation during the English lessons.

It could be inferred that inside the classroom, there were different kinds of students with different needs so the reasons to explain their lack of participation may be varied. Even within the same group, where students were exposed to the same conditions and content, the interests and the students’ level of English proficiency were different. Table 3 shows some students’ opinions about their feelings or impressions regarding the English lessons.

Table 3: Students’ comments about the English lessons 

Source: own elaboration from the data provided on the secundary themematic analysis

The first sub-theme (Students’ participation in the English lesson), illustrates participants’ awareness on their level of participation in the lesson. When interpreting their comments, it seems that some of the students felt confident in relation to their English language proficiency, so they felt that they did not need to take part in the lesson discussions since they mastered the activities. In contrast, there were some participants, who felt the opposite as they were insecure of their English skills and they manifested that English was hard for them so they could not develop self- confidence in language performance.

Another idea that might be connected to the previous issue may be the classroom environment created by the teacher and classmates, where the students may have felt anxious or insecure when they had the opportunity to speak or connect with others. For instance, students did not want to participate because they were afraid of being teased or judged by their group of peers or the teacher.

The second sub-theme (Students’ interest in the English lesson), describes participants’ attentiveness in the English language as a reason for motivation and engagement in the lessons. From the comments it could be inferred that the individual interests in the topics and learning a language could be beneficial in acquiring, speaking English and participating.

The third sub-theme presented in the comment section of The students’ perception scale was: Benefits of the use of the strategy. A number of participants mentioned the pros of this Quizizz strategy based on the use of smartphones. It must be reported that the effectiveness of this kind of strategy in an English as a Foreign Language classroom relied heavily on the lesson objectives, clarity of instructions and individual students’ willingness to communicate or interact with others.

As the students noticed that Quizizz worked as a leading strategy for the lesson, it also enhanced participants’ interaction, and the strategy facilitated the learning process possibly because of an emotional factor while they were working with it. Lastly, the strategy reduced the students’ anxiety while they worked with their classmates as they were having fun and laughing. Thus, they did not feel under pressure since they were all working under the same conditions with a familiar tool.

In the fourth sub-theme (Classroom interaction after the use of the strategy), the participants pointed out the importance of interacting in a stress-free environment adding that they enjoyed working with the strategy because it allowed them to feel relaxed and participate voluntarily and spontaneously.

Furthermore, an important topic is the possible cultural difference that the content of the strategy might have presented; for instance, participants were learning a foreign language, and the topics were not familiar to them as it was expressed by the students. Finally, the fifth sub-theme (Cultural differences), illustrates a topic that may affect the students’ willingness and engagement in the lessons and the importance of adapting the lessons to the students’ real context to make them meaningful, engaging, authentic and collaborative, through the integration of technology and traditional materials.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE 2: TO EXPLORE THE STUDENTS’ PERCEPTIONS ON THEIR LEVEL OF CLASS PARTICIPATION.

To meet this objective, The students’ perception scale was designed according to the following dimensions that address students’ perception on their class participation:

The dimensions had three statements each, where participants had to tick their personal choice from the three options for each statement. The teacher addressed each dimension individually. For the analysis of both groups’ data, it was calculated the average percentage for each dimension, the three statements and the number of answers categorized as: Disagree, Neutral and Agree.

Afterwards, it was calculated the percentages between each group. The responses were converted into comparative pie chart figures before and after the intervention as follows. Figure 4 shows participants’ awareness and feelings about their oral participation before and after the intervention strategy.

Source: Own elaboration from the data provided on the students’ perception scale

Figure 4: Students’ perception about their oral participation 

Regarding the first dimension (Oral participation), Group 1 of participants seemed to perceive that after the implementation of the strategy, they had improved their oral participation in a 49%. In contrast, there was only 22% of Agreement before the intervention. Nevertheless, 47% of participants maintained themselves as Neutral concerning Oral participation.

Group 2 of participants seemed to perceive that after the implementation of the intervention strategy, they had improved their Oral participation in a 42%. In other words, participants felt less anxious to speak in English and they were more motivated to communicate with the class. Nevertheless, 42% of participants maintained Neutral concerning Oral participation after the intervention.

Figure 5 illustrates the students’ outcomes about their Nonverbal attentiveness behaviors in the pre and post intervention in Group 1 and Group 2.

Source: Own elaboration from the data provided on the students’ perception scale

Figure 5: Students’ perception about their nonverbal attentiveness 

Concerning the second dimension related to the students’ self-reported Nonverbal attentiveness that indicated involvement in the lesson, Group 1 of participants tended to Agree that after the intervention they responded nonverbally or paid attention to others in an 80%.

These findings lead to conclude that playing with Quizizz and using their smartphones helped the students to pay more attention to the classroom environment and lesson, as well as helped them be more aware or interested in the lessons. Furthermore, 0% percent of students Disagree with the statement that they did not connect with the lessons at some point or they were not involved in participating in the English lessons.

Group 2 of participants tended to Agree before (78%) and after (88%) the implementation that they usually answered nonverbally or paid more attention to the teacher or classmates. Equally in in pre and post interventions, 0% of participants disagreed that they did not show any kind of nonverbal response while they were in the lesson.

Figure 6 shows perceptions of Groups 1 and 2 with respect to participants’ interest and motivation in the lesson before and after the intervention.

Source: Own elaboration from the data provided on the students’ perception scale

Figure 6: Students’ perceptions about their engagement in the English lessons 

In the third dimension: Engagement, which is defined as behaviors that are aligned with the motivation to learn (^{Liem & Martin 2012}:3); the category Agree, slightly increased from 41% to 47% after the intervention where Group 1 was more interested and less anxious in participating after the intervention than before it.

Similarly, in Group 2 the category Agree increased in an 48% after the intervention strategy, where Group 2 was more interested and less anxious in participating during the lesson. However, it appeared to happen that a small percentage of participants maintained their Disagree responses in relation to their lack of motivation and interest in the English lessons.

Technology has become ubiquitous in daily life and mainly in the professional sphere (^{De Paz, Rodríguez, Zato & Corchado 2015}:3), which leads to the tendency of using it in the English classrooms. When teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP) or ESP, the need to use authentic materials grows in every lesson (^{Bremner 2010}; ^{Evans 2012}). Furthermore, teachers have embraced that technology increases the development of teaching methods as well as students’ knowledge (^{Mosca, Paul & Skiba 2006}:7), which seems promising to implement in the classrooms.

In terms of the objectives of this study, the first major result revealed that by employing Quizizz and smartphones as a warm-up strategy, ESP students modified their class participation. This finding coincides with the work of ^{Gros, Kinshuk and Maina (2016}) showing that students were active in relation with their lesson interaction while the intervention strategy was being applied (^{Gros et al. 2016}:4).

One explanation for the students’ change of behavior may be related to the warm-up activities, as preparatory time for the lesson, where students develop a positive disposition or attitude for learning (^{Rushidi 2013}:130), just as the participants of this study did. Moreover, it was demonstrated in this study that students were eager to use the strategy and engage in the lessons by actively participating as it happened also in ^{Rost’s (2006}) and ^{Velandia’s (2008}) studies.

The percentages form the results suggested that the use of technology, as it was the case of Quizizz and smartphones used as a warm-up strategy, was useful to encourage or motivate students to participate more during the lessons. The data was consistent with ^{Roblyer’s (2015}) summary of research findings in accordance with the value and significance of technology for students’ productivity and engagement in the lessons (^{Roblyer 2015}:209).

The findings in this study proved wrong the work of earlier research studies (^{Thomas, O’Bannon & Bolton 2013}) which tended to assume that the use of technology such as mobile devices is disruptive for class development (^{Thomas et al. 2013}:295). The students in this study perceived technology as an opportunity to interact with their classmates, to share experiences and to learn in a more enjoyable and clearer manner, which allowed them to easily connect the new contents with the rest of the lesson (^{Gikas & Grant 2013}:18).

Furthermore, this study revealed a major issue related to the technological tool set time, high-performance students had an advantage regarding time in comparison to the low-performance students, who took more time to end the intervention strategy proposed by the teacher. In this case, high-performance students started to feel anxious, bored and distracted low-performance students. It is important to declare that the previous situation described, accounts for both groups of students in this study.

Another major finding in this study is related to participants’ perception on their level of participation in the English lessons. Participants considered that their oral participation did not experience any change in comparison to their performance before the strategy. This perception persisted with no variation before and after the intervention.

This finding may be explained by the fact that both groups of participants were not used to communicating orally, they spoke just when the teacher required them to do it. As the strategy was not monitored individually by the teacher, participants did not feel pressure to discuss the contents in English.

The results also suggested that participants tended to use nonverbal behaviors to communicate during the lessons before and after the intervention during the three lessons. These results coincide with the results of the study of ^{Bambaeeroo and Shokrpour (2017}), showing that participants engaged in this kind of mobile strategies by working in teams, payed attention purposely and responded with non-verbal gestures in order to be understood (^{Bambaeeroo & Shokrpour 2017}:51).

Lastly, the findings demonstrated that participants’ perception in relation to their interest and engagement in the lessons before and after the intervention remained without any change (^{Heflin, Shewmaker & Nguyen 2017}:91). Similarly, researchers such as ^{Liem and Martin (2012}), ^{Harris (2011}) and ^{Velandia (2008}) agree that engagement in learning is closely related to motivation, in which learners are committed to master a task, activity or learning strategy.

In this study, participants did not perceive any change with regard to their motivation or willingness to sustain the strategy, which it was contradictory to the results where students demonstrated that they did change their behavior by improving their willingness to participate during the lessons.

LIMITATIONS

Despite the fact that this study achieved its aims, there were some drawbacks presented during the whole process of researching. Nonetheless, before presenting the limitations of this study, it is important to state that this is an action research study and the results shown here are not generalizable. It is important to take into consideraction that action research is conducted to find solutions for certain pedagogical classroom issues that need to be explored and improved; therefore, as findings are not generalizable, the number of participants is not a problem for action research. It allows to work with any number of participants.

Firstly, the findings of this study were restricted by the time constraints and number of participants. Secondly, even though the groups chosen were ESP both, they had a different focus on the English lessons: Group 1 was an elementary communicative class, while Group 2 was an intermediate communicative business class; and there was a variety of English proficiency levels in both groups: A1 to C1.

Third, there were some technical limitations to the widespread practice of mobile technology as the size of the screen or accessibility and availability of the Internet connection. Since the data was reported merely by the teacher-researcher, there might be potential sources of bias. One instance could be the selective memory that could have influenced the recalling of data while working on The teacher journal.

Lastly, the teacher-researcher was unable to determine which of the three types warm-up strategies (Matching pairs, Memory game and Vocabulary survey) was the most accurate to motivate students and why the students did not perceive any change in their class participation, even though they orally expressed that they enjoyed the strategy.

IMPLICATIONS

Regarding the technological-educational strategy topic, the results established that the Quizizz warm-up strategy supported by the use of smartphones was useful to accomplish the teaching objectives to benefit participants’ level of participation. Thus, this study presented a possible useful strategy in order to meet similar issues related to students’ participation in the English lessons. It is worthwhile to expand the research with regard to the sources that teachers use in the lesson in order to involve innovative tools to benefit the teaching-learning process of future generations of English students.

This study endeavors to address this topic in order to clarify some misconceptions that teachers and students may have regarding the use of technology or new strategies in the English lessons. In addition, interesting research questions may arise for future studies that can be derived from the findings of this study, such as: