Pre-survey

Collection Methods

The first data point was a pretest about student attitudes towards seating in school. The survey was divided into three sections. The first was a Likert test that asked the students to rank the importance of seating factors on a scale of one to five. The second section asked students to rank their preference of seating from the following choices: pods, rows, U shape, table partners, and flexible seating. Flexible seating was not defined prior to the survey but each option displayed a picture as an example of the choice. Finally, the third section had an open-ended reflection with two questions. The first asked the students how traditional academic seating had impacted their learning and the second was for students to try and predict how flexible seating could impact their learning. This survey was given to students via iPads, and they responded anonymously. I chose to use an online, because my students had responded best to online tests. They also allowed for students to express their honest opinions without fear of having their handwriting recognized. I chose to provide images of the seating arrangements with the questions to give a reference point for students who have trouble visualizing terms.

The Survey

A copy of the survey questions are below:

Section 1: Rate on a scale of 1 (little to no impact) to 5 (major impact)

In traditional academic classroom seating, how much of an impact does the comfort of the seats have on your ability to learn?
In traditional academic classroom seating how much of an impact does the seating have on your ability to focus/work?
In traditional academic classroom seating how much of an impact does the seating have on the environment/climate of the class? Classroom culture.
In traditional academic classroom seating how much of an impact does the seating have on student to student interaction?
In traditional academic classroom seating how much of an impact does the seating have on student to teacher interaction?
In traditional academic class seating how much freedom of movement is there?
Is freedom of movement in a classroom setting important to you?

Section 2: Please select from the following options which one applies to the question.

Pods, Rows, U shape, Table Partners, and Flexible Seating

Which style of seating is ideal for your learning?
Which style of seating is the second most ideal for your learning?
Which style of seating is the third most ideal for your learning?
Which style of seating is the fourth most ideal for your learning?
Which style of seating is the least ideal for your learning?

Section 3: Please respond to the complete question.

From your personal experience, how does traditional academic seating help or not help you learn. Please provide at least one example.
How do you think flexible seating could impact your learning?

Data Analysis

The following information from the survey impacted my implementation of flexible seating for action research.

The first trend I saw was that students seemed to have a preference for flexible seating prior to it being formally introduced. This may be because of the the images used along side of the example or due to prior experience with flexible seating in other classrooms. This preference was followed by table partners and pods. This informed me that my students would like to have options related to either partner or group seating.

The second graph shows their least preferred form of seating, and it was overwhelmingly against traditional row seating. I anticipated this to be the least preferred form due to class discussions last semester. The physical space in my room is rather small, making rows a difficult set up for ease of transition and comfort. Chairs were hitting the front of the tables behind them, and students did not have enough room to move about comfortably. Students mentioned this frustration on many occasions, making me assume that this would be the least preferred form this semester as well. This reassured me that my students prefered to work and sit together as suggested in the first response.

Using the most and least preferred forms of seating, I began to form my basis for action research. I also used the data from the following two responses to impact my flexible seating arrangement:

The first graph showed me that students have a strong desire to be able to move around the classroom. As previously mentioned, the overall size of my room made it difficult to maximize the amount of space that I had. The discussions and experiences within a “row format” caused me to formulate specific questions about the freedom of movement and whether or not students felt they had enough space to move within the class.

The second graph showed me that over half of the students believed that seating had some impact on how they are able to focus and work. I did not anticipate that 36% of my students did not think that seating had an impact on their ability to focus. I assumed everyone would consider seating to have an impact. The fact that 64% agreed with this reaffirmed to me that there was a need to focus on this issue in order to benefit my students.

The responses from the third, open-ended section varied wildly from, “seating has no impact on my learning” to, “it allows me to focus on the teacher more” and, “it pressures you into learning and it makes it stressful.” This showed me that my students had a range of opinions and that I needed to identify how I could best adapt the room through flexible seating.

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