Audience attention in classroom peer presentations as a situated, role-dependent, and evaluative process

Area of Science:

• Educational Psychology
• Cognitive Science
• Sociology of Education

Background:

• Peer presentations are common in education for active learning but research often overlooks audience attention.
• Existing studies focus on presenters, neglecting how non-presenting peers manage their attention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine audience attention as a situated and role-dependent process in peer-led instruction.
• To develop a context-sensitive process model of audience attention in this setting.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative design using grounded theory principles.
• Data collection included classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, and written narratives.
• Analysis focused on perceived, recalled, and reconstructed attentional experiences.

Main Results:

• Audience attention is a dynamic, evaluative, and recursive process influenced by social and epistemic conditions.
• Attention varied from focused engagement to disengagement, shaped by relevance, delivery, legitimacy, and accountability.
• Disruptions led to self-regulation or disengagement based on perceived instructional value.

Conclusions:

• General attention mechanisms are reorganized in peer-led instruction due to provisional authority and multiple audience roles (learner, peer, evaluator).
• Findings emphasize the importance of audience experience, presentation quality, and instructional design in peer presentations.