Abstract:

The objectives of the present investigation were to design and apply an intervention program with the aid of software to increment the attention levels on 6th grade public elementary school students. In this proposal a general overview of attention and its relation to learning, as well as the effects it has on the academic performance is presented. Likewise, the importance of researching and developing software which allow training the attention as a means to favor the learning processes is stated. The later is based on the premise that attention is the first step of the learning process (Wolfoolk, 2006), as it influences on setting and selecting priorities to process the information (León, 2008). On another aspect, 69% of students between 12 and 16 years display attention and concentration problems when studying (Paniagua, 2005). Given this situation, the computerized task has proven to be an effective tool to study the information processing (Martínez Jiménez, 2010). The investigation was performed under a quantitative behavioral model where the measurements were taken before and after the intervention to establish the effectiveness of software use applying the attention test d2. In the 13 attention training sessions, 8 students participated, working with the grid application.

This software can be used to assess and train six types of attention:
(1) Selective or focal attention,
(2) Attention displacement between visual hemifields,
(3) Serial attention,
(4) Divided (dual or shared) attention,
(5) Sustained attention, or attention capacity, or concentration, or surveillance and
(6) Inhibition.

The software is a Windows desktop application which works in the .NET platform, using C# programming language inside Visual Studio programming environment. The grid can have between 1 and 15 rows and columns; they can support numbers, colors, letters, images, alphabetical characters and wingdings; besides, it allows to program the randomness of the stimuli, a preliminary task presentation, timing, matching options, and disrupting stimuli (visual or hearable) (Hernández Mendo, Martínez Jiménez, Pastrana Brincones y Morales Sánchez, 2012). Prior to the training, the participants obtained percentile scores between 1 and 10; after the training, an increment between 10 and 45 percentile scores was reached. The data were analyzed by the Wilcoxon test confirmed the increments were statistically significant. There were also significant increments in efficacy and effectiveness indexes at the beginning and at the end of the test with the grid software. There were no significant correlations between the improved attention and academic performance.

Keywords:

Attention, information technology, computer software, elementary education.