Browsing by Subject "attentiveness"

The purpose of this study was to find out the kind of changes happening in directing and maintaining the attention of special class pupils while using dog assisted pedagogy. Attention can be divided into three elements i.e. directing the attention, maintaining it and changing its object. In this study I concentrated on the first two notions. Previous studies have shown that dog assisted intervention has positive effects on focusing attention. This is shown among other things in improved attentiveness while doing tasks. This master's thesis is a qualitative case study. The target group of this study consists of eight pupils in a special class in Finland. Each of them has clear features of attention deficit disorder. During the study the pupils were 7 to 8 years old. Collecting the data was carried out by observing the pupils with the help of an observation form and a video recording the material of pupils for three days. A trained education and rehabilitation dog was working in the classroom during two days and on one day it was out of the classroom. The analysis of the material was carried out as quantification. The research was focused on two aspects, getting the pupils' attention and keeping it in two different situations: with the dog present and without the dog in the classroom. According to the results of this study there are positive changes in shifting and maintaining the attention of the pupils when using dog assisted pedagogy. The pupils' ability to focus their attention immediately was increased by 12.2 per cent when the dog was present. In addition, in situations where attention was not targeted immediately, the delay in focusing the attention was reduced by 2.6 seconds. On the basis of analyzing the observation form maintaining attention was improved by 34 per cent and on the basis of the video material by 25.6 per cent when the dog was in the classroom. In addition, the attentiveness of the pupils was less frequently interrupted when the dog was present in the classroom. Based on this study it seems that dog assisted pedagogy has positive impacts on students' attentiveness.