Learning activity is one of the main activities for school-age children. All cognitive processes are involved in learning, and attention plays one of the leading roles among them — it is on the age and individual characteristics of the pupil that the success of concentration on the material being studied and the completeness of its assimilation depend.
Attention as a cognitive process is a selective focus on a particular object and concentration on it, deepening in the cognitive activity directed on the object [4].
This process, as well as its definition, is based on two concepts — focus and concentration.
Attention is selective. We cannot cover the whole of the surrounding reality with attention. Our psyche picks out a certain phenomenon, task or object from many others and lingers on it for a period of time. That is, our attention should be directed to something separate.
It is impossible to focus our attention on an object without concentrating on it for any length of time. The reverse side of the ability to choose one object out of many is the ability to also keep and hold your attention on it, i.e. to concentrate on something. Concentration and focus are inextricably linked and are the essence of the attention process.
The relationship between attention and learning process is characterised by their mutual influence on each other. Attention affects the learning process of an individual student and the group as a whole, but the design of the learning process also has a significant impact on the development of attention in general, its individual properties, as well as its attraction and intensity.
The opportunity to influence the development of attention is actively used by experienced and skilful teachers, who use various techniques, methods and build the learning process in such a way as to attract students' attention to the subject to the fullest extent.
Nowadays, not only school age is considered to be included in the learning process, but also preschool age. Pre-school education institutions are being established to prepare children for the beginning of a new stage of their life in a general education institution.
Formation of voluntary attention in older preschoolers involves the formation of three skills: acceptance of gradually increasing complexity of instructions; retention of instructions in attention throughout the lesson; development of self-control skills [3].
The degree of attention development in preschoolers is indicated by the development of the following qualities: stability, concentration, distribution and switching of attention. In the older preschool age there is an active development of cognitive processes, the capacity of attention increases in relation to all its properties. The volume and stability of attention increases. Personal characteristics in the concentration of attention begin to manifest themselves.
A deviation or delay in the development of any of these qualities leads to a disruption not only in the assimilation of information in the learning process, but also in the child's behavioural reactions. For example, it is much more difficult for children with insufficiently developed switchability for their age to fulfil the required amount of tasks, to switch to another activity. This leads to difficulties in communication and joint activities with peers, adults and teachers.
Involuntary attention is the most developed at preschool age. At this stage of learning, teachers try to arouse the child's active interest in this or that cognitive activity, thereby appealing to his or her involuntary attention. However, it is ineffective to build the whole learning process with the involvement of involuntary attention, as well as to force students to pay voluntary attention to the information offered continuously.
Often in children, an activity that initially requires volitional effort and volitional attention turns into an emotionally coloured, pleasant and easy action. Such an activity no longer requires volitional effort to maintain attention on it. The child's attention becomes post-voluntary.
The teacher's attitude to the learning process and his/her charges, understanding of the regularities of attention development in schoolchildren and skills of their organisation are of great importance. A significant role in the development of children's attention will also have a daily routine, which forms a base in the life of children, acts as an external tool for its organisation, promotes easier switching, distribution, concentration of attention.
Speech is an effective means of forming attention. At the initial stage, the teacher organises the child's attention with the help of words and instructions. Then children themselves designate with words what they need to pay attention to in order to perform some activity. Voluntary attention is formed in children in the course of purposeful activity of the teacher and the child. The goal of the activity as the expected result stimulates children to hold their attention throughout the activity. In older preschool children, clearly defined tasks, competitive moments, disciplinary requirements, and so on become a support for attention [3].
At younger schoolchildren in the formation of learning processes and peculiarities of attention begin to play personal traits of character, emotional-volitional sphere. For example, the influence of temperament type on the emergence of individual features of attention is well traced.
Sanguine children show extremely active attention to many objects of the world around them, often switching from one to another, because of which it may seem that the child is inattentive. Frequency of switching attention is also characterised by cholerics.
Phlegmatic attention is switched very weakly and is characterised by a steady focus on the object. This allows them to go deep into the subject, but prevents in an environment where they need to act quickly, to transfer attention from object to object. Melancholics are capable of sustained concentration of attention only in an environment without extraneous stimuli and distractions. They tire quickly.
Lack of attention is caused by a combination of internal and external causes. The first group of causes includes the peculiarities of the child's temperament type, individual rate of nervous activity, and state of health. The second group includes the quality and degree of novelty and complexity of nervous activity [2].
Children of primary school age are interested in the world around them and are motivated to learn. By school age, children develop the basic qualities of personality, perception, memory, thinking, and will necessary for systematic education and training at school.
The main tasks of a teacher working with children of this age are to form a habit of voluntary attention skills and to get involved in the learning process, even when they would like to do things other than studying.
In teenage years, the development of attention is very specific. In early adolescence, students are already capable of voluntary attention to the learning process. However, if earlier the learning activity was the leading one, in adolescence new hobbies and activities are added to it, the priority of study is reduced, and interest in the sphere of intimate-personal communication appears. Often at this age, under the influence of other hobbies, school performance decreases.
In most cases, only the adolescent's personal disinterest in the information being received can complicate the learning of material. As a rule, there are no problems with involvement and retention of mediated attention in learning information at this age.
The development of attention in adolescence is restrained by such qualities as increased impressionability, high excitability and rapid change of hobbies for various subjects and activities. The attention of adolescents is characterised by its further development on the basis of the general intellectual growth of the schoolchild, the formation of volitional and emotional traits of personality [1].
There is a growth of independence in the schoolchild's learning activity. The adolescent begins to consciously apply some techniques of memorisation and recall, the amount of perceived material and the speed of memorisation and reproduction increases.
Without daily, systematic work on the development of the properties of attention can not be successful activity, it is impossible to fully assimilate the educational material; mental activity can not proceed purposefully and productively, if a person does not focus on what he does. Attention largely determines the course and results of successful work of a schoolboy. It promotes the quickest inclusion of a pupil in cognitive activity, creates preliminary readiness for the upcoming work
References:
- Volchenko Natalia Sergeevna / Features of attention and memory in adolescence // Innovative aspects of science and technology development. 2021. № 2.
- Grigorieva I. K. Peculiarities of attention development of junior schoolchildren // Actual problems of humanities and natural sciences. 2016. № 3–7.
- Kurkina Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Problem of attention development of senior preschoolers // Problems of Pedagogy. 2017. № 9 (32).
- Rubinstein, S. L. Fundamentals of general psychology [Text] / S. L. Rubinstein. — Moscow [and others]: Peter, 2012. — 705 с.
