PREFERENCES AND ASSESSMENTS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS REGARDING THE ORGANIZATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF STUDENTS IN THE CLASSROOM

Abstract

This study describes the preferences of secondary school teachers in Spain over the organization and distribution of students' desks in classrooms. 100 teachers’ preferences, assessments and habits have been collected regarding to five different arrangements: individual rows, rows composed of desks in pairs, lines, U-shaped distribution and groups. The information has been gathered by means of an online questionnaire and the data has been analysed statistically, in order to set the links among teachers’ preferences and classrooms’ realities. The results allow to appoint the individual rows as the most usefularrangement toreach thestudents’ attention and concentration. Conversely, groups distribution seems to be the most favourable to encourage them to help to each other, making them more participative and improving their relations. Furthermore, groups distribution has been chosen as the arrangement that suits better to the teachers’ preferences. Nevertheless,thisarrangement isnotthe most common in the classroom. Rows of paired desks are the most used. There is no correlation among the favourite distribution and the most common one, thus.