UNLOCKING ENGAGEMENT: THE ROLE OF EDPUZZLE IN AUGMENTING PARTICIPATION AND ENHANCING RESPONSES DURING CONTEMPORARY ISSUES DISCUSSIONS

The challenges seen in the pre-observations of online synchronous sessions, where students are struggling to participate actively in class discussions, were the motivation for this study. The main objective of this study is to determine whether Edpuzzle increased actual participation and improved the quality of the responses of the students during synchronous sessions. The study utilized an action research design, which resulted in various findings and insights. From the observations that were analyzed through researcher-made scoring guidelines and extensive thematic analysis of the FGD, results reveal that even though Edpuzzle can activate the prior knowledge of the students, it is not sufficient for them to be able to respond excellently during synchronous sessions since the questions that students were involved in Edpuzzle catered only to lower-order thinking skills. This study therefore concludes that Edpuzzle is instrumental in increasing students’ participation during asynchronous sessions. However, it cannot necessarily improve the quality of their responses to the teacher’s queries in synchronous sessions. With this, researchers recommend that teachers embed more higher-order thinking questions in Edpuzzle videos to gradually develop the students’ critical thinking competencies and prepare them for synchronous discussions.