Force Field Analysis for Improving Student Thinking Skills
This paper applies a force field analysis framework to examine the instructional challenges facing a business education classroom, where students struggle with reading and higher-level critical thinking. Drawing on the school's State Report Card data, the paper identifies driving forces — such as students' interest in business careers, administrative support, and access to learning resources — alongside restraining forces, including poor reading skills, ineffective teaching styles, and classroom disruptions. The analysis focuses particularly on restraining forces within the teacher's control and concludes that changing instructional style is the most feasible and impactful barrier to eliminate. Proposed strategies include providing high-interest texts, expanding small-group instruction, and tailoring teaching techniques to individual student needs.
- Introduction and Area of Instructional Need: Identifies reading and critical thinking gaps in business classroom
- Force Field Analysis Chart Overview: Presents the force field chart and desired change
- Driving and Restraining Forces Explained: Categorizes people and process forces driving or blocking change
- Barriers Within the Teacher's Control: Isolates controllable restraining forces: teaching style and reading
- The Priority Barrier to Eliminate: Argues ineffective teaching style is most feasible barrier to address
- Conclusion and Initial Strategies: Proposes three practical strategies to overcome the priority barrier
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper applies a structured analytical framework — force field analysis — to a concrete classroom problem, grounding abstract concepts in specific teaching context.
- It clearly distinguishes between people factors and process factors within both driving and restraining forces, demonstrating organized categorical thinking.
- The conclusion moves logically from analysis to action, proposing practical, low-cost strategies derived directly from the barrier identified as highest priority.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper models prioritization reasoning: rather than attempting to address all barriers simultaneously, it argues for targeting the most controllable restraining force — ineffective teaching styles — by weighing feasibility (time, money, energy) against systemic impact. This cost-benefit logic within an analytical framework is a useful technique in education planning and organizational change writing.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens by establishing the instructional problem using State Report Card data, then presents the force field analysis visually and in prose. It categorizes forces by type and control level before narrowing focus to a single priority barrier. The conclusion translates the analysis into three actionable strategies, creating a complete problem–analysis–solution arc typical of reflective education practice papers.
Introduction and Area of Instructional Need
The school's State Report Card has provided significant insights regarding student achievement. Following an analysis of the data presented in the State Report Card, reading has been identified as an area of instructional need in the classroom. The business-related courses under consideration are designed to prepare students to compete in events such as mock trial, DECA, and other business topic competitions. While most students have demonstrated significant interest in pursuing a career in the field of business, they face challenges in reading. Due to these reading challenges, the biggest problem is that most students who take these courses are lower-level or average learners who struggle with higher-level thinking and the development of their own ideas. This paper examines factors driving the need for improvement in this area of instructional need, as well as those preventing such improvement and those within the teacher's control. The desired change is for students to demonstrate higher-level critical thinking and be able to develop their own ideas.
Force Field Analysis Chart Overview
The desired change in this area of instructional need is for students to demonstrate higher-level critical thinking and be able to develop their own ideas. This desired change is critical to improving student achievement and outcomes because it will enable students to become active participants in their learning through taking personal initiative. There are, however, several factors both driving and preventing this desired change in the classroom, as represented in the Force Field Analysis chart below.
The chart identifies the following driving forces supporting the desired change — students developing higher-level creative thinking and their own ideas: students' interest in business careers, changes in teaching styles, support by the administration, availability of learning resources, and the need to improve student achievement.
The chart identifies the following restraining forces working against the desired change: poor reading skills, ineffective teaching styles, lower-level or average students in the classroom, lack of collaboration between teachers, and classroom disruptions.
Driving and Restraining Forces Explained
As illustrated in the Force Field Analysis chart, there are various driving and restraining forces related to people and processes within the classroom environment and the broader institution. Achieving the desired state requires capitalizing on the driving forces while addressing the restraining forces. Such efforts would help create a suitable learning environment and framework for the achievement of the desired state.
The people factors acting as driving forces include students' interest in business careers, changes in teaching styles, and support from administration. Most students have demonstrated significant interest in pursuing a business-related career, evidenced through their participation in group discussions and other learning activities. The school's administration has also provided necessary support to teachers and students to help achieve the desired state. Additionally, changes in teaching styles have played a crucial role through the increased adoption of a student-centered approach, in which teaching and learning are customized to fit the individual needs and strengths of each student (Miller, 2013). Process factors acting as driving forces include the availability of learning resources and the institutional need to improve student achievement across all content areas.
The people factors acting as restraining forces include the fact that most students are lower-level or average learners, which inhibits their ability to develop higher-level thinking and their own ideas. Additional restraining factors include the lack of collaboration between teachers and poor reading skills among students. These factors make it difficult to create a suitable learning environment that promotes achievement of the desired state. Process factors acting as restraining forces include disruptions during learning and the use of ineffective teaching styles.
Conclusion and Initial Strategies
Ineffective teaching styles is a barrier restraining achievement and mastery of this area of instructional need by negatively affecting instructional practice. This force prevents mastery by creating a learning environment where the individual needs of students are not addressed. When individual needs are not identified and met, students find it difficult to develop higher-level thinking and generate their own ideas in relation to the course. Furthermore, the failure to meet individual needs through appropriate teaching techniques sometimes causes students to engage in disruptive behaviors that do not enhance learning.
Student achievement and mastery of this area of instructional need can therefore be effectively addressed through changes in teaching style designed to meet the individual needs of each student. Some initial strategies to overcome this barrier include providing readable, high-interest texts (Thoughtful Classroom, n.d.). Enhancing access to such texts motivates struggling readers to read more and develop critical thinking skills (California Department of Education Publication, n.d.). A second strategy is to provide continued and increased instruction in reading, offering more support through small-group and one-on-one instruction. Third, the teacher will evaluate the individual needs of each student and develop teaching techniques based on those needs, reflecting the kind of differentiated instruction research supports for diverse learners.
References
California Department of Education Publication. (n.d.). Interventions in English language arts. Retrieved from California Department of Education website:
Ed Source. (2011, January/February). When data drives school culture. Leadership, 40(3), 34–35.
Esposito, J., Davis, C. L., & Swain, A. N. (2012, May). Urban educators' perceptions of culturally relevant pedagogy and school reform mandates. Journal of Educational Change, 13(2), 235–258.
Miller, J. J. (2013). A better grading system: Standards-based, student-centered assessment. English Journal, 103(1), 111–118. Retrieved from
Thoughtful Classroom. (n.d.). Styles and strategies for helping struggling learners overcome common learning difficulties. Retrieved November 24, 2017, from
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