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Student misbehaviour is a complex topic, it is essential to be aware of what

misbehaviour is, what it might look like and how it can impact ones’ teaching. The

purpose of this report is to assist teachers with their knowledge of why young people

misbehave in school. 6 journal articles have been read and analysed to form a literature

review, followed by a synthesis of points from 6 interviews conducted as part of the

report. The 6 interviewees included 4 teachers, 1 pre-service teacher, 5 parents and 1

non-teaching friend. 3 interviewees were male and 3 were female, this was done to

gauge the differing opinions from a range of sources. The comparison of these sources

will enable teachers to understand why young people misbehave in school and will

prepare them to implement strategies within their classroom to minimise student

misbehaviour as much as possible.

6 articles have been analysed to determine the main causes of misbehaviour in

young people, 3 articles are quantitative and 3 are qualitative. The 6 articles consider

the prevalence of misbehaviour, the most common types of misbehaviour and the

most frequent misbehaviours. The difference between the articles is that the

quantitative articles look at surveys and questionnaires to find these answers, while the

qualitative articles look at different literatures to find their corresponding data.

Alter, Walker and Landers (2013) found that off-task behaviour including failing

to engage in the lesson was the most frequently occurring and problematic behaviour

among students. Crawshaw (2015) collated data for 3 decades and concluded that this

type of behaviour was the second-most frequent to occur behind behaviour such as

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talking out of turn. Alstot & Alstot (2015) agree that the most frequent negative

behaviours found in their data were lack of attention and engagement among students

of all ages. It was also determined that teachers in this article suggest that student’s

home lives can also play a significant role in misbehaviour.

Whilst Demanet & Houtte (2012) suggest that student misbehaviour might

occur due teacher’s preconceived ideas. Students are more likely to be deviant if they

are treated in this manner. Koutrouba (2013) also suggests that teacher’s attitudes can

impact student behaviour. The results from this article showed that teachers were

unwilling to take responsibility for their student’s misbehaviour, this resulted in parents

having to discipline their child whilst they are also not informed of their child’s

misbehaviour at school. McGrath & Van Bergen (2015) conducted research based on

the student-teacher relationships and how this can impact student behaviour. the

results showed that students who suffered from negative relationships with their

teachers were more likely to misbehave.

The main conclusions drawn from these articles is that misbehaviour is

dependent upon many factors, small things can impact a students’ behaviour in a huge

manner. The common misbehaviours identified in these articles in attention-seeking

behaviour, engagement issues and personal or home life issues. Most of these articles

focus on how frequent these behaviours occur as opposed to how common they are.

The interviews were conducted in an informal manner, taking place as

conversations. All 6 participants were notified before their interviews had taken place,

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the participant information sheet was handed to them to read before the interviews

took place. The consent forms were also signed before the interviews took place. The

interviews with participants M1 and M2 took place in an outdoor setting, these

participants were taken to a quiet area where they were interviewed on separate

occasions. Participant F1 was interviewed in an empty community hall, participants M3

and F2 were interviewed in the interviewer’s home, while F3 was interviewed over a

Skype call. The interviewer used the first question “Why do you believe young people

misbehave in school?” as a conversational starting point, each conversation sparked

different questions and answers between interviewer and interviewees. Notes were

taken during each interview; common themes were then drawn together by the

interviewer whom used their notes to draw these conclusions. The participants are

identified by their sex, age, occupation, where they were educated/where they teach

and children.

M1 is a 24-year-old carpenter, he lives in and was educated in the eastern

suburbs of Sydney. M2 is a 41-year-old computer data analyser, he is father to 2

biological children and 2 step-children. He lives in and was educated in south western

Sydney. M3 is a 32-year-old secondary teacher, he works in the public teaching system

and is head teacher of English. He has one 1 biological child, he lived in and was

educated in western Sydney, he teaches in rural New South Wales.

F1 is a 39-year-old primary teacher, she works in the catholic system at a K-12

school. She lived in and was educated in south western Sydney and taught in western

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Sydney before moving to Africa, United Kingdom and Papua New Guinea to teach

between 2007-2012. She has 1 biological child with 1 on the way, she currently teaches

in the northern suburbs of Sydney. F2 is a 32-year-old secondary teacher, she lived in

and was educated in western Sydney. She has 1 biological child and teaches in rural

New South Wales. F3 is a 28-year-old pre-service teacher at Western Sydney

University. She has 2 biological children, she lived in and was educated in rural New

South Wales before moving to Greater Western Sydney to take part in her teaching

degree.

The participants were chosen because of their wide range of experience within

their chosen fields. Many of them are both involved in teaching and parents making

their answers more interesting based on teacher/parent perspective.

Once all interviews had been conducted, the notes taken down were grouped

into common themes. All participants identified personal issues as a contributing

factor to student misbehaviour. Issues such as bullying and problems in home/family

life were explicitly identified by M1, M2 and F1. F1 stated that “no student wants to

misbehave for the sake of misbehaving, there is usually something more going on”.

The three common misbehaviours mentioned by all 6 interviewees included

engagement issues, attention-seeking, and personal/home life issues.

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M3, F2 and F3 suggested that a lack of engagement could be the reason behind

misbehaviour among students. Repetitive work or a lack of understanding from the

teacher can cause students to become disengaged in lessons resulting in

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misbehaviour. Engagement is important within the classroom, making sure that

students are stimulated within the classroom is important to help manage

misbehaviour in schools, participant F3 stated in the interview that teachers should not

give up on students that misbehave but rather scaffold their lessons to ensure that

they are fun, interesting and easy to understand. Participants M3 and F2 also

suggested in their interviews that teachers should be prepared to make changes to

their lessons to ensure that students are engaged. This could be through group work,

individual work or differentiated work this includes being prepared with different work

for life skills students. They also mentioned that teachers should be actively aware of

students’ conceptual understanding and how they learn to ensure all students’ needs

are being met.

De Nobile, Lyons & Arthur-Kelly (2017) suggest that students need to be

intrinsically motivated as well as extrinsically motivated. Providing support and

establish positive relationships with students is one possible way to help students

engage in their schooling. Personally, I believe that when I start teaching I will need to

quickly develop a rapport with my students, I will need to be firm but fair to ensure

that I am not a ‘pushover’ teacher. I will make sure that my students understand my

expectations of them and make it known to them that I am there to help and support

them in their learning journeys. Ideally, I would always be prepared with a back-up

lesson just in case the first lesson fails to be engaging or interesting to my students. It

is always better to have a back-up that can be implemented rather than wasting a

lesson trying to discipline students.

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Attention is a sensitive topic; which teachers need to be proactive about.

Attention-seeking behaviour can differ depending on the individual and situation.

Students can misbehave in this way because they want attention off a teacher that they

are not getting at home or it could be a genuine cry for help.

For the former, Alstot & Alstot (2015) suggest that the best way to manage

attention-seeking behaviour is to ignore the student unless attention is warranted. For

example, if a student engages in appropriate behaviour, then attention is deemed

necessary to encourage these behaviours. This is reiterated by De Nobile, Lyons, &

Arthur-Kelly (2017) who also state that tactical or planned ignoring (where a teacher

ignores the student, unless for positive reinforcement) can work well for managing this

type of misbehaviour.

However, if a student is genuinely trying to seek help from a teacher then this

type of management is problematic. As a pre-service teacher, I believe it is important

to understand the intent behind the behaviour and not just why young people

misbehave. I believe that teachers need to be more proactive about their student’s

behaviour, they need to acknowledge that attention-seeking behaviour could mean

something more serious and that ignoring students will make them behave

appropriately.

When I encounter students that display attention-seeking behaviours I will

consciously think about the type of student I am dealing with as too how I should deal

with them. I would talk to them to gain an understanding as to why they might be

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acting out in this way. Parents may need to be contacted so they become aware of the

situation as well. Participants M3 and F2 mentioned that sometimes parents are not

aware of the goings on in their child’s life. I would like to believe that I could set up a

system where parents are informed about their children more frequently than report

time and parent/teacher meetings such as informal reports sent home when needed.

Participants M1, M2 and F1 stated that home life can have a huge impact on

behaviour in school. De Nobile, Lyons & Arthur-Kelly (2017) and Alstot & Alstot (2015)

have also stated that home-life can introduce students to negative behaviours. It is

important to understand that all students have different life experiences, not every

student is equal, therefore it is important to be aware of might be happening in a

student’s life. Having gone through high school, I always found it comforting when a

teacher cared about what was going in my life outside of school, I enjoyed having

someone to talk to in confidence about any issues.

When I move into teaching I would like to be aware of my student’s situations

and be supportive of their learning. I will encourage my students to seek support if

they feel they need it. I believe it is important to acknowledge that students’ home

lives and other personal factors could be the reason behind misbehaviour, therefore I

will need to adapt to the situation with each individual student to make sure that I am

following ethical and moral standards within a teacher-student relationship. As stated

in the literature review, sometimes teacher perception about student misbehaviour can

result in students acting this way, consequently I will support my students rather than

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pre-judge them to ensure I have positive relationships with my students that might

result in less deviant behaviour.

It is important to understand the reasons behind why students misbehave

before being able to implement strategies to manage misbehaviour. Teachers need to

make themselves aware of their students and develop an understanding as to what

might be going on that could be causing misbehaviour.

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References
Alstot, A.E., & Alstot, C.D. (2015). Behavior management: Examining the functions of

behaviour. Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, 86(2), 22-28.

Accessed from https://search-proquest-

com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/1658716332?accountid=36155

Alter, P., Walker, J., & Landers, E. (2013). Teachers’ perceptions of students’

challenging behavior and the impact of teacher demographics. Education and

Treatment of Children, 36(4), 51-69. Accessed from https://search-proquest-

com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/1462031483?accountid=36155

Crawshaw, M. (2015). Secondary school teachers’ perceptions of student

misbehaviour: A review of international research, 1983 to 2013. Australian

Journal of Education, 59(3), 293-311. DOI: 10.1177/0004944115607539

Demanet, J., & Van Houtte, M. (2012). Teachers’ attitudes and students’ opposition.

School misconduct as a reaction to teachers’ diminished effort and affect.

Teaching and Teacher Education, 28(6), 860-869. DOI:

10.1016/j.tate.2012.03.008

De Nobile, J., Lyons, G., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2017). Positive learning environments:

Creating and maintaining productive classrooms (1st ed.). South Melbourne,

Australia: Cengage Learning Australia.

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Koutrouba, K. (2013). Student misbehaviour in secondary education: Greek teachers’

views and attitudes. Educational Review, 65(1), 1-19. DOI:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2011.628122

McGrath, K.F., & Van Bergen, P. (2015). Who, when and to what end? Students at risk

of negative student-teacher relationships and their outcomes. Educational

Research Review, 14, 1-17. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2014.12.001

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