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Why do young people misbehave at school?

Catherine Lock 19199102

Thanks to Trish Maidens for her insights during the tutorials.

Literature review

Classroom management especially student behaviour has been the topic of many

books, lectures and research papers (Sullivan et al, 2014). Stoughton (2007), reports that in

America, Hong Kong, Australia, Israel, China and the UK, student behaviour is a major

concern amongst teachers. Alter et al. (2013), classifies misbehaviour as, verbal or physical

aggression, off task or out of seat non-compliant behaviour, isolation or repetitive self-

automated behaviour. Similarly, Crawshaw (2015), defines student misbehaviour as talking

out of turn (TOOT), chatting, inattention, lack of focus, fiddling, day-dreaming, lack of focus

and motivation, laziness, hindering, rowdiness and eating in class. The researcher also

identifies serious student misbehaviour as using drugs, cruelty or bullying, defiance, truancy,

cheating, lying, disobedience, rudeness, profanity and absenteeism. Furthermore, Little

(2005), adds idleness, disobedience, unnecessary noise, unpunctuality and untidiness as

student misbehaviour.

Cothran et al (2009), compared teachers and student’s perspectives on misbehaviour.

While teachers attributed student misbehaviour to unknown or home factors, students

required more attention and meaningful content. The authors suggest the critical difference is

that neither party ‘owns’ the problem. Additionally, Demonte & Van Houtte (2012) conclude

that in schools reporting low levels of student teachability, students report less perceived

teacher support, which correlates with increased rates of school misconduct. Research

performed by McGrath and Van Bergen (2014), demonstrates that strong student–teacher
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relationships or the building of rapport, acts to buffer misconduct and can influence student

success rates. They encourage teachers to critically consider the reasons for students’

disruptive behaviours. Consequently, Thompson (2011), reports that disruptive behaviour is

the major factor affecting the loss of teaching time, which impedes class ability to learn and

distracts students from academic progress. Furthermore DeJong (2005), notes that public

opinion regarding the lack of discipline in public schools is a major problem that

communities face. Finally, Sullivan et al (2014), argue that if teachers where to gain more

understanding of classroom ecology and focus on student engagement, then better outcomes

in student behaviour and learning might occur.

While reasons for misbehaviour can be deemed as universal or “Western”, none of the

research reviewed was conducted in Western Sydney. Gomba (2015) advocates “One thing

that we must learn is never to simply copy and paste laws from the Western countries as their

culture is different from ours”. (p. 69). Similarly, the history, culture and social

intersectionality of Western Sydney is unique and therefore at least some local research

should be conducted to investigate why students in Western Sydney misbehave at school.

Participants, interview process and major and minor themes

Six adults between 20 to 601 years of age, living in Western Sydney were interviewed. Four

were male, two were female and they all held tertiary qualifications2. They identified their

cultural heritage as South African (1), Australian (3), Australian with Turkish heritage (1)

and Australian born in Fiji with Indian heritage (1). All the participants, except the South

African, completed high school in Australia.

1
Participants ages: one in their 20’s, two in their 30’s, two in their 40’s, and one in their 50’s.
2
Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a Diploma in Computing, the two pre-service teachers had Bachelor of
Arts (BA) and the two teachers had BA’s in Education. One teacher had a Master of Arts in Theological Studies.
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Approval for this study was granted through the University of Western Sydney, Department

of Education and university protocols were followed throughout the investigation. Before the

interview commenced the Participant Information Sheet (attached in Appendix A) was read

to each participant and then each interviewee signed the Participant Consent Form (Appendix

A). Participants have been de-identified to protect their privacy.

Face to face informal interviews lasted between 10 to 20 minutes, none of the

conversations were recorded, however notes were taken by the researcher throughout the

interview. The notes were read out to the participants at the end of the interview for a

member check on the data (Cothran et al, 2009). A large quantity of qualitative data was

collected in bullet point form. Each bullet point was coded and placed in a category

corresponding to a separate reason why young people misbehaved at school. Categories were

then awarded a number ranging from 1 to 6. (A score of 6 indicates that every participant

identified the reason as a factor contributing to why young people misbehave at school).

Limitations include personal bias, lack of opportunity to collaborate with researchers to

discuss ambiguities, and the tedious ineffectiveness of note taking.

According to the participants, the major reasons why students misbehave at school

were related to dysfunctional homes, teacher centred reasons (disengaging lessons, poor

skills, lack of passion), student attention seeking and no respect, these outcomes are

illustrated in Figure 1. The plethora of minor reasons why students misbehave at school in

Western Sydney are charted in Figure 2.

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Major Reasons for Student Misbehaviour based on Participant

Interview Response
5

4
Participant Response

Reasons for Student Misbehaviour

Figure 1: Major Reasons, (Scores 3 or 4), why students misbehaved at school, based on

participant interview response.

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Minor Reasons for Student Misbehaviour based on Participant

Interview Response
3
Participant Response

Reasons for Student Misbehaviour

Figure 2: Minor Reasons, (scores of 1 and 2), why students misbehaved at school, based on

participant interview response.

Data Synthesis

According to the research, the four3 major reasons why students misbehave at school

are dysfunctional homes, teacher centred reasons, student attention seeking and no respect.

One English teacher, with 15 years’ experience, said “if the basic needs of children are not

being met or their home life is abusive, and there is fighting and yelling all the time or they

are living out of the back of a car, then they can’t even pretend to be normal, and the only

time they can get any power is at school. You can often track the worst of the behaviour back

3
Each of these reasons scored 4 points, indicating that four out of the participants raised the issue as a reason for
student misbehaviour at school.
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to their home life”. This correlates with the findings of Cothran et al (2009), who found that

teachers attributed student misbehaviour to home factors, however no links to poverty or low

social economic status were examined.

The science teacher with 35 years’ experience immediately stated “The lessons are

not engaging, and the teacher has not set out why the students need to learn it. The teacher

has not grabbed their attention and got them involved”, this echo’s the rationale of Sullivan et

al (2014), who urge teachers to focus on engaging the students with lesson content to lead to

better learning and student behaviour.

Students seeking attention was also named as a reason for student misbehaviour, one

participant a father of four and a youth work volunteer for thirty years commented “Family

dynamics, abusive households foster little respect for those in authority, adults are diminished

so they (the students) do what they want and don’t care and seek attention at school because

they don’t feel valued, so they become the class clown or display disruptive aggressive

behaviour to get attention”. This ties in with the English teacher’s comments about power and

links to the effects that abusive households have on young people.

No respect was the fourth major finding for student’s misbehaviour at school. This

was interesting because it was raised by participants schooled outside Australia, or

participants who identified international heritage. The South African said “respect and

discipline was more important than education during my schooling”, the Turkish Australian

commented, “You had to listen to the teacher, there was no choice, during my schooling”

while the Australian/Fijian with Indian heritage said, “it is Indian culture to respect the

teacher”. This correlated with the sentiments of Gomba (2015) who notes that different
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cultures have different value systems, “One of those values is greeting and respecting our

elders” (p 69).

Other major reasons4 why young people misbehave at school included: unclear

boundaries; lack of discipline, identified by DeJong (2005); irrelevant lesson content;

disabilities and boys needing activity. This concern was expressed by three out of four males

interviewed 1) “the classroom environment is more suited to girls, boys just can’t sit still for

so long”, 2) “You don’t hear about guys doing woodwork or metal work. We did this type of

work in primary school. Students would benefit from type of learning because they are

practical subjects. They need to be active and not just sit in a classroom all day” and 3)

“Secondary education is too passive, sit, listen, watch, no moving around or opportunities to

get hands dirty, need more hands-on learning, practical subjects, at least in science we can do

practical work, kids enjoy it more”. None of these activity-based issues were addressed in the

scope of the academic literature reviewed.

Twenty-five minor reasons5 for misbehaviour, were identified by the interview

participants. One suggested that high sugar diets and/or attention-diverting-electronics and

social media were contributing factors, while Lin & Yi (2015) investigated the lack of sleep

as a consideration. Perhaps the mere existence of such a nebulous conglomerate of

possibilities, is what prompted teachers in the Cothran et al (2009) study to lump them

together as ‘unknown’.

4
These Other Major reasons scored participant responses of 3.
5
Minor reasons scored participant responses of 2 or 1.
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Implications for praxis: personal awareness and teaching practice

This unit has given me a clearer understanding of why young people misbehave at

school. Our tutorial group identified 50+ different reasons why students may play up. The six

interviewees gave 35 responses for this ill structured problem. I think student misbehaviour is

a complex mixture of factors contained within student identity, peer interaction, the

contextual home/school environment and student-teacher relations in dynamic classrooms.

Through the unit readings I have been introduced to several valuable “Tool-kit”

resources for example: our textbook Positive Learning Environments (De Nobile, Lyons &

Arthur-Kelly, 2017), where I learned about the Lyford model and strategies for developing

successful communication (Active listening, Open questioning, Asserting and I-messages and

Negotiating); Transformative Classroom Management (Shindler, 2009) which outlines

practical steps on how to design and manage co-operative classroom learning activities,

assessments and how to respond to dissociative groups; Formative Assessment Strategies

(Regier, 2012) which provides practical advice to educators on multiple ways to collect

information about students while teaching; How to give feedback to students (2018), which

explains praise and feedback and provides guidelines for administering different types of

pedagogical feedback (basic, instructional or coaching feedback strategies); as well as

research by Thompson (2011), who advocates the use of evidence-based applied behavioural

interventions (cognitive behaviour theory, social skills instruction and functional behavioural

analysis), to assist teachers deliver effective classroom management in Australian schools.

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership Ltd (2011) standards

stipulates that teachers need to know their students and how they learn, previously I

recounted that “The key to unlocking this standard is to ask the questions, for it is only by
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asking the questions that teachers will discover what is going on inside of schools” (Lock,

2017, p3). By asking students questions, talking and listening to students, teachers can build

positive rapport and relationships (McGrath and Van Bergen, 2014), They can act to support

students and together create valuable spaces for positive learning environments (Demonte &

Van Houtte, 2012). Conversely, in counterproductive classrooms, Landrum et al. (2011)

explains that awareness of events and contexts of difficult behaviour is important when

dealing with challenging student behaviour. Once the target behaviour is predicted, teachers

can manipulate variables within their control to increase student participation and decrease

disruption, starting by producing lessons that meet student needs and skill level.

I have learned that designing engaging lessons is crucial to capturing student

imagination, to “grab the attention of the students”, to make science come alive in their world

as exemplified by Goldberg & Welsh (2009) “When reflecting on the Alka-Seltzer lesson,

Ms. Cook commented that she didn’t stop the lesson as it took more and more time because

the students were so excited and the lesson seemed to flow” (p728).

Interviewing people who teach students living in poverty has generated awareness of

the immediacy of low social economic status in Western Sydney, which hopefully will never

escalate to “the new disturbing landscape (of police, security guards and metal detectors) in

American public schools” (Peguero & Bracy, 2015, p 424). It has helped me understand my

role as a teacher within this community, summarised in the beliefs of an English teacher: “I

believe positively about people, they are generally not nasty or ill meaning, there is a reason

behind the behaviour, and I may never be able to solve the problem, but I do what I can to

make it a bit better, I try to learn from what they are saying. Knowing when to refer the

problem on and talk to advisors”. Discovering the reason for the behaviour resonates with the
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views of Parker et al. (2016), who emphasises questioning - “the need to ask (parents) what

lies behind children’s disruptive behaviour”, who can often “offer essential insights to

underlying needs”, instead of dismissing, punishing or expelling challenging students.

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References

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. DOI: 10.1353/etc.2013.0040

Australian Curriculum and Reporting Authority, ACARA (2016) Retrieved from

http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/cross-curriculum-priorities

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

Cothran, D. J., Kulinna P. J., & Garrahy. D. A. (2009). Attributions for and consequences of

student misbehaviour. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 14(2), 155-167. DOI:

10.1080/17408980701712148

De Jong, T. (2005). A Framework of Principals and Best Practice for Managing Student

Behaviour in the Australian Context. School Psychology International. 26(3), 353-

370. https://doi.org/10.1177/0143034305055979

De Nobile, J., Lyons, G. & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2017). Positive Learning Environments.

Creating and Maintaining Productive Classrooms. (1st ed.). South Melbourne,

Victoria: Cengage Learning Australia.

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

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How to give Feedback to Students. The Advanced Guide. (n.d.). Retrieved April 12, 2018,

from http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/how-to-give-feedback-to-students/

Goldberg, J., & Welsh, K. M. (2009). Community and Inquiry: journey of a science teacher.

Cultural Studies of Science Education. 4, 713-732. DOI 10.1007/s11422-00909176-7.

Gomba, C. (2015). Corporal Punishment is a Necessary Evil: Parents’ Perceptions On The

Use Of Corporal Punishment In School. The International Journal of Research in

Teacher Education, 6(3), 59-71.

Landrum, T. J., Scott, T., M. & Lingo, A. S. (2011). Classroom misbehavior is predictable

and preventable. The Phi Delta Kappan, 93(2), 30-34. Phi Delta Kappa International

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23048941

Little, E. (2005). Secondary school teachers’ perceptions of students’ problem behaviours,

Educational Psychology: An International Journal of Experimental Educational

Psychology, 25(4), 369-377. DOI: 10.1080/01443410500041516

Lin, W. & Yi, C. (2015). "Unhealthy Sleep Practices, Conduct Problems, and Daytime

Functioning During Adolescence." Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 44, 431-446.

DOI 10.1007/s10964-014-0169-9

Lock, C., E. (2017). “Unseen Metaphors: Teaching the “Other Half”. Diversity, Social

Justice and Learning Unit Reflection. University of Western Sydney. Unpublished.

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

of negative student–teacher relationships and their outcomes. Educational Research

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

Parada, P. (2018). Participant Information and Consent Sheet. Sourced from Western Sydney

University Course Contents PPLE 102082 1H 2018.

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Parker, C., Paget, A., Ford, T. & Gwernan-Jones, R. (2016). ‘.he was excluded for the kind of

behaviour that we thought he needed support with…’ A qualitative analysis of the

experiences and perspectives of parents whose children have been excluded from

school. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 21(1), 133-151. DOI:

10.1080/13632752.2015.1120070

Peguero, A. A., & Bracy, N. L. (2015). School Order, Justice, and Education: Climate,

Discipline Practices, and Dropping Out. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 25(3),

412-426. DOI:10.1111/jora.12138

Regier, N. (2012). Book Two: 60 Formative Assessment Strategies. Regier Educational

Resources. Retrieved from

http://www.stma.k12.mn.us/documents/DW/Q_Comp/FormativeAssessStrategies.pdf

Shindler, J. (2010). Transformative Classroom Management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Stoughton, E. H. (2007). “How do I get them to behave?”: Pre-service teachers reflect on

classroom management. Teaching and Teacher Education. 23, 1024-1037.

DOI:10.1016/j.tate.2006.05.001.

Sullivan, A. M., Johnson, B., Owens, L. & Conway, R. (2014). Punish them or engage

them?: Teachers' views of unproductive student behaviours in the classroom.

Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(6), 43.

http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2014v39n6.6

Thompson, A., M. (2011). A systematic review of evidence-based interventions for students

with challenging behaviours in school settings. Journal of Evidence Based Social

Work. 8(3), 304-22. DOI: 10.1080/15433714.2010.531220.

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APPENDIX A: Participant Information Sheet and Consent Form

Locked Bag 1797

Penrith NSW 2751
School of Education
PPLE 102082 1H 2018

Why do young people misbehave in school?

Participant information sheet

I, _, am a student in the Master of Teaching

degree at the School of Education, Western Sydney University and I am seeking
your permission to be interviewed as part of an assignment in the unit “Pedagogy
for Positive Learning Environments”. For this assignment I am required to ask
different people their opinions as to why young people misbehave in school.

The interviews will be conducted in an informal way. I will not be directly

recording what participants say, however, I will take some notes to be sure to
capture everyone’s ideas accurately. My aim is to understand each participant’s
opinions on this topic, so I will be encouraging interviewees to explain their
thoughts on the question and listening carefully to what they have to say. At the
end of the interview I will check with each participant that the notes I have written
are an accurate representation of what he/she has said.

After completing all six interviews I will analyse what the participants have said
and compare these findings with relevant theory and research. While my report
may include quotes from participants, none will be identified by name. Only my
lecturers and tutors will see the finished report and it will not be used for any
other purpose. The report may be made available in hard copy to participants who
wish to see it.

Please note that taking part in this interview is completely voluntary. If you do
choose to participate you can still withdraw at any time.

My supervisor for this project is Dr Roberto Parada. In case you have any concerns
about the interview you can contact him on r.parada@westernsydney.edu.au

Sincerely

Sourced from Parada, P. (2018). Participant Information and Consent Sheet. Sourced from Western
Sydney University Course Contents PPLE 102082 1H 2018.
 15

Locked Bag 1797

Penrith NSW 2751
School of Education

PPLE 102082 1H 2018

Why do young people misbehave in school?

Participant consent form

Please read the Information sheet before signing this.

I agree to be interviewed by as
described in the information statement attached to this form.

I acknowledge that I have read the information statement, which explains the aim of
the interview and I have discussed any questions been explained to me to my
satisfaction.

I understand that I can withdraw from the interview at any time without penalty.

I agree that the information I provide in the interview can be used for the purposes
of a student assignment on the basis that I am not identified by name in the
student’s report.

I understand that if I have any questions relating to my participation in this

interview, I may contact Dr Roberto Parada (phone: 4736 0051) or
r.parada@westernsydney.edu.au

I have read the information sheet for this study and voluntarily consent to participate.

Name:

Signed:

Date:

Sourced from Parada, P. (2018). Participant Information and Consent Sheet. Sourced from Western
Sydney University Course Contents PPLE 102082 1H 2018.