Why do young people misbehave in school?

Section 1:

De Nobile, Lyons, and Arthur-Kelly (2017) defined misbehaviour as behaviour that

interferes with the learning process, and that hinders teaching. Misbehaviour does not only
impact the life chances of too many students, but it also leads to burn out, and early exit
from the profession (OFSTED, as cited in Crawshaw, 2015). This report was developed in an
attempt to understand the reasons why students misbehave at school. Within this report, a
variety of factors contributing to students' misbehaviour will be presented. These factors
are provided by six individual comprising from teaching to non-teaching professions. These
factors then will be compared and contrasted with several academic resources to highlight
the similarities and differences, as well as to separate significant reasons why students
misbehave at school. All of these findings sought to shed light on causes of misbehaviour in
class, through which to find a way to help teachers and pre-service teachers to implement
strategies that ultimately allow misbehaviours to change.

A study by Cothran, Kulina & Garrahy (2009) suggested that factors such as poor home
conditions and attention seeking/peer pressure can negatively affect students in terms of
their behaviour and academic achievement. Other reasons include lack of engagement,
problems with lesson contents, and school policies were shown that it also play a role in
contributing to students misbehaviour. This was shown in an article Sullivan, Johnson, Owen
& Conway (2014) which show the interrelationship between these three elements. De
Nobile, Lyons, and Arthur-Kelly (2017) looked at how psychological issues can also be a part
of why students misbehave at school. Students can easily access to technology and media,
and that could negatively affect student physical and mental health, these things also
consider to be the reason why student misbehave (Huesmann, 2007).
Section Two:

The interviews were conducted with six individuals, ranging in age from 20 to 50. They
consist of a graduate teacher, an overseas teacher, two pre-service teachers from different
universities and two non-teaching professionals and being a parent themselves. The table
below displays the information of each interviewee in detail.

The interviews were conducted individually, under the form of conversations, at different
private places and times. Before the interview commenced, all interviewees were provided
with an information sheet and asked to sign the consent form. Through the use of open-
ended questions , the interviews draw out the interviewees' opinions and beliefs on
students' misbehaviour at school. Most interviews lasted between 15 to 30 minutes. The
interviewees' responses had been analysed and summarised into the following comparison
table:
Each participant provided at least two reasons for students' misbehaviour. The table above
shows the similarities and differences across six participants' responses. Five out of six
interviewees suggested that attention seeking and home factors are the main reasons for
students' misbehaviour. P2 said some students act out just to receive the attention from
their teacher and peers, especially male students. He also said that "They do not care if they
are bothering other students, all they want is your attention, and they will do whatever it
takes to have your attention regardless that may bring them into troubles". Another
interviewee, P6 stated that "Outside factors such as family issues (i.e divorce parents) or
living under poor conditions can negatively affect students' behaviour and academic
performance". On top of that, P3 described parents' supports and high expectations play a
key role in students' behaviour. Based on her own experience, she shared that she had to
self-regulate at school because she did not want to get into trouble with her parents but
sometimes these things stressed her out.

Another common theme that were mentioned among participants was lack of engagement
and lesson content being too hard or too easy. Four out of six were agreed with this as one
of the reasons why student misbehave. P4 suggested that "poor instruction and problem
with content (too easy) can lead to students' disengagement which cause them to
misbehave". She mentioned about her learning experience when she was still in high school
"My teacher basically just copied exactly what is in the textbook on the board and asked us
to write it down in our book, there was little to no students-teacher interaction". P1 also
pointed out that students tend to do better and focus more if the activity is challenging and
meaningful. She mentioned about her teaching experiences with mixed ability classes, she
said "Engaging students perhaps is one of the most challenging but rewarding aspects in
teaching career. Students can easily switched off if the task is too hard or too easy for
them".

Three participants believed that students misbehave due to peer pressure. P5 mentioned an
example where the majority of the class act out, then most likely that individual will also act
out because he/she wants to follow the crowd. This is very similar to P1's opinions, she
stated that students are likely to be more motivated by peer acceptance.

There are, however, a number of exclusive factors on why students misbehave such as
teacher targeting a particular student, media influence, school rules, lack of respect in
student-teacher relationship, and psychological or psychiatric disabilities.
Section Three:
80% of the interviewees agreed with attention seeking and home factors to be the number one
cause of student misbehaviour. Attention seeking is a frequent response for the causes of students’
misbehaviour at school, both in literatures and interview findings. Five out of six participants claimed
that students’ desire for attention, although due to different reasons, P1 mentioned about attention
seeking is what driven them to act inappropriately. This coincides with what Cothran, Kulina &
Garrahy (2009) found out in the article, that students want to gain power and social status among
their peers when they act up. This also can be seen as a way to try to follow the crowd which is
typically understood at peer influence.

In addressing poor home factors, P6 suggested student's misbehaviour can be traced back to their
home. Some students behave inappropriately because their parents did not have time to discipline
them, or maybe they do not even live with their parents. P3 showed a different side of the issue in
poor home factors contributing to student's misbehaviour. She mentioned about parents'
expectations for their children can also contribute to their behavioural issues. Some parents are
overprotective or simply the parents have no expectations for their children, either ways contribute
to student's misbehaviour. These suggestions from the interviewees are very much alike to
responses in the article written by Cothran et al., (2009). The ranking of each factors did not really
being looked at in the interviews so which factors contribute the most in student's misbehaviour was
out of the scope of this study. Cothran et al., (2009) stated that students far more likely to attribute
misbehaviour to attention seeking rather than home life.

More than 60% of the interviewees identified lack of engagement and lesson content being too
hard/too easy as the common themes contributing to students misbehaviour. These two themes
matched with a research by Sullivan, Johnson, Owen & Conway (2014) that also argued engagement
in learning directly influences student behaviour. However, Sullian et al., (2014) suggested classroom
can be seen as "an ecosystem involving interactions" between several factors. These factors
includes: physical environment, teacher characteristics, curriculum including pedagogy and
resources, and a multitude of student variables. P4 cited an example based on her experience "The
questions that were given in maths class are all purely procedural problems, it was too easy and
boring". P1 men tioned students disengagement lead to disruptive behaviour and poorer academic
achievement. "Engaging students being one of the most challenging aspects in classroom, because
as soon as students disengage, there will be limited room for learning to happen" said P1.
Interestingly, only P5 mentioned about school policies as one of the reason why student misbehave
at school. "School policies affect students enormously, these policies include attendance policies,
and discipline policies must be fairly and consistently applied to create a safe and positive
environment". The relationship between these element illustrates the facts that they are
intertwined with one another rather than function separately (Sullivan, Johnson, Owen & Conway,
2014). It is important to increase level of student engagement through changes to policy, pedagogy
and resources as it helps to minimise undesirable student behaviour.

P2 mentioned about student misbehaviour due to psychological or psychiatric disabilities. "Some of

my disability students display persistent challenging behaviour", said P2. De Nobile et al. (2017)
stated that "some persistent challenging behaviour may indicate the onset of various mental
disorders. Regardless, schools and teachers must do their professional best to support all of the
students.

Media influence was another theme that pop up during the interviews. A interviewee, P3 stated that
over use media has a negative impact on physical and mental health of students by making them
more vulnerable to depression, anxiety and other psychological issues . This was similar to what was
discovered in the research by Huesmann (2007).
Section Four:
Consider all the factors that were provided from the interviewees and relevant educational
researches, student's misbehaviour can be built up from all sort of aspects. It shows a great need for
developing appropriate implications for enhancing positive behaviour. The teachers and pre-service
teachers must have a wide range of different coping strategies to manage the student's negative
behaviours within the school settings.

Personally, I believe the most effective strategy is to prevent the discipline before they break out. I
would do this by using a range of strategies such as discussing with my students about their
behaviours and the consequences, giving them choices, and reinforcing my high expectations for
their learning as well as their behaviours. Communication is essential in conveying my expectations
onto the students, this includes talking to them about things that they are interested or reminding
them by the use of nonverbal cues (i.e. eye contact, gestures, and physical proximity). As De Nobile
et al., (2017) suggested nonverbal cues sometimes are far more effective than saying. However,
these strategies would take a lots of effort and time, but hopefully it will enhance the positive
behaviours of the students. These prevention strategies should be incorporated with school
environment, family and teacher as this reported has discussed about how students' misbehaviour
can be influenced from a range of external and internal factors.

Most of the time, teacher focuses on the negative, and disruptive behaviour of a particular individual
and forgets about the positive behaviour of the majority. By doing this, teacher unintentionally
create a negative atmosphere in class which in turn providing even more space for misbehaviours to
occur. Özben (2010) suggested that teacher instead of being angry, initiate a positive reaction to the
discipline problem would be a better choice. With this in mind, I think it is important for me to build
a positive relation with my students. I would implement positive reinforcements by praising of
appropriate behaviour or simply stating what kind of behaviour is wanted in classroom settings. By
doing so, the students can feel good and recognise that I do care about their feeling and value their
relationship with me.

This report was written in the attempt to answer the question "Why do student misbehave at
school". It gathered responses from six individuals from different paths of life and then compared
and contrasted with relevant literature research. All of this show that behaviour management is a
challenging area for all education system, teacher can come up with many different solutions which
might or might not solve the issue (Office of the Auditor General Western Australia, as cited in
Crawshaw, 2015). The idea is there is no single solution to these behavioural issues, but the aim is to
create a positive learning environment which then improve and enhance students' learning.
References
Cothran, D., Kulinna, P., & Garrahy, D. (2009). Attributions for and consequences of student

misbehavior. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 14(2), 155-167.

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.

De Nobile, J., & Lyons, Gordon, author. (2017). Positive learning environments(First ed.).

Huesmann, L. R. (2007). The impact of electronic media violence: Scientific theory and research.
Journal of Adolescent Health

Özben, Ş. (2010). Teachers’ strategies to cope with student misbehavior. Procedia - Social and

Behavioral Sciences, 2(2), 587-594.

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 (Online) 39(6): 43.