A.

ELLIOTT Pedagogy for Positive Engagement A1

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Interviews:

Six participants from various groups were invited to participate in an interview for this

assessment. The participants were interviewed individually, prior to this they were informed

that their identity would remain anonymous and that they could withdraw at any point,

consent forms were all read and signed. Each participant was asked the question, “In your

opinion, why do you think young people misbehave at school?”. This question was given to

them at the start and appropriate time was given for them to answer, follow up questions were

asked which were, “why do you think that is the reason?” and “could you elaborate on your

answer?”. The follow up questions were to enable further information to be gathered.

 PA – Participant A: Male, aged 22, NRL Game Development and Education Officer

in Parramatta.

 PB – Participant B: Female, aged 31, High school Maths and PDHPE teacher in

Brisbane.

 PC – Participant C: Male, aged 64, father of six – 3 sons and 3 daughters, retired.

 PD –Participant D: Female, aged 23, pre-service teacher, studying Masters of

Secondary Teaching, Western Sydney.

 PE – Participant E: Male, 54, former police officer, currently a correctional officer,

Western Sydney.

 PF – Participant F: Female, 24, early childhood educator, Windsor.

Handwritten notes were taken by myself, during each interview, key words, dot-points and

short sentences were how I recorded their answers. After the six interviews had been

conducted I used a different colour pen to put asterixis near responses which were the same

or similar from the participants and grouped them into different categories. Importantly I also

made note of responses which were different to the common trends and responses which were

not mentioned at all. During this process common themes emerged.

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Every participant attributed student misbehaviour to boredom within the class

environment, this was the only theme that was universal across every participant. A second

common theme which was identified by PB, PD and PE was a lack of discipline at home and

from their parents. Importantly a third common theme which was highlighted was student

self-esteem and confidence.

Interview synthesis and Literature review:

Upon collating the responses and comparing it to prominent literature on the issue there were

noticeable areas of similarity and differences. Every participant outlined boredom within the

classroom as main reason for misbehaviour. PC argued, “the content taught is often tedious,

kids are bored with learning about stuff they don’t relate to”, and PD described, “long class

times with a teacher talking at them leads to boredom”. This idea does not coincide with the

literature presented in the above section. The importance of every participant attributing

boredom it emphasises the necessity of designing lessons which include relevant and

interesting content. This notion is supported by De Nobile et al (2017), who assert that

curriculum which a student does not see as relevant is a major cause of disengagement and

misbehaviour.

The second highest rated theme which was discovered through the interviews was aligned

with the articles from Ho (2004) and Kyricaou and Ortega Martin (2010) which labelled lack

of parental discipline and home environmental factors a cause of misbehaviour. PD stated,

“lack of discipline and morals in the home manifest into bad behaviour within the

classroom”. Similarly, PE stated, “discipline starts in the home, parents need to start

disciplining their kids early or they won’t respect authority, even that of a teacher”. Further

analysis saw other participants view home-environments and parental influence as a cause for

student misbehaviour.
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Moreover, the third theme identified related to emotion and cognitive factors as students’

self-esteem was discussed. PA, PB and PF all spoke about students lack of self-esteem being

a contributor to student misbehaviour. PA stated, “I feel that kids misbehave when they don’t

understand the content and are embarrassed to ask for help”. Similarly, PB mentioned,

“students who lack self-esteem use disruption as a way to fill that void or deter from their

inabilities”. These comments coincide with the information presented by Kyriacou and

Ortega Martin (2010) as students lack of belief in their abilities is labelled as a core reason

for disorderly behaviours.

Adversely, the uncommon themes which arose particularly from PC was “different

genders misbehave more and usually for different reasons” which reflected the sentiments in

the study by Glock and Keen (2017). This article demonstrated the higher prevalence of male

student’s misbehaviour and the social factors which drive these choices. PC is well positioned

to make these judgments given he is a father of six children, which consists of both female

and males equally. PB suggests teachers’ abilities to handle misbehaviour as important she

stated, “as a teacher, knowing when to intervene and how to do so is sometimes difficult

because you don’t want to escalate the behaviour”. This perspective from PB as a teacher, is

similar to the suggestions made by Ho (2004) and Kyriacou and Ortega Martin (2010) as

teachers’ ability to manage behaviour is shown important at preventing negative behaviours.

Implications for Praxis:

Thompson (2011) outlines a preventative, whole-school approach to student misbehaviour

which is argued to limit instances of negative behaviours. This approach is something I can

see as valuable and effective moving forward in my journey as a teacher. Students who are

aware of the explicit expectations the school and staff have of them and the consequences for

breaching those standards are more likely to think before they choose to disrupt or

misbehave. An important note that the article asserts is interventions taken to address
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misbehaviour need to be evidence based and suitable for each individual student (Thompson,

2011). This aligns with the sentiments from Kyricaou and Ortega Martin (2010) as teachers

must enable students to make the right choices based off of clear explicit expectations.

Moving forward with my teaching practice, I will have to enable my students through clear

and fair expectations how they should carry themselves within the class environment and

how negative situations will be handled. Furthermore, insight I gained from the interviews

and the literature demonstrate how essential it is to reach out to parents and families of the

students to help deal with students who misbehave (Johnson, Goldman & Claus, 2017). The

impact the home environment has on students is profound, so when student exhibit negative

behaviours a good way to manage this would be to reach out to the students’ families and

collaborate to ensure the student is getting support both at home and at school. The final

implication for my personal teaching practice is the importance of student-centred pedagogy

(De Nobile, et al, 2017) as my lesson designs and activities need to be built around my

students and their interests. Importantly a main focus of mine should be to ensure the content

is relevant for my students and they are engaged, this should minimise negative behaviours.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, I believe that managing misbehaviour is a combination of approaches and

people. I have come to see how important it is to work with the student’s family to surround

the student with positive rhetoric about school and school work. Combining the support of

the parents with personalised support in the classroom through more choice and engaging

content students should be empowered to make positive behaviour choices. Explicit and clear

expectations and consequences needs to balance out this approach to ensure negative

behaviours are being dealt with in an appropriate and universal manner.

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