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Pupil disruption in the classroom: what is the real picture?
By Blog Editor, IOE Digital, on 2 June 2017
Andrew Jenkins.
A favourable classroom climate – essentially one in which there is a well-ordered and calm environment – is likely to be conducive to learning and therefore important for pupil progress. Conversely, disruption in the classroom will hamper student learning as well as being the bane of teachers’ working lives. In England official statements and publications from the Department for Education (DfE) have maintained that the extent of any misbehaviour is minimal. Yet other evidence points to substantial problems with classroom disruption and it has even been suggested that pupils in England are ‘among the worst behaved in the world’. What, then, is the real picture? Our research, recently published in the British Educational Research Journal (Jenkins and Ueno, 2017) used international data from a range of sources, principally the 2013 round of the Teaching and
Learning International Survey (TALIS 2013), to provide new information on classroom disciplinary climate in secondary schools in England.
The most recent round of TALIS was conducted in 2013 with over 30 countries in the survey, and including England for the first time. Focusing on the lower secondary stage of education, it provides an invaluable international comparative perspective on teachers’ work and working environment including school staffing and leadership, teacher training and professional development, appraisal of teachers’ work and the feedback they receive, teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, attitudes to teaching and teaching practices, and the job satisfaction of both teachers and headteachers (Micklewright et al, 2014).
As part of the survey teachers were asked a series of questions about the disciplinary climate in a particular class which they taught. To better understand the prevalence of deficits in classroom climate, we used the TALIS data to assess the extent to which teachers in England perceived problems of poor disciplinary climate and to place that experience in international context by comparing with a range of other countries. The data showed that teachers in England perceived considerable disruption in their classrooms. Over a fifth of the lower secondary school teachers who participated in the survey agreed or strongly agreed that it took quite a long time for students to quieten down at the start of the lesson. Some 22% agreed or strongly agreed that there was a lot of noise in their classroom.
How did England compare with other countries on these variables? We made comparisons with averages for all countries in TALIS; with a sub-group of European countries which are likely to be culturally similar; also with a group of high-performing countries (where ‘high-performing’ was defined in terms of pupils doing well on average in PISA and other internationally-comparative tests). It turned out that the results for England on classroom climate were somewhat better than both the all-country average and the average for high-performing countries. They also tended to be a good deal better than for the group of European comparators. For example, the proportion agreeing/strongly agreeing that there was a lot of disruptive noise in the class was as low as 13% in Japan, and as high as 39% in Spain and 55% in Brazil. The proportion among teachers in England, at 22%, was lower than the average for all TALIS countries, which was 26%, and also lower than averages for high-performing countries (26%) and European comparators (28%). The TALIS evidence suggests that, in the view of teachers, there was a substantial amount of noise and disruption in lower secondary classrooms in England. But it was at, or somewhat below, the average for western European countries. These findings were broadly consistent with other international evidence, notably from recent rounds of the PISA survey. PISA, with information obtained from questionnaires completed by pupils and headteachers, provided a useful supplement to the teacher perspective of TALIS.
So, while some reports especially from official sources, have suggested that classroom disruption is minimal in schools in England, that does not seem plausible given the results from TALIS and, indeed, from a range of other sources of evidence. But the results also refute claims that have sometimes been advanced in the national press that pupils in England are among the worst behaved in the world or the suggestion that deficits in classroom climate are particular to schools in England.
This article is re-posted from the BERA blog
Jenkins, A., & Ueno, A. (2017) Classroom disciplinary climate in secondary schools in England: What is the real picture? British Educational Research Journal, 43/1, 124-150.
Micklewright, J., Jerrim, J., Vignoles, A., Jenkins, A., Allen, R., Ilie, S., Bellarbre, E., Barrera, F. & Hein, C. (2014) Teachers in England’s Secondary Schools: Evidence from TALIS 2013, DfE Research Report RR302 (London, Institute of Education, University of London).
Dr Andrew Jenkins is senior research officer in the Department of Social Science at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London. His interests are mainly in the analysis of large-scale quantitative survey data. He teaches research methods courses at UCL and the Open University.
Dr Akiko Ueno is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Middlesex University Business School. Her research interests are in services marketing, performance appraisal and human resource management.
A favourable classroom climate – essentially one in which there is a well-ordered and calm environment – is likely to be conducive to learning and therefore important for pupil progress. Conversely, disruption in the classroom will hamper student learning as well as being the bane of teachers’ working lives. In England official statements and publications from the Department for Education (DfE) have maintained that the extent of any misbehaviour is minimal. Yet other evidence points to substantial problems with classroom disruption and it has even been suggested that pupils in England are ‘among the worst behaved in the world’. What, then, is the real picture? Our research, recently published in the British Educational Research Journal (Jenkins and Ueno, 2017) used international data from a range of sources, principally the 2013 round of the Teaching and
Learning International Survey (TALIS 2013), to provide new information on classroom disciplinary climate in secondary schools in England.
The most recent round of TALIS was conducted in 2013 with over 30 countries in the survey, and including England for the first time. Focusing on the lower secondary stage of education, it provides an invaluable international comparative perspective on teachers’ work and working environment including school staffing and leadership, teacher training and professional development, appraisal of teachers’ work and the feedback they receive, teachers’ pedagogical beliefs, attitudes to teaching and teaching practices, and the job satisfaction of both teachers and headteachers (Micklewright et al, 2014).
As part of the survey teachers were asked a series of questions about the disciplinary climate in a particular class which they taught. To better understand the prevalence of deficits in classroom climate, we used the TALIS data to assess the extent to which teachers in England perceived problems of poor disciplinary climate and to place that experience in international context by comparing with a range of other countries. The data showed that teachers in England perceived considerable disruption in their classrooms. Over a fifth of the lower secondary school teachers who participated in the survey agreed or strongly agreed that it took quite a long time for students to quieten down at the start of the lesson. Some 22% agreed or strongly agreed that there was a lot of noise in their classroom.
How did England compare with other countries on these variables? We made comparisons with averages for all countries in TALIS; with a sub-group of European countries which are likely to be culturally similar; also with a group of high-performing countries (where ‘high-performing’ was defined in terms of pupils doing well on average in PISA and other internationally-comparative tests). It turned out that the results for England on classroom climate were somewhat better than both the all-country average and the average for high-performing countries. They also tended to be a good deal better than for the group of European comparators. For example, the proportion agreeing/strongly agreeing that there was a lot of disruptive noise in the class was as low as 13% in Japan, and as high as 39% in Spain and 55% in Brazil. The proportion among teachers in England, at 22%, was lower than the average for all TALIS countries, which was 26%, and also lower than averages for high-performing countries (26%) and European comparators (28%). The TALIS evidence suggests that, in the view of teachers, there was a substantial amount of noise and disruption in lower secondary classrooms in England. But it was at, or somewhat below, the average for western European countries. These findings were broadly consistent with other international evidence, notably from recent rounds of the PISA survey. PISA, with information obtained from questionnaires completed by pupils and headteachers, provided a useful supplement to the teacher perspective of TALIS.
So, while some reports especially from official sources, have suggested that classroom disruption is minimal in schools in England, that does not seem plausible given the results from TALIS and, indeed, from a range of other sources of evidence. But the results also refute claims that have sometimes been advanced in the national press that pupils in England are among the worst behaved in the world or the suggestion that deficits in classroom climate are particular to schools in England.
This article is re-posted from the BERA blog
Jenkins, A., & Ueno, A. (2017) Classroom disciplinary climate in secondary schools in England: What is the real picture? British Educational Research Journal, 43/1, 124-150.
Micklewright, J., Jerrim, J., Vignoles, A., Jenkins, A., Allen, R., Ilie, S., Bellarbre, E., Barrera, F. & Hein, C. (2014) Teachers in England’s Secondary Schools: Evidence from TALIS 2013, DfE Research Report RR302 (London, Institute of Education, University of London).
Dr Andrew Jenkins is senior research officer in the Department of Social Science at the UCL Institute of Education, University College London. His interests are mainly in the analysis of large-scale quantitative survey data. He teaches research methods courses at UCL and the Open University.
Dr Akiko Ueno is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at Middlesex University Business School. Her research interests are in services marketing, performance appraisal and human resource management.
2 Responses to “Pupil disruption in the classroom: what is the real picture?”
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educationstate wrote on 3 June 2017:
The thing that’s so harmful with these OECD products is, given their comparative methodology, testing, and ranking, no system is ever able to just consolidate, but instead must always reform, ‘innovate’, in order to keep up for fear of losing out in the Education Olympics it creates. This is a boon for researchers, policymakers, and lay experts, who can pore over the constant stream of fresh data these products create, but a disaster for teachers, pupils, and school staff, where consolidation and stability, rather than change and upheaval, typically makes more difference.
If one takes a student’s perspective of what happens in the classroom and not the teacher’s, one has an entirely different evaluation of what is a positive and successful learning environment. Most students who enjoy going to school, are very fond of their teachers and fool around with friends (and laugh a lot) often go on to have successful careers and are well adjusted human beings. The challenge for teachers is to incorporate this exuberance and ‘play ethic’ into teaching and student learning.