By Jaya Carrier
I hope everyone had a good week so far! This week, I was interested in the reporting of a recent piece of Australian research that looked at students’ likes and dislikes about school. Objectives:
To understand student perceptions of school, including their specific likes and dislikes about it. Summary:
- Previous research shows that feeling positive about school is associated with better attendance and also better outcomes for students. Conversely, strong feelings of dislike about school lead to greater amounts of exclusions and risk of NEET (not in education, employment or training).
- This study surveyed over 1,000 Australian students to look at their feelings and perceptions about school in further depth.
- In a general sense, roughly two-thirds of the students surveyed said they liked school, and one-third said they did not.
- Many of the disliker students suggested that their dislike started when they transitioned into secondary, and this appeared worsened over time, with older students disliking school more.
- School likers and dislikers tended to both prize ‘friends’ in particular. However, school likers tended to like ‘learning’ whereas dislikers tended not to.
- One of the largest disparities between the likers and dislikers was in their rating of ‘my teacher listens to me’ - likers rated this highly, and dislikers rated this at a low level.
- The study suggests that teacher-pupil relationships are a really important part of school experience for both the liker and disliker groups and that this should be an area of focus for future action research.
Some reflection questions arising from this that might be helpful to consider are:
- What do I know about my students’ and tutees’ likes and dislikes about school? What might be important to know about them?
- How do I ensure that students feel that I listen to them?
- How can I ensure ongoing positive relationships with all students?
Interesting as always, Jaya, thanks for sharing. I wonder how the correct for the school itself?! In other words if you could magically give the same 1000 students experience of 10 different schools, how might those survey results vary?
ReplyDeleteI have a copy of this book if anyone wants to borrow it: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Why-Don%E2%80%B2t-Students-Like-School/dp/1119715660
As part of the Trauma Informed PLC activities I did a short strengths-based questionnaire for my tutor group which included questions on what they liked about school. It was useful to get to know our tutees better and it gave them an opportunity to reflect on what they enjoyed and what they were good at!
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