EXAMINATION OF STUDENT, TEACHER, AND PARENT PERCEPTIONS OF A JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL'S MOST PRESSING DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS

The purpose of the study was to examine the perceptions of students, parents, and teachers relative to a junior high school's most pressing discipline problems and to determine whether these three groups shared a common perception of the problems. The "most pressing discipline problems" were defined as the problems which needed the greatest and most immediate attention. A random sample of students and parents and all classroom teachers from one junior high school responded to a questionnaire. Participants were asked to review a list of student behaviors for which referrals to the administration were commonly made and to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed that the specified behavior warranted referral. They were then asked to go through the list a second time and to rank order the behaviors which they agreed warranted referral in terms of their perceptions of the school's most pressing problems. Participants were instructed to assign a "1" to the most pressing problem from their perspective, "2" to the next most pressing, and so on until all the behaviors which warranted referral to the administration had been assigned a rank. Based on the data collected and statistical analysis, the following conclusions were reached: (1) Students, parents, and teachers did not share a common perception about which behaviors warranted referral to the administration. Parents and teachers did share a common perception, but student responses indicated a different perception. (2) Students, parents, and teachers did not share a common perception of the school's most pressing discipline problem. Students and parents ranked drug or alcohol possession or use on school grounds as the most pressing problem; teachers ranked impertinence and discourtesy to teachers or administrators as "most pressing." (3) The problems which are perceived as representing the most pressing discipline problems in the school are not the same as those which are most frequently reflected on actual referrals to the administration. (4) Teachers within some subject areas have a common perception of which discipline problems are most pressing (specifically, physical education, science, and mathematics). Teachers within the other subject areas do not share a common perception. (5) Students who had been referred to the administration for disciplinary reasons and those who had not been referred shared a common perception of the school's most pressing problems. (6) Teachers from different subject areas did not refer, proportionately, the same number of students to the administration for disciplinary reasons. Physical education teachers referred a statistically significant greater number of students than did other teachers; social studies teachers referred a statistically significant smaller number than other teachers.