School discipline

Appropriate student discipline at the high school level is a subject on which varying opinions exist. Discipline is usually viewed from the perspective of student misbehavior. This study was designed to focus on the student discipline issue through an examination of the relationship between a set of specified administrator attitudes and characteristics and disciplinary decisions. The basic research design was a simulated field study. The subjects were practicing high school assistant administrators from twenty-two high schools located in a large urban school district. Independent variables selected for the study were (1) attitudes toward appropriate discipline for defiant student behaviors, (2) perceptions of and willingness to comply with the disciplinary expectations of the principal, teachers and other administrators, (3) years of experience as high school administrators, (4) personal experience rearing high school children and (5) sex of the administrators. The measure of the dependent variable was derived from the disciplinary decisions of the subjects to five hypothetical case studies portraying defiant and/or disobedient student behaviors. Multiple regression analysis was employed to test the primary hypothesis of the study. The major finding was that those subjects who most strongly perceived that teachers expected strict disciplinary action for defiant student behaviors were the same subjects who made the most severe disciplinary decisions. A finding that approached statistical significance was that those subjects who had children of their own who had graduated from high school tended to take less stringent disciplinary action than those who had not reared children through the high school years. The findings indicated that role behavior seems to be a more promising focus for the examination of influences on disciplinary decisions. The non-significant relationship between the attitude toward discipline scale responses and the disciplinary behavior of the subjects indicated that disciplinary actions tended to be independent of the disciplinary attitudes of the subjects included in the study. Among the recommendations for further research was a recognition of the need to examine differences in beliefs and behaviors of administrators in relation to the disciplinary process that takes place prior to the final disciplinary action.

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.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify specific
student behaviors that are perceived by school community
members as primary discipline problems. Conclusion and Recommendations: It is concluded from the results of these analyses
that a variety of differences do exist among members of the
school community in their perceptions of student behaviors
identified as discipline problems. Educators who are committed
to the principles of education have proven to be most effective in the practice of the profession. In contemporary
education, the lack of communication among
various segments of the community decreases this sense of
commitment and, therefore, limits the full implementation
of these principles. If schools are to become more
effective, all members of the school community must be provided
ways to become involved in the creation of the proper
learning environment. The primary responsibility for
providing methods by which school community members can
better communicate their concerns about school discipline
rests with administrators, for they are the educational
leaders of the schools.

The purpose of this study was to identify factors
serving as deterrents to deviant school behavior as perceived by students. Emphasis was placed on the identification
of factors students perceived as:
1. Having prevented non-deviant students from deviating
from the school's code of conduct
2. Deterrents which may have prevented deviant students
from violating the school's code of conduct
Questions explored and answered in this study
were:
1. How do middle school students perceive deterrents for
deviant school behavior?
2. How do parents', teachers', and administrators' efforts
affect student school behavior?
3. What can schools do in the area of deterring deviant
behavior?
4. What effect, if any, do the fa mil y and/or significant
others have on deterring deviant behavior of students?
5. What can students do in the area cf helping themselves
and others to practice good behavior?
6. What are some of the causes of deviant school behavior
and delinquency?
Conclusions: 1. Data from this study revealed that middle
school students believe schools can deter deviant behavior
by the practical application of good school-home communication, group counseling, good teaching, teacher-student conferences,
individual counseling, and extra-curricular activities
2. Deviant school behavior is indicative of many
factors: curriculum, teacher performance, administrative
performance, horne conditions, emotional disabilities,
learning disabilities, in-school management, and extracurricular
activities

This study of one hundred subjects, selected randomly from three
hundred deviant secondary school students, was conducted to determine if
there was a significant difference between those subjects whose behavior
was improved over the period of one year and those whose behavior remained
the same or deteriorated.
Variables from home relationships, peer affinities, achievement,
duration of the behavior problem, enrollment in vocational education,
drug usage, discipline measures and behavior types were studeid for
measures of central tendency.
A factor analysis was conducted to reduce the number of variables
to a cluster of factors or constructs. Nine factors emerged from the
original forty-two variables. They were named: Adaptability, Behavior,
Maturity, Student Response, Parental Attitude, Achievement, Home, Y and E,
and External Influence.
Regression analyses were run to select the possible predictors of
success or failure in behavior modification from the original variables and from the nine factors. Of the original variables, student attitude
and response to parents were the most significant. Amongst the factors,
Student Response and Parental Attitude lead the rest.
A multivariate analysis of variance tested the hypothesis: there
is no significant difference between those students deemed successful in
behavior change and those deemed failures. The nine factors were used
as dependent measures in the rejection of the null hypothesis with a P
less than .01. The univariate F tests, using factors Student Response
and Parental Attitude, caused the rejection of the null hypothesis of a
common means with a P less than .01.
The hypothesis, in a second multivariate analysis, when the dependent
variables were the original variables, was also rejected by the
findings with a P less than .01. The variables which contributed to the
rejection of the null hypothesis of common means with P less than .01,
on the univariate tests, were student attitude, response to parents,
grade point average change, vocational education, counseling, home atmosphere,
and parental cooperation.