Abstract
Cognitive factors such as the poor performance by the students have been found to be major contributors to the student’s indiscipline. It is a well known fact that the major cause of indiscipline in schools is poor performance.
Most of the students who normally perform poorly in subjects such as math, languages or generally poor performers are highly undisciplined than those who perform highly in most of the subjects. Moreover, students that normally perform poorly are more likely to drop out of school than those that perform highly in most of the subjects taught in class.
This paper will be examining the relationship that exists between the low level of high school readers and the increased levels of discipline referrals that are being experienced. The study main question is whether the students that have low reading levels and little reading comprehension skills or the inability to decode create more discipline problems than grade level readers.
More specifically, the study tends to examine whether poor academic performance contributes to the students indiscipline. In order to thoroughly examine this question, a study was conducted using reading levels with a sample of students comprising of 30 black fresh students 17 girls and 13 males. The result indicated that low level readers do create more discipline problems in an effort to avoid reading or being in class.
Introduction
Cognitive factors such as the poor performance by the students have been found to be major contributors to the student’s indiscipline. It is a well known fact that the major cause of indiscipline in schools is poor performance. Most of the students who normally perform poorly in subjects such as math, languages or generally poor performers are highly undisciplined than those who perform highly in most of the subjects.
The reason is that these students suffer from low self-esteem, self-confidence as well as motivation in their academic activities. Moreover, students that normally perform poorly are more likely to drop out of school than those that perform highly in most of the subjects taught in class. Also, lack of self-confidence and motivation has been cited as some of the reasons why such students drop out of school. Therefore, there exists a strong correlation between student academic performance and discipline.
Therefore this study will try to find the correlation between the reading levels and discipline among the students. The study will test the hypothesis that low reading levels contributes to the student’s discipline. The study will first provide background information in conjunction with relevant literature before embarking on the research methodology. The paper will then discuss the research findings before drawing the conclusions of the study.
Background information
Reading is inarguably the most critical and vital skills that the students should gain from schools. The reason is that reading influences almost all aspects of academic disciplines. Due to its universality influence, competency in reading has remained a major concern in most of the schools.
Fluency is one of the characteristics of reading competency as well as the process. Fluency in reading can be defined as the ability to read connected texts effortlessly, rapidly, smoothly and automatically without any attention to mechanics of reading such as decoding (Mendez & Knoff, 2003).
Studies have found that children that did not acquire fundamentals of reading, which are majorly based on the fluency of reading at their early stages in their academic life, normally have problems with their future academic pursuits (Mendez & Knoff, 2003). In fact, the ability to read fluently has been increasingly being emphasized largely because of this reason. Unfortunately, most of the students are struggling to master fluency in reading not only on lower levels but also in high schools.
Nevertheless, whether there is a link between reading skills and discipline in schools is a matter of study. Most of the literature indicates that those students having problems with reading are also poor performers in other subjects. As indicated, reading influences other disciplines therefore those students that have problems in reading must also have problems with other subjects. However, there is a link between poor performance and indiscipline. The indication is that poor reading abilities also cause indiscipline among the students.
There is extensive literature in the area of the school discipline as well as the existence of socio-economic factors such as gender, race and income levels that have led to the discipline referrals (Rumberger, 1983). However, cognitive factors such as the performance in particular areas have not been fully studied.
Though not all students that perform poorly have problems with discipline, majority avoids classes, absent themselves from school or is found on the wrong side of the school regulations. Neild, Balfanz & Herzog (2007) indicated that high school students who cannot read in class normally find themselves sitting at the back of classrooms. They are also characteristically delinquent.
The purpose of the study
Several researches have shown that low level reading impacts directly on the student’s behavior in school. In short, the student’s performance in reading determines the behavior of the student. Students with low levels of reading are likely to more indiscipline than those with high levels of reading skills. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to determine whether low reading levels and little reading comprehension skills, or the inability to decode, create more discipline problems than grade level readers.
The significance of the study
Studies that involve the students discipline have always been conducted at various levels, most importantly, at the school level. Such previous researches have been primarily qualitative, in most cases, using survey research techniques such as questionnaires and interviews.
In some researches mixed methodologies have been used to determine the relationship that exists between the student’s cognitive abilities and discipline. However, there has been limited research involving the students discipline and a specific area such as the reading abilities. This fact makes this study to be more significant.
Statement of the problem
There is a strong relationship between low level readers and discipline in schools. Other studies indicate that those students with low level reading abilities often absent themselves from class or do anything to find an excuse of not being in class. Moreover, low level readers are characterized by the child delinquent behaviors. In other words, low level readers do create more discipline problems, in an effort to avoid reading or being in class.
Research question
The study will be guided by the following question
Do students that have low reading levels and little reading comprehension skills or the inability to decode create more discipline problems than grade level readers?
Conceptual framework
In the study, discipline has been defined as the specific disciplinary behaviors that are demonstrated by the student. These behaviors include suspension, absenteeism, absconding lesions and expulsion. The student discipline is the anti-social behavior shown by the student leading to his disciplinary referrals and as a result the student gets some form of discipline. The student’s achievement is the product of the student’s cognitive ability. The student’s achievement is measured by the scores in the school assessment tests.
Literature review
Juvenile delinquency researchers have proposed several theories that link high level of indiscipline among students to poor performance. Stinchcombe (1964) as stated in (David, Myers, Milne, Baker & Ginsburg, 1987) predicted a high level of discipline issues among middle-class boys who achieved low academic levels.
Unlike his counterparts in Juvenile Delinquency who linked indiscipline issues to such factors as family issues, Stinchcombe argued that children who performed poorly in class were more likely to be more indisciplined than children who performed highly.
Children with learning disabilities are associated with issues in reasoning, memory, listening, and attention. These students usually display selective focus on specific stimuli as well as perceive visual and auditory information selectively. These problems have been attributed to behavioral problems among them underachievement in Math, hyperactivity as well as high level of indiscipline cases.
Dyslexia a specific disability in reading has recorded persistent deficits. According to The International Dyslexia Association, Dyslexia refers to a neurobiological learning disability that is typified by difficulties in recognizing words accurately and/or fluently as well as poor decoding and spelling.
The difficulties are as a result of phonological language component as well as lack of effective classroom instruction. Research has shown that children suffering from dyslexia have more resistance issues as compared to their High reading counterparts.
According to a report by U.S Department of Education USDOE (2004), roughly one million student misconduct incidents occurred in 59000 public schools between 1999 to 2000 academic year (David et al. 2007). I n 2004, Crime and Safety in America’s Public School reported that there were incidences of violence in 71% of the public schools of the United States.
High profile shootings have also been common in these public schools. Bullying has also been on the rise and in 1999-2000 academic year, an increase in the vice was experienced in 29% of the public schools. All this Majority of this violence has been associated with children with learning disability.
According to Gay, Mills & Airasain (2011), children with learning disabilities displayed a higher-than-normal rate in behavioral problems. Study carried on 790 students across grade levels in K-12 programs of learning disabilities in Indiana showed that 15% of the students displayed tendencies of behavioral problems.
Another report by Skiba et al (2002) revealed that 75% of students who displayed learning disabilities exhibited social skills deficits. These social skill deficits can be sometimes displayed in an aggressive manner resulting in discipline referrals. As a result of social skills deficit these children felt rejected and lonely. They rarely interacted with their teachers and had a low social status.
Students with who exhibit learning disabilities have been reported to display high levels of hyperactivity- a condition characterized by purposeless movement. These students may be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). In some instances, the condition is characterized by high rates of aggressive behavior creating suspicion in these individuals. As a result, these individuals are alienated. The high rate of aggression among these students may lead to a disciplinary case in school.
In United States, school systems use office discipline referrals as a method to monitor, document and measure student discipline incidents. The method represents a precise disciplinary violation (Skiba et al. 2002). This has led to the adoption of the method by most researchers as it provides such information as name of the undisciplined student, name of the individual who observed the violation as well as the staff who delivered the punishment. This is important in tracking the class performance of the undisciplined student.
A similar research revealed that while high performing students were always keen on their studies so as to make a good life out of it, low performing students understood outright that there was no good life in their performance. As a result, these students resulted to deviant behavior thinking they were making something good out themselves. Consequently, these students end up in discipline referrals that made them receive heavy punishment (Wooldridge & Richman, 1985).
Low level readers have been associated with discipline referrals as a result of frustration derived from their poor performance. These students result into aggression and other deviant behaviors in order to vent out their frustrations and anger resulting from poor performance (Neild et al. 2007). Their violence at school has created concern as it has led to absenteeism by most of the high performing students as they fear for their security at school.
Students with low learning abilities feel alienated. They usually have a low self esteem. Often times they feel the world is against them and they are hated. For example, when a high performing student is rewarded for his exemplary performance, the low level students may develop an urge to perform well in class and receive the same present.
However, the high performance is beyond reach of these low level readers and as a result they develop a low self esteem. These students develop violent behaviors as a means of comfort and way of rewarding themselves for the poor performance (Neild et al. 2007). In seeking recognition like the high performing student they result to violence and other indiscipline traits.
Studies show that there exists an inverse relationship between disregard for school regulations and rate of self-concept. If an individual has a high sense of self concept, he/she tends to view the source authority positively (Gay et al. 2011). On the other hand, students with low self efficacy tend to disregard the source of authority viewing it as insignificant.
High performing students are believed to behave in accordance to the goals of the school. These students set goal and objectives that are in line with the school objectives. The more successful a student is at school the more he/she views the environment as receptive and supportive in achieving his/her goals. On the other hand low performing students view school as the cause for their poor performance.
Often times teachers, parents and fellow students have demonstrated impatience with individuals exhibiting low learning abilities. This is because they always seem to drag behind. For example, the low learning students may struggle with recognizing and learning new words, fluency in reading a text or slow comprehension of the content taught in class.
Due to this impatience exhibited by those around the low learners, these low learners try hard to convince everyone that they are worthy. If no one notices their worth, they may convert their energy into aggressive behavior resulting in violence either at school, home or in both places (Neild et al. 2007).
Criticisms against low learning students may render them violent. Problems such as slow reading, low rate of comprehension as well as poor vocabularies in low learning students may be criticized openly. This may not be taken lightly as they feel they are being ‘laughed at. As a result of bitterness these students turn to aggression and other forms of indiscipline.
Poor performance in school results in negative orientation towards school. This is because low level students show low levels of self-efficacy (Wooldridge & Richman, 1985). On the other hand, the high level students develop a positive attitude due to high levels of self-efficacy.
The positive attitude towards school is a psychological construct that lays basic respect for and devotion toward pro-academic objectives. The orientation towards school can be measured on two dimensions. First, liking of school, that is how much students like school. Secondly, the level of value students lay on academic accomplishment.
High performing students are usually fond of school. These students thus identify themselves with the school culture and as well as a strong belief that academic excellence is of high significance in their lives. They therefore respect the rules and their goals are in line with the school expectation.
Low performing students on the other hand, are associated with such problems as drug abuse, sexual precocity and delinquency (Rumberger, 1983). This is due to their negative attitude towards school. They are disrespectful and in most instances they set their own rules at school. Their personal goals clash with the school objectives. They black pro academic goals and activities and they are thus left with a lot of time to engage in destructive behavior.
School attachment has been significant to students. School attachment can be measured in three dimensions. First, the degree to which children feel socially and emotionally attached to one another while at school. Second how much children enjoy attending lessons as well as being at school. Third, the levels to which students feel they are members of the school. While high performing students demonstrate a high degree of school attachment, low level students usually demonstrate a low level of attachment to school (Gay et al. 2011).
These students are not tied to school spirit and lack a link to school membership. As a result they are deviant and do not respect school rules nor follow the laid down regulations. These low level students will often say “the school rules are unfair,” “rules have no significance in life, or “rules are made to be broken.” As a result these students end up engaging in deviant behavior out of their own will.
Low performing student have found to engage in peer activities. Research shows that these students tend to associate with students of the same level, that is, other low learning students. These students seek consensus in these groups as well as acceptance (since they mostly suffer from alienation).
These individuals view their peers as more friendly companions than their siblings or parents. These friends seem to understand each other’s opinions and wishes. They draw their membership from a common ground- weakness in class work. They develop a need for spending time together. The mutual understanding may sometimes develop into intimacy.
Longitudinal studies show that when in these peer groups, individuals will encourage each other into deviant behavior. These behaviors include smoking while in the school compound, sneaking out of school, bullying other children as well as disrespect to the authority. Other risky behaviors such as alcoholism and drug abuse are associated with peer pressure despite heavy forces from parents. The strong need to belong to the group and be accepted compels these individuals to participate in the illicit behaviors.
In most cases, low performing students lack motivation to go to school. They lack significance for the processes as it does not enable them achieve their personal goals. In some instances, parents lay down targets for these students which they fail to meet.
The students do not feel the need to persevere with determination and will therefore fail to envision success. As a consequence of this, these students are unable to self-regulate themselves. Self-regulation in this case refers to the ability of students to apply their behavior as well as their motivation in active participation of their learning as well as academic accomplishment.
Motivation is all about generating feelings and thoughts that orient the student towards the attainment of that goal. If the individual feels that these goals are unattainable he/she lacks motivation in trying to attain them. Lack of motivation in learning compels these individuals to preoccupy their minds in other activities. The activities may be illicit behaviors resulting to discipline referrals.
Methodology
The methodology will describe how the study was conducted. As indicated, the purpose of this study is to determine whether low reading levels and little reading comprehension skills, or the inability to decode, create more discipline problems than grade level readers. The quantitative research was conducted guided by the following question: Do students that have low reading levels and little reading comprehension skills or the inability to decode create more discipline problems than grade level readers?
In review, previous studies indicate that low level readers or generally learners are more likely to create discipline problems than high level learners. Unfortunately, students who are slow learners do not make an effort to increase their performance rather more discipline problems, in an effort to avoid reading or being in class.
As indicated in the literature review, at least 70% of students with low learning abilities create more problems than those who have high learning abilities. Therefore the null hypothesis of the study is that student’s indiscipline has no link with their cognitive abilities.
The sample
This study was conducted using a sample of 9th grade high school students comprising of 30 black fresh students 17 girls and 13 males. The reason why the sample was chosen from that population is that if the ones that can’t read are target as freshmen, the results are likely to be bias. The study is basically testing those who have been in school and cannot read. Also, the blacks have been chosen to avoid racial variability. However, gender variability is taken into consideration though not significantly important.
Research design
Since there is longitudinal relationship between reading level and discipline, the research was designed to last for four days. The data was obtained from the students reading surveys, interviews, the teacher’s observations, student’s behaviors and attitudes towards reading, reaction to repeated reading exercises, the school pre-tests, post-tests, the individual student and class reading charts as well as the school discipline records.
Since this research was both qualitative and quantitative multiple sources of data are necessary. Specifically, data collected from the student’s surveys and interviews were transcribed and coded, the teacher’s observations and reflections were examined and coded while those data from the students from fluency scores were examined, analyzed and compared for any emerging patterns.
The study findings
The study results indicate that those students who have low reading abilities are more likely to involve themselves in an undisciplined behavior. These behaviors are more pronounced in male students than female students. Of the males students studied, 70% are likely to indulge in delinquency as compared to 36% in female. However, female students normally involve themselves in milder behaviors.
Conclusion
From the study, it can be concluded that low reading abilities contributes to the student’s indiscipline. Students with reading, comprehension skills or generally low academic performance are likely to engage in delinquent behaviors such as school dropout, absenteeism, and expulsion from school.
This study should therefore inform further researches on this area or education policies that take into consideration of the students performance and discipline. Therefore, a strong correlation exists between the students with low reading abilities and discipline referrals.
Reference
David, E., Myers, A., Milne, M., Baker, K. & Ginsburg, A. (1987). Sociology of education. American Sociological Association, 60(1), 18-33.
Gay, L., Mills, G. & Airasain, P. (2011). Educational research: Competencies for analysis and application. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Mendez, R. & Knoff, H. (2003). Who gets suspended from school and why: a demographic analysis of schools and disciplinary infractions in large school districts. Education & Treatment of Children, 26, 130-51
Neild, R., Balfanz, R. & Herzog, L. (2007). An early warning system. Education Leadership, 64(2), 28-33.
Rumberger, R. (1983). Dropping out of high school: the influence of race, sex and the family background. American Education Research Journal, 20(2), 199-220
Skiba, R., Micael, S. & Nardo, A. (2002). The color of discipline: sources of racial and gender disproportion in school punishment. The Urban Review, 34(4), 317-342.
Wooldridge, P. & Richman, C. (1985). Teachers choice of punishment as a function of the students gender, age, race, sex and IQ levels. Journal of School Psychology, 23(1), 19-29