Introduction:

Classroom management has always been one of the most challenging tasks for teachers from
the starting of their career. In the modern society, class management is not simply about
discipline students to shape their classroom behaviours, but rather building a relationship with
them, facilitate their engagement and learning needs by providing them with a safe and positive
learning environment (Allen, 2010). In order to create such environment, teachers must first
understand their students, who are young adolescents, to recognized why they behave positively
or negatively, and develop appropriate plans to promote good behaviours, minimize setting
contexts which are not beneficial for teaching and learning procedure. More important, they must
have plans to prevent or intervene in challenging behaviours.

I. Literature Background:

Adolescent’s behaviours and its origins:

Contemporary studies suggested that the adolescents’ performance can be affected by a
complex of biological conditions, psychological states and social settings (Arnett, 2014). By
understanding the interrelationship between these factors to an adolescent, teachers can
recognize and foresee potential problematic behaviours of their students. Ecological systems
theory also shows such connections between an individual’s physical characteristic and his/her
surrounding environment (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). For example, while a student’s brain
development can affect his problem-solving skill, his ability to pay attention while on task
(psychological capability) can also be interfered by the classroom’s noise and other students’
opinions. In general, ecological systems of an individual include oneself and the surrounding
microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). They are the
family, friend, the community they live in, the local and national settings and the surrounding
social, cultural values which they share.
What is challenging behaviour?
Ecological systems theory provides educators with factors that influence students’
behaviours. Because of their interrelationship and the contextual conditions, end result
behaviours can be seen as appropriate or inappropriate. Definition of positive and negative
behaviours is relative and varied to the society’s characteristics. For example, although greeting
teachers is encouraged in most culture, Japanese students are usually expected to bow to teachers
to show their respect while Australian students only need to say hello. Universally, in
educational environments, actions which show empathy, respect, fairness and responsibility are
considered appropriate: raise hands before talking, be kind to one another, finishing homework
before going to class… Behaviours which disrupt the teaching and learning procedure and create
possible risks to others are deemed inappropriate (Nobile, Lyons, & Arthur-Kelly, 2017, p. 16)
Educational views on challenging behaviours’ attributions:
According to ecological systems theories, the center factor which contributes to students’
behaviours is the students themselves. Research has found that students who have different
cognitive characteristics from the rest of their peers might find lesson content too easy or too
hard sometime, which results in disengagement in learning (Kahu, 2013). This could lead to
students not participate in class activities, and distract others from doing their tasks. Adolescents’
psychological development is also one of the attributions for students’ misbehaviours (Nobile,
Lyons, & Arthur-Kelly, 2017). For instance, if a student behaves abruptly in class or plays too
rough in the playground, there is a possibility that he/she could have attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Another reason for students to act inappropriately is that they
are influenced by the non-educational people outside school environment, such as their family
members or older peers (Arnett, 2014 & Cothran, Kulinna, & Garrahy, 2009).
An adolescent’s misbehaviors may result from his/ her nature, but it also comes from the
perspective of people around him/her such as their classmates, their peers or even their teachers
(Alter, Walker, & Landers, 2013). As evidence of this, one of the reasons why some students do
not do their homework could be because their friends think it is normal not to, or the teacher in
another subject does not expect them to. In this case, teacher’s low expectation on students can
be one of the reasons for disruptive behaviours (Demanet & Houtte, 2012).

Teacher-student relationships can also be affected by their genders. Teachers normally

think that boys misconduct more often and in more serious level than girls do, even when they
are caught doing the same thing (Kokkinos, Panayiotou, & Davazaglou, 2004). Age and
experience are two factors which interfere with teachers' opinions on students’ challenging
behaviours (Kokkinos, Panayiotou, & Davazaglou, 2004).

II. Interview findings summary:

 The interviews are conducted in Western Sydney, NSW, Australia. There are 6 people, 3
males and 3 females, who were interviewed with the question “In your opinion, why do young
people misbehave in school?” Three of the interviewees are teachers: 2 female primary teachers
(Year 6 and Year 2), and 1 male secondary teacher. The remaining interviewees include a father
of 2 teenage boys, a pre-service teacher and a 25-year-old store manager. Approvals for the
interview are given to the author with the participant signing a consent form prior to the
interview. All interviews are conducted individually, though not completely separate due to some
interviewees sharing the same waiting area.

To generate the main themes of the answers, the author took notes and highlighted most
common keywords and grouped them into the bigger categories. Phrases such as “boring lesson”,
“irrelevant knowledge” and “not interesting” are put under “disengaged learning content”. In
fact, this is one of the most common reasons given by interviewees. This opinion is strongly
stressed by the parent, stating “content is not practical for the students”, which later he added
“content need to be career-based”. However, he did not mention any other reasons for his sons
not paying attention in class, or if they actually do so. The store manager, when asked why
students would misbehave, has given a self-reflected answer, and said he used to misbehave in a
specific class because he did not have a good relationship with his teacher, and because the
teacher continuously ignored him, and did not make any effort to fix the problem ( if any) with
his student.

The teacher group, though admitting the content can sometimes be “boring”, they also
reckon that students’ cognitive level is one of the other attributions. Ms. O’hegarty, who is in
charge of Year 6 students during this school year, recognized that students do not want to do
their assigned tasks because “it does not match their levels”. The author made the assumption
that she was referring to the students’ levels of knowledge and understanding. Factors such as
physiology traits and states are also noted. Mr. Farrusia has given a case of one of his students,
who is usually a bright student, became disconnected and unwilling to finish her tasks for his
subject during test time. He later found out that it was due to the study load she had received
from other classes, and stress from her parents’ expectation. Lastly, Ms. Bartlett gives an
example of her special-need student Alice, who has autism. She has recorded that whenever the
class routine has to change due to unforeseen circumstances, Alice would become very anxious
and often “act out”.

Social factors are also the main causes of challenging behaviours. The store manager
admitted that he had upset his teacher because his peers thought “it was funny”, and they praised
him for his actions once they were out of the classroom. Ms. O’hegarty and other teachers also
support this view. From her observation, students seek for their peer approval and attention quite
frequently. Additionally, they noticed that young adolescents sometimes act inappropriately
when there are sudden changes, such as substitute teachers, living conditions, or breaking up
with their boyfriends or girlfriends. The pre-service teacher gives concern about her age and
experience, and thinks that students would misbehave because she is “only a few years older”
than her students, and worry that she could not give clear instruction in class.

III. Interview finding analysis:

When contrasting literature backgrounds for the reason why students would conduct
challenging behavior with the interview findings, the author divided them into 2 main categories:
external effects and internal factors

The interview findings show some insights into teaching and non-teaching ’people
perspective on students’ misbehaviours. Generally, there are some main similarities between the
interview result and other literature research findings. Personal factors such as students’ brain
development and psychological traits/states, teacher’s age and experience play an important part
in creating or preventing challenging behaviours. Kahu (2013) has framed them under
behavioural perspective (students’ thinking process), psychological perspective (students’ self-
regulation and teachers’ deep learning strategies). External impacts such as learning content,
school programs or losing access to personal computer can also contribute to students’ behaviour
performance. Bronfenbrener (1997) has named this the chronosystem, which includes influences
of change over time.

Changes in living environment can sometimes be overlooked. In most of the educational

reviews, researchers usually paid more attention to the types of challenging behaviour and
educators’ attitude toward their frequency/seriousness. They usually emphasis the direct cause-
effect relationship, while changes in living/studying environment might only be a correlation to
classroom behaviour. For example, even though there is evidence indicating that some students
tend to misbehave on days when it is hotter than normal, there is little research which makes the
connection between the students’ misbehaviours and the weather. The interview findings also
suggest that elements like changes in class routine or set of new rules would contribute strongly
to challenging behaviours, which might not occur in daily class settings.

In their research about pre-service teacher’s perception on pupil’s undesired behaviours,

Kokkinos et al. (2004) found that young male teacher usually perceived some challenging
behaviours as less serious than their female colleagues did. On the other hand, during the
interviews, the writer has found no connection between teachers’ gender and students’
behaviour. Both female and male teachers think that biological development during adolescence
period is an internal reason for students’ distraction during class, such as daydreaming or using
technology devices for non-educational purposes. All teachers in the interview give similar
answers that all boys and girls can go through “their phases”. Although they do not
underestimate the influences of their students’ biological and psychological development, they
evaluate those misbehaviours at the same level of seriousness (average), which they have to
experience on a daily basis. There is also no record of teacher-student relationship being
influenced by their genders.

Overall, the interviewed findings are relevant to ecological systems theory. Internal
factors such as age and health affect students' learning ability. When students cannot keep up
with the lesson content or are ahead of class learning pace, both cases leads to further
inappropriate responses and even challenging behaviours in the long term. Other social settings
and individuals then would become triggers for students to conduct undesirable behaviours, and
they can come in various forms.

IV. Implication:
Many participants in the research of Cothran et al. (2009) who answered a similar question
asking about attributions of student misbehaving actions, said “Nobody knows”. They mean that
because the setting contexts can be varied, and the ecological systems around each individual can
be quite different from one another, it is usually complicated to find out the exact reason why a
student misbehaves. However, from the interview and other academic research findings, it shows
that we, as teachers, can foresee misbehaviour issues by collecting data from both students and
teachers and then compare and contrast. Even though the center of each students’ ecological
system is unique, they do share parts of their microsystem and interact with each other in similar
areas within their mesosystems, including same peers, same classes, same teachers, even people
going to the same church or playing for the school soccer team. Moreover, teachers need to
understand their own ecological system, their internal and external factors, and find out their
shared mesosystem area with their students.
Through data analysis, teachers would have a better understanding of setting contexts
surrounding them and their students, especially inside of the classroom. As educators, teachers
should facilitate student with the best environment to minimize challenging behaviours. While it
is difficult to have control over students’ personal development, teachers can manipulate the
classroom environment to stimulate the most effective learning process. For example, teachers
can create a class routine and rules together with students, build a positive teacher-student
relationship, eliminate distractions by designing a logical seating arrangement, and give clear
instructions for tasks and assignments. Nobile and his partner (2017) identified them as
classroom values, classroom setting, physical environment, and instructional practice.

Furthermore, teachers should have continuous professional practice and personal

development plan. They must understand themselves first because they are the centers of their
own ecological system. This is important because teachers should understand their strength and
weaknesses, as well as their triggers, and learn how to overcome them. For example, research
shows that male teachers concerns more about students not paying attention, and female teachers
often feel more uncomfortable dealing with disrespectful students (Friedman, 1995). While
delivering lessons, teachers are encouraged to have high expectations for students and use
differentiation pedagogy to keep students from “getting bored” by having scaffolding worksheet
or designing multi-level tasks (Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, 2018).

As a conclusion, novice teachers, especially pre-service teachers, should understand that

despite the best effort being made to provide students with positive learning environment,
inappropriate or challenging behaviours can still arise. Nevertheless, when intervention is
needed, teachers can use different academic theories and go through the process again, to have a
better set of rules and reinforcements, to try to understand and talk to students to strengthen the
relationship, while separate negative impacts from students’ environment, and design a better
classroom management plan.
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