Misbehaviour actions ranging from infrequent to persistent, mild to intense, are a

problematic issue in everyday classroom. This essay will explore the reasons behind student

misbehaviour from adults’ perspectives and will be compared to the literature. Additionally,

implications for improving teaching practice in relation to student misbehaviour will be

discussed.

Various definitions with similar meanings were given to define the term

misbehaviour. Charles (1999) defines misbehaviour as "a behaviour that is considered

inappropriate for the setting or situation in which it occurs" (p.2). The majority of classroom

misbehaviour falls under two categories: students unwilling to work as directed and students

“causing unwarranted distractions” (Charles, 2013, p.10). Stewart et al. (as cited in Sun &

Shek, 2013) refer misbehaviour to the disciplinary violence of explicit rules and regulations

in schools and classrooms such as fighting, tardiness and using illicit drugs. Behaviours such

as being rude to a teacher, talking in the class, chronic avoidance of work and bullying, which

are inappropriate in the class, are referred to as "an activity that causes distress for teachers,

interrupts the learning process and that leads teachers to make continual comments to the

student" (Arbuckle and Little, as cited in Sun & Shek, 2013).

In a review of literature on teachers and students’ attributions for student misbehaviour,

Cothran, Kulinna and Garrahy (2009), students attributed misbehaviour to attention seeking

to increase their social status, and disengagement when they were not interested in the

subject. Similarly, when reviewing their literature, Sullivan, Johnson, Owens and Conway

(2014) attributed misbehaviour to disengagement. When students were disengaged, they

were more likely to come late to class, be impulsive, aggressive or disruptive. In addition,

few students in Cothran et al.’s (2009) study mentioned that students misbehave to get

attention from the teacher. On the other hand, McGrath and Van Bergen (2015) spared a
section to explain about student-teacher attachment, stating that a student may be neglected

by a teacher whom the student is attached to and therefore, act aggressively to get attention

fearing of losing this relationship. In Cothran et al.’s (2009) article, from the teachers’

perspectives, home life was the most common factor that contributed to misbehaviour.

Students may have no parents to teach them respect or may have troubled situations at home.

Teachers also noted that students misbehaved because they were seeking attention however,

they linked it to poor home life. That is students not receiving enough attention at home and

so, they misbehave in the class. This contradicts with the findings of Sullivan et al. (2014)

who stated that the teacher is more in control of the factors leading to student misbehaviour

than the student. Student misbehaviour has also been linked with teacher’s expectations and

attitudes. Demanet and Van Houtte (2012) found that when teachers showed low

expectations or put less effort and energy in teaching, not only it affected students cognitive

growth but also their behaviour. These findings are consistent with those of McGrath and

Van Bergen (2015), who found that misbehaviour and student-teacher relationship is a

bidirectional relationship. Negative student-teacher relationships affected negatively on

students’ attendance and engagement. That is students were less motivated in schooling when

they had a negative relationship with their teacher. According to Nobile, Lyons and Arthur-

Kelly (2017), all the factors mentioned above fall under three categories that explain the

origins of misbehaviour: developmental, psychological and environmental.

The information reported is drawn from an interview study conducted with eight

participants. All interviewees were provided with an information sheet and informed about

the purpose of the interview. They were notified that only handwritten notes of their

responses will be taken and used in the report. Once they agreed, they were to sign the

consent form. Interviews with participants from overseas were conducted via Skype whereas

local participants were met in a private and enclosed setting for privacy purposes. All
participants were asked “Why do young students misbehave at school?”. The table below

shows the interviewee’s gender, age, occupation and group.

After the interview process, notes from discussions made in a language other than English

were carefully translated. Then, all the responses from each interview were read and

summarised into main ideas. Themes were generated based on the most re-occurring main

ideas.

The most common theme that emerged from these interviews was disengagement and

different subthemes were identified: not interested in the content and cognitive overload. All

participants stated that students misbehave when the lessons are boring and not motivating.

For instance, M2 talked about his own experience “my teacher used to talk for an hour and

leave, same routine every day”. F1 was the only participant to give an example of gifted and

talented students stating that “I had an extremely smart student, whenever I forgot to give

him extra work he would poke and disturb his friends who were on task”. Cognitive overload

was mentioned by the pre-service teachers and M4, focusing on the extraneous overload that
a teacher can cause on students’ memory and consequently, students find the content too

hard and give up.

Another common theme was the increase of social status. All participants stated students

misbehave because they need attention, however, when they expanded, they were all talking

about the social status. They stated that students, boys in particular, want to “look cool”, “be

tough” or “show off” in front of their friends. All male participants drew on their own

experiences to give examples. For instance, M3 stated, “I liked a girl, I wanted to impress

her”. Pre-service teachers drew more on the fact that adolescents are risk-takers so they

would do anything just to impress or be accepted by their peers.

The last common theme was home life problems. Participants stated that students misbehave

frequently if they are facing bad experiences at home. Some misbehave because they are

abused so they seek “revenge”, (M1), while others misbehave because “they are neglected

by their parents…they need their parents’ attention” (F2).

In Cothran et al.’s (2009) study, only students stated that they misbehave when they

are disengaged because of lack of interest in the subject. Although this is similar to the

findings from the interviews, yet all participants- teachers included- believed that the lessons

may be boring. It can be argued that the teachers in Cothran et al.’s (2009) did not want to

blame themselves for student disengagement maybe because they were all physical education

teachers and so, they thought that all students liked their subject. However, F2 and M4 are

mathematics teachers and from their perspectives, mathematics is a “dry” (F2) subject and

thus, if teachers struggle to make it engaging, students can lose their interest in learning and

misbehave. This is consistent with the findings of Sullivan et al. (2014) who explored that

the factors that lead disengaged students to misbehave are more in the teacher’s control than

the student’s. They drew on the ecological approach to explain misbehaviour. That is that
the school is considered an ecosystem: a network where the physical setting factors, teacher

factors, student factors, curriculum and resources factors and pedagogy interact with each

other and affect each other, which the teacher participants failed to mention. F2 and M3

mentioned that if the teacher is not motivated or does not show enthusiasm to his/her subject,

students are more likely to get disengaged. This was also founded by Demanet and Van

Houtte’s (2012) study. Teacher’s energy and attitude affect students’ engagement. M4 and

the pre-service teachers also believed that disengagement behaviours are related to the

cognitive overload that teachers impose on a student’s brain. F4 discussed in depth how the

redundancy and spilt attention effects, which she learnt about during the Master of Teaching

course, can affect on student engagement. None of the literature reviewed mentioned

explicitly cognitive overload however, it can be deduced from Sullivan et al.’s (2014)

findings that cognitive load is implied in the resources and pedagogy.

Cothran et al. (2009) found that, according to students, students misbehave to impress their

peers and show they got the power or to get attention from the teacher. Likewise, participants

talked about how attention seeking from peers can let students, especially boys, misbehave.

Interestingly, all participants from the interviews and from Cothran et al.’s (2009) study

talked about boys seeking attention from peers but not girls. Despite the fact that participants

mentioned home life problems can lead to misbehaviour, yet no one referred to students

seeking attention from the teacher as discussed in McGrath and Van Bergen’s (2015) article.

M1 and M2 stated that students misbehave because they think that school is a waste of time,

they can use that time to work and earn money. M1 drew on his own experience how he used

to misbehave at school and so dropped at an early age and started working. While his friends

attended universities, he was getting promoted at work and now he is a successful person.

However, none of the studies mentions students preferring to work over school. Moreover,

although home life problems was another reason stated by the participants, yet none of the
literature mentioned that students misbehave to seek revenge. However, McGrath and Van

Bergen (2015) mentioned that home life problems lead to misbehaviour because students are

not receiving any support or motivation. They also discussed that if students have a bad

relationship with their parents, this might affect their relationship with their teacher. Negative

student-teacher relationship leads to misbehaviour (Demanet & Van Houtte, 2012). F1

mentioned that sometimes students do not like the teacher and this why they misbehave.

When asked about the reason for not liking the teacher, his response was that “some teachers

are rude, some prefer students over others”. This is what Demanet and Van Houtte (2012)

pointed at in their article. Some teachers tend to avoid low-achieving students or expect a

student to be disruptive because of his/her socioeconomic status or her/his siblings whom

they used to teach. When teachers show low expectations, students receive less support

which means less chance to excel in the class and this results in misbehaviour actions.

Through the process of interviewing people and reading various educational based

articles about why students misbehave, it was clear that was no clear-cut answer. Reasons

drawn from participants’ own experiences and from the literature are very informative for

teachers. I learnt that students who misbehave are not bad but that there is a reason behind

every misbehaviour. Understanding how several factors interact with each other and affect

student engagement enables me to think of ways and strategies to keep students and myself

engaged. I would remind myself, before entering each class, that even if I was tired or sick,

my attitude will reflect on every student. I would prepare my lessons by using resources that

students love such as technology. For example, instead of questioning students to check their

prior knowledge, I would use an online game. I would also use hands-on activities which

make students busy and engaged. For example, using a hands-on activity to discover the

Pythagorean Theorem in a group work is much more engaging than just stating the formula.

Students will be able to develop the formula and communicate their findings instead of just
listening to the teacher who is telling them what to do. My objective will be to let students

wait impatiently for my lessons to come. In addition, I would rearrange the tables in the

classroom every fortnight so that students do not get bored from the same display. This may

not be easy and take time to do if the number of students is large. I would also communicate

high behavioural expectations such as not disrupting others and respecting each other. This

is important especially if students misbehave to get attention from their peers. Additionally,

when forming groups, I would join some ‘popular’ students with those who are less popular.

However, this might not work straight away as some students might bully others but by

reminding students of the behavioural expectations, it will eventually work.

Letting students know that their relationship with me is important and that I have high

expectations of them is crucial for them to not engage in a misbehaviour. I would do this by

letting them share their interests; for instance, we could have a whole discussion about

common interests and make sure that every student has a chance to speak. I would also

provide a positive feedback for every student and tell them that everything can be achieved

if we work hard. This helps low achieving students know that they are not alone and that the

teacher cares about them and will help them improve their academic performance. In

addition, when checking answers of exercises, I will make sure to choose different students

each time so that every student is given a chance to show his/her work. Students will be able

to see that the teacher does not prefer some students over others. It also shows them that

giving wrong answers does not mean that they will be neglected because they will have

another chance to present their work another time. They will understand that because of the

mistakes we can learn more.

References

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Charles, C. M. (2013). Building classroom discipline (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

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of student misbehaviour. Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, 14(2), 155-167.

doi: 10.1080/17408980701712148

Demanet, J., & Van Houtte, M. (2012) Teachers’ attitudes and students’ opposition. School

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De Nobile, J., Lyons, G., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2017). Positive learning environments:

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Sullivan, A. M., Johnson, B., Owens, L., & Conway, R. (2014).

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