A Study of The Experiences of Junior High School Students With Disipline Problems at a Prathum Thani School

Abstract

This qualitative study is aimed at identifying the factors that lead to indiscipline students who often break the school regulations to find out how such problems can be reduced and students who are at risk can be better taken care of so that they can concentrate on their studies. The data were collected from 7 students screened from two participant selection criteria: 1) They topped the school list of wrong doing and 2) their parents were invited to sign parole agreements with the school. There were 3 sets of instruments: 1) 30-minute individual semi-structured interviewing. The interviewed data were transcribed and analyzed with Grounded Theory and Constant Comparative Approach
2) Brief records of student behaviour while at school were kept for one semester and
3) Informal small talks with parents of the key informants were recorded. The contents of both 2 and 3 were content analyzed into categories for emerging patterns for interpretation.

          The findings were ‘family’ and ‘friend’ were significant factors leading to student indiscipline. Observations of student behaviour revealed that students had problems with their temperament, unreasonably attraction to friends and inattention to study. The informal talks with parents indicated that grandparents excessively pampered their grandchildren resulting in the “Me-first” attitude and disobedience. Having no close supervision from parents, students turned to their friends and would do everything to win their hearts for their love and acceptance. When the results from 3 sets of data were compared for similarities and differences, it was found that major factors for students’ indiscipline were ‘family’, ‘friend’ and ‘temperament’.

          Ways to solve this problem should take many forms that take place simultaneously as follows: Way 1: Prevention by the community, who will cooperate with one another
to take care of their children, Way 2: At school, students need to be given full attention by the teachers and Way 3: All stakeholders such as divorced parents, step parents, grandparents, and teachers should be intensively trained to understand their rolesin student support.

          Recommendations for future research are 1) More research should be done in similar contexts such as in schools where there are lots of discipline problems to confirm that the factors found in this study are major causes of indiscipline 2) Use the findings of this study to design a model for an experimental research.