School Motivation Among High Performing Pupils Who Think About Quitting Upper Secondary School

Author(s):

Anne-Mette Bjøru(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

ERG SES H 07, Inclusive Education

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-22

11:00-12:30

Room:

W3.15

Chair:

Rachel Shanks

Contribution

The topic of my research is Upper Secondary School Dropout. 11.1% of European youth between the age of 18 and 24 have left the education field without completing an Upper Secondary School programme (‘Eurostat 2014 data’ in European Commission, 2015). Reasons that explain Europe’s high level of early school leaving are varied. It could be any of- or a combination of the following factors: personal, social, economic, educational, and family-related issues, as well as issues within the education and training systems (European Commission, 2015).

This study on Upper Secondary School Dropout is from Norway. The Nordic Model of Education is based on the comprehensive school system, where the idea is that a high level of ‘education for all’ works towards equal opportunities within a class-less society and a better chance for a secure economy (Telhaug et al., 2006). However, with a Norwegian national Dropout rate of approximately 30%, a lot higher than the European average, one may argue the ideas behind the Nordic Model of Education are at risk.

The study at hand is from Finnmark County, the northernmost county of Norway. The county is slightly bigger than Denmark and has 75 000 inhabitants. The vast area has only 12 Upper Secondary Schools, and it has the highest number of Dropouts in Norway. In 2015 only 55% of the pupils completed Upper Secondary School (Statistics Norway, 2016b). The majority of the pupils who drop out of Upper Secondary School are from the vocational line of study (statistics Norway, 2016a). Explanations of the high Dropout rate in Finnmark are in line with those from the European Commission, but include the status of education in families, having to live away from parents during school, and low school results in Lower Secondary School, which means a tough transition to Upper Secondary School (Lie et al., 2009). Most of the research on Upper Secondary School Dropout in Finnmark County focuses on larger cohorts of pupils in quantitative studies, and on the pupils in vocational education who seem to be more likely to drop out (see among others Markussen et al., 2012). This study has a different focus; it is a smaller qualitative study among high performing pupils who attend the academic line of study. These pupils have high grades from Lower Secondary School, and most of them live with their parents during Upper Secondary School. However, they still sometimes think about dropping out. The goal of this study is to gain a broader knowledge about what motivates the high performing pupils to continue school when they have thoughts about dropping out, as the knowledge might be transferrable to all pupils in Upper Secondary School. Thus, the objective is to create an insight into what are important, generally applicable, measures against Upper Secondary School Dropout according to the pupils themselves. The research question that this paper seeks to answer is: ‘What motivates high performing pupils in Upper Secondary school to continue school when they start thinking about dropping out?’ I answer the question with partly pedagogics – on relational skills (Moen, 2016 among others) and partly sociology – Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity (Bauman, 2000 and 2001), as backdrops. In order to understand why pupils think the way they do about education it is important to see their choices (of continuing school or dropping out) in the larger context of the world around them. It is therefore fruitful to try to analyse the pupils’ information in the light of the time we live in today, which Bauman calls liquid modernity, and its effect on pupils' motivation to attend school.

Method

Individual interviews with nine first graders (15-16 years old) in Upper Secondary School conducted towards the end of their second term (in the month of May). All interviews took place at their school, and lasted approximately one hour. The pupils were asked questions about topics such as relations, development and importance of relational skills, class environment, school motivation, thoughts about dropping out, and the core curriculum and its values. The interviews were taped on a recorder, moved to a safe computer server at the university (personal password needed to access the computer), and later transcribed. The recorded sound on the recorder was deleted. The texts formed by the transcribed interviews were analysed with specific aims, looking particularly at what the pupils said about relational skills and school motivation. All informants were anonymized, and the text was returned to the interviewees. They were asked to respond to the text in order to make sure that they recognized how their information was presented in the text.

Expected Outcomes

The study shows that also high performing pupils sometimes struggle in Upper Secondary School and think about dropping out, even though the transition from lower Secondary School seem smooth and they get necessary support from home. What motivates them to continue school are most commonly future prospects and relations to other pupils in school. All the high performing pupils in this study have already decided that they want a higher education, most of them have also already decided within which field. This motivates them when they meet difficulty in school and consider dropping out. They all fully understand the necessity and importance of completing Upper Secondary school in order to pursue a higher education. Bauman’s liquid modernity is recognized as the age of uncertainty and instability (Bauman, 2000), but these pupils try to create some sort of forward orientation in an otherwise chaotic world, by setting personal goals for their future careers. In addition, motivation to attend school comes from the actual relations and friendships they have with fellow pupils, in and outside of their class. All the pupils in this study stress the relation with other pupils as more important than relations with their teachers. They say that the most important reason to come to school is to meet friends and to experience the community they share with other pupils. This implies that schools should recognize the importance of pupil-pupil relations, even more so than the teacher-pupil relations. Schools should make time and effort to work on relational skills to build good class environments simply because it is a key motivation for pupils to attend school, even high performing pupils. The findings concerning high performing pupils are hopefully transferrable to all pupils’ perception of what creates motivation and may be a measure against Dropout for pupils in general.

References

Bauman, Zygmunt. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press Bauman, Zygmunt. (2001). Community. Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity Press European Commission. (2015). Education & Training 2020. Schools policy. A whole school approach to tackling early school leaving – Policy messages. Retrieved 24 November 2016 from: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/repository/education/policy/strategic-framework/expert-groups/documents/early-leaving-policy_en.pdf Lie, Ivar, Monica Bjerklund, Christen Ness, Vigdis Nygaard, Anne Elise Rønbeck. (2009). Bortvalg og gjennomstrømming I videregående skole I Finnamrk – Analyser av årsaker og gjennomgang av tiltak. Alta: NORUT rapport 2009:5 Retreived 17 January 2017 from: http://norut.no/sites/norut.no/files/static_files/content/download/4322632/8789446/NorutAltaRapport2009_5_BortvalgVgsFinnmark.pdf Markusse, Eifred, Berit Lødding and Solveig Holen. (2012). De’ hær e’kke nokka for mæ: om bortvalg, gjennomstrømming og kompetanseoppnåelse I videregående skole I Finnmark skoleåret 2012-2011. Oslo: NIFU rapport; 2012-10 Retrieved 17 January 2017 from: https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/280864/NIFUrapport2012-10.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Moen, Torill. (2016). Positive lærer-elev-relasjoner. En fortelling fra klasserommet. Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk Statistics Norway. (2016a). Gjennomstrømming i videregående opplæring, 2010-2015. Retrieved 19 November 2016 from: https://www.ssb.no/utdanning/statistikker/vgogjen/aar/2016-06-02 Statistics Norway. (2016b). Gjennomstrømming i videregående opplæring, 2010-2015. Retrieved 19 November 2016 from: http://ssb1.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapSeries/index.html?appid=5d6c3f10280049e98714211e8dae3e31 Telhaug, Alfred Oftedal, Odd Asbjørn Mediås and Petter Aasen. (2006). The Nordic Model in Education: Education as part of the political system in the last 50 years. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 50:3, 245-283. DOI: 10.1080/00313830600743274

Author Information

Anne-Mette Bjøru (presenting / submitting)

UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Department of Education

Alta

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