Self-Esteem, Amotivation And Drop-Out In Secondary School.

Author(s):

Per Egil Mjaavatn(presenting / submitting)Per Frostad

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

05. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

05 SES 01 B, School Dropout and Social Exclusion

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-18

13:15-14:45

Room:

ESI 1 - Aula 25

Chair:

Mark Hadfield

Contribution

Drop-out from secondary school is a serious problem in many countries. Reviews by Rumberger (1995) show that there is no single or simple cause for drop- out. Drop-out may be described as the last phase of a longer process where the students for several reasons gradually loose interest in what school offers them (Janosz et.al. 2008). The problem of drop- out, however, requires looking beyond the individual student, focusing also on school factors possibly relevant in students’ decisions to stay or leave school. Perceived support from parents and peers and interaction with staff at school may be such factors that influence on students’ self-esteem and further on to amotivation and drop-out (Burleson and MacGeorge,2002). Boys run up to seven times more risk on drop-out compared to girls (Alexander et al. 2001).
We will in our paper discuss the relation between drop-out, self-esteem and and factors in our study leading to amotivation .

Method

This paper reports from a project in Norwegian secondary schools where students in three waves within two years were answering questionnaires on their life at school and their relations to teachers, parents and peers.2078 students participated in the first wave, 1467 in the second wave and 1540 in the third wave. All data were collected electronically on-line and analyzed with SPSS

Expected Outcomes

There was a strong correlation between self-esteem and amotivation for school. A regression analysis showed a fairly strong influence on students’ self-esteem given by support from parents, teachers and especially peers. There were only minor gender differences. However, social support gave a stronger explanation of girls’ amotivation than of boys’ amotivation. Perceived support from teachers seem to be the most important social factor explaining amotivation in secondary school.

References

Alexander,K.L., Entwisle, D.R.&Kabbani,N.S. (2001) The drop-out process in life course perpective: Early risk factors at home and at school. Teachers College Record, 103,760-823 Burleson,B.R. & MacGeorge,E.L. (2002). Supportive communication. In M.L.Knapp&A.L. Vangelisti (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Janosz,M.,Archambault,I.,Morizot,J.& Pagani, L.S.(2008). School Engagemnet Trajectories and Their Different Predictive Relations to Dropout. Journal of Social Issues,64,1,21-40 Rumberger R.W. (1995). High School Dropouts: A review of issues and Evidence. Review of Educational Research 57,2,101-121

Author Information

Per Egil Mjaavatn (presenting / submitting)

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Dep. of Education

Trondheim

Per Frostad

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Norway

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