The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the academic achievement of sixth-grade elementary school students to their perception of teacher discipline style and school adjustment. The subjects in this study were 320 sixth-grade boys...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of the academic achievement of sixth-grade elementary school students to their perception of teacher discipline style and school adjustment. The subjects in this study were 320 sixth-grade boys and girls in elementary schools located in Incheon and Gyeonggi Province. Their academic achievement test scores were added up to assess their academic achievement, and a survey was conducted by using Kim Dal-hyo(2006)'s Teacher's Discipline Style Questionnaire and Kim Young-eun(2007)'s Elementary Schooler School Adjustment Inventory. The answer sheets from 299 students were analyzed except the 21 ones that were incomplete or gave multiple responses to the questions about teacher's discipline styles.
A SPSS WIN 12.0 program was employed to make an analysis of the collected data, and crosstabs and x2-test were utilized to find out a trend in perceived teacher's discipline styles. One-way ANOVA was carried out to see whether their academic achievement made any differences to perceived teacher's discipline styles and school adjustment, and Scheffee post-hoc analysis was utilized to look for any possible significant intergroup gaps. The findings of the study were as follows:
There was no significant gap in the trend in perceived teacher discipline styles according to academic achievement. A democratic discipline style was most prevailing, and authoritarian and laissez-faire styles were not rampant. As for the relationship between teacher discipline style and school adjustment in groups with different levels of academic achievement, the high-achieving students who found their teachers to discipline in a democratic or supportive way fitted better into school than the high-achieving students who viewed the discipline style of their teachers as authoritarian. In the intermediate-level group of students, those who regarded the discipline style of their teachers as democratic, supportive or compromising outdid the students who looked upon the discipline style of their teachers as laissez-faire in school adjustment. In the underachiever group, the students who viewed the discipline style of their teachers as supportive outperformed those who regarded the discipline style of their teachers as authoritarian in that aspect. Therefore teachers should make the right choice of a discipline pattern in consideration of the academic achievement of students. It will be more effective to take a democratic attitude to well-performing students instead of arbitrarily forcing them, and intermediate-level students should be provided with appropriate reward and treated in a democratic and caring manner instead of dealing with them in an indifferent and laissez-faire way. For poor-performing students, understanding and care would be more effective than strict attitude or control.
This study has some limitations. As every student in particular classes was examined, it couldn't be said to approach the diversity and styles of teacher discipline from various angles, and students whose academic achievement couldn't definitely be said to be on a specific level weren't taken into account. And the reason why the teacher discipline styles made a difference to school adjustment according to the level of academic achievement couldn't be explained. Yet the effort by this study to identify teacher's discipline styles conducive to the school adjustment of sixth graders with different levels of academic achievement is meaningful in that it provide basic information on how to facilitate the school adjustment of students.