Sharing Student Projects

This study aimed to assess the relationships between self-esteem, social acceptance from friends at school, and school disengagement. It also aimed to assess whether self-esteem and social acceptance form friends (peer acceptance) influence school disengagement in UK adolescents aged 11-16 years old. School engagement is defined as an interest and involvement in learning and school while, school disengagement is defined as a disinterest in school and low effort and involvement in learning. This study has a focus on disengagement, there are four areas of disengagement examined in this study, behavioural disengagement (low/no participation in lessons and learning), cognitive disengagement (low involvement and effort in learning), emotional disengagement (feeling overwhelmed and anxious at school) and social disengagement (disinterest in peers at school). One hundred and one full time secondary school pupils in the Northwest of the UK agreed to participate in the study with parental consent. The study used a questionnaire with statements surrounding self-esteem, friendship, school engagement and disengagement, answered on a scale of 1-5 strongly disagree to strongly agree. The researcher liaised with schools who agreed to facilitate the study to send home an information pack about the study to parents who could remove their child from the study if they did not consent to their child’s participation. Pupils who had parental consent, were able to participate. Participating pupils were given an information pack with child friendly language and were given a presentation about the study details to understand what they would be doing as a participant and were able to ask questions about the study before they could complete a form to agree to participation. Participants then completed the questionnaire which was collected with the agreement to participate form at the end of the study. The results showed that self-esteem, peer acceptance, and school engagement were all positively correlated suggesting that engaged students are likely to be socially accepted by friends/peers and have high self-esteem. Self-esteem, peer acceptance and school disengagement were all negatively correlated suggesting that disengaged students are likely to be socially unaccepted by peers at school and have low self-esteem. Self-esteem was found to influence global disengagement and all areas of disengagement (behavioural, cognitive, emotional, and social) while peer acceptance only influences global disengagement and social disengagement. This means that low self-esteem can lead to (predict) disengagement in all areas while having low acceptance by peers (less friendships) can lead to (predict) social disengagement in school.

This research has real world implications for the development of school interventions to target the influences of disengagement to promote engagement, prevent disengagement, and or support disengaged adolescents to reduce their disengagement. If influences of disengagement are identified, such as self-esteem and social acceptance, then programmes can be devised and developed to then promote engagement and or prevent disengagement in secondary school pupils. It is a robust finding, supported by many researchers, that engaged secondary school students are higher achievers than disengaged students and because of this it is important to support engagement as it will indirectly support academic achievement. If rounded intervention/s are developed to promote engagement in all areas (behavioural, cognitive, emotional, and social areas of engagement) and or to prevent disengagement in all areas (behavioural, cognitive, emotional, and social) then students will be directly impacted by receiving the support and schools will be indirectly impacted as their school-wide engagement and achievement will rise. School-wide improvements in engagement may bring about other positive changes indirectly impacting schools, teachers, and students. Behaviourally engaged students are well-behaved and so improve classroom behaviour, less time will be spent on behaviour management leaving more time for teaching. Cognitive engaged students pay attention to lessons, put effort and quality into their schoolwork and so learn better, possibly retaining lesson content for longer. Emotionally engaged students are happy and excited to be at school, possibly leading to less absences or truancy. Socially engaged students have friends and are socially accepted by their peers and may then support struggling peers in lessons creating a supportive network in school. In the most ideal world.