The point of view of teachers and students in secondary education on the problems affecting the classroom climate

Resumen

A large part of the studies carried out in Spain on coexistence and the climate of the classroom and the school refer to bullying. Merma, Gavilán and Rico (2018) have identified the presence of new disruptive problems, such as mobile phone and video game addiction, school absenteeism and exclusion, although others such as disruption and verbal violence persist. The findings also show that serious problems are occurring, including xenophobia, gender violence and drug addiction in students aged 10-12. The substantial and continuing increase in Internet use has also brought other serious consequences such as cyber-bullying, sexting and grooming. Based on this background, the objective of this study is to analyze and compare the opinion of teachers and students regarding the degree of relevance and frequency of the problems that affect the positive climate in the classroom.The sample was random and consisted of 887 students and 616 teachers from 5th and 6th grade of Primary Education and 1st and 2nd grade of Secondary Education. For data collection, an ad hoc questionnaire was designed. The reliability test of the questionnaire items according to Cronbach's Alpha was α=0.92. The instrument has 26 items that refer to the above mentioned non-coexistence factors and three open questions were added with the purpose of investigating whether the student had experienced any problematic behaviour and how the teacher's actions were in these cases.The findings show coincidences in the opinion of teachers and students with the exception of drug addiction and consumption, school dropout, discrimination, xenophobia, grooming, sexting and gender violence. Addiction to mobile phones is the most common problem reported by teachers and students (56.07% and 47.23%, respectively), followed by disruption. 31.48% of students and 42.83% of teachers say that the biggest problem is that "there are classmates who constantly get up and look back when the teacher is explaining". Likewise, 29.69% of students and 47.34% of teachers say that there are students who "throw objects, make strange noises, laugh continuously, applaud, etc.", interfering with the normal development of the classes. Although teachers and students highlight the presence of insults and "unpleasant nicknames" (22.5% of students and 34.03% of teachers) there is a significant difference in the perception of the frequency of occurrence of this problem. The following problems also stand out: "chatting in class" (22.23% of students and 31.45% of teachers), exclusion and discrimination (13.63% of students and 23.55% of teachers), "arriving late to class" (19.96% of students and 29.19% of teachers) and non-attendance (13.3% of students and 17.35% of teachers). In order to eradicate and/or tackle the situations that affect coexistence and the classroom climate, it is first necessary to identify how and to what extent these problems occur. On this basis, two types of strategies must be designed: those that attempt to prevent their occurrence and those that intervene to respond to the problem with the respective measures. This study suggests the need to design and implement prevention and intervention programs for these problems in schools in order to mitigate the consequences and to integrate these problems into initial and in-service teacher training.