Teachers’ understanding of school connectedness:
Implications for the development and implementation of school
based injury prevention strategies
Rebekah Chapman, Dr Lisa Buckley & Prof Mary Sheehan
27th International Congress of Applied Psychology 11-16 July 2010
CRICOS No. 00213J
Injury in adolescence
• Need for preventive intervention prior to dramatic
increase in injury at 14-15 years:
% deaths
due to
injury
AIHW, 2008
Risk taking and injury
• A high level of injuries among adolescents are
due to risk taking
– Including violence & transport risks; often occurring
in the context of alcohol use
• 11-15 year olds who report high levels of risk
taking are 2.46 times more likely to report
medically treated injuries (Pickett et al., 2002)
School connectedness
• The school environment has an impact on
adolescent behaviour
• School connectedness has been identified as a
critical protective factor
– Defined as “the extent to which students feel
personally accepted, respected, included and
supported by others in the school social environment”
(Goodenow, 1993, p. 80).
Components of school connectedness
School connectedness
Affective Behavioural Cognitive
(e.g. feelings of (e.g. involvement (e.g. perceptions of
belonging) & engagement) teacher support)
School connectedness research
• Positively associated with:
– Academic motivation, achievement and school retention
(e.g. Goodenow, 1993; Archambault et al., 2009)
– Students’ emotional health (e.g. Anderman, 2002; Shochet et al., 2006; Shochet et al.,
2007)
• Negatively associated with risk taking & injury:
– Violence (e.g. Dornbusch et al., 2001)
– Alcohol and drug use (e.g. McNeely & Falci, 2004)
– Transport risk behaviours (Chapman, Buckley & Sheehan, 2009)
Mechanism
• Social control theory (Hirschi, 1969)
– Dimensions of connectedness (bonding):
• Attachment – liking for school, respect & liking for
school staff
• Commitment – level of personal investment
• Involvement – participation in school activities
• Belief – commitment to values, norms & rules
School and connectedness
• School connectedness is related to school factors:
– Classroom management (e.g. McNeely et al., 2002)
– Tolerant discipline policies (e.g. Whitlock, 2006; McNeely et al., 2002)
– Teacher support (e.g. McNeely et al., 2002)
– Positive student - teacher relationships (e.g. Voisin et al., 2005)
– Teachers’ expectations for success (e.g. Blum, 2005)
– Connection with at least one adult at school (e.g. Blum, 2005)
Project rationale
• Existing interventions generally focus on individual
characteristics (e.g. knowledge, attitudes) rather than wider
social and institutional influences
• Theoretical models (e.g. Jessor, 2003) suggest the need to
support individual attitude and behaviour change with
social/contextual protection
• An intervention targeting classroom and wider school level
changes might provide an effective complement to
individual-focused risk and injury interventions
Research aim
• To examine teachers’ perceptions of school
connectedness and their approaches to increasing
connectedness
• Issues covered:
– Perceptions of the relationship between school connectedness and
risk taking/ injury
– Strategies used to increase students’ connectedness to school
– Perceptions and attitudes regarding professional development in
school connectedness.
Method
Participants & Measures
• n=13 Health & PE teachers (2 South-east Qld state high schools)
– Semi-structured interviews – questions formed part of broader discussion
on risk taking, injury, interventions & mentoring
• n=35 Qld Education Department employees (including teachers – 15 schools)
– Focus groups – questions again formed part of broader discussions on risk
and injury prevention
Procedure
• Written consent
• Interviews, focus groups of approximately 45 minutes
• Audio recorded and transcribed verbatim; analysed using NVIVO
Results
Teachers’ perceptions of the relationship between school connectedness
and risk taking/ injury
• Teachers described dimensions of school connectedness and how they
relate to risk taking
Theme Example quote
Belonging Everyone wants a sense of belonging, and I’ve found; kids in grade 8 and 9 that
didn’t have much confidence, that weren’t really fitting in anywhere…they’ve tended
to start hanging out with the bad people because they feel that sense of belonging
Feeling There are some that just don’t…have value of their lives. The difference is that, if the
valued kid feels like they have a worthwhile life and they’re told they’re worthwhile, they look
after themselves
I guess the basic thing is that kids need to know that they’re valuable people…They
need to know the dangers of what risk taking behaviour can be; they need to know
that …someone is going to say, “I can help you”
Results
Teachers’ perceptions of the relationship between school connectedness
and risk taking/ injury
Theme Example quote
Teacher I’ve just tried to develop rapport. It works well because kids can talk to me
support about their problems and because we put in the hard work we don’t have any
behaviour management problems
Engagement Give them a role. I know that works…give me a role and I’ll get more focused
and stop misbehaving
I suppose what we need to do as teachers is to find something, a positive
success, rather than a negative success so they’re feeling important
Results
Strategies used to encourage school connectedness among students
•Teachers identified a number of strategies that they either used, or
thought would be effective, to increase connectedness among students
Theme Example quote
Warm It’s a lot easier to talk to kids when we’re doing prac because, as we’re walking
relationships down to the oval or whatever you might get them to help you get some stuff. Say,
& taking an you know, “How are things going? How was your weekend?”
interest You might just go over to them, have a look at their work and have a bit of a chat,
say hi
Inclusion We do self esteem stuff in (Health) class in grade 9. I always make them at the
start of the term get up and talk about themselves for a minute and I do it as well,
and I’ll tell them something that’s not school based
Try and find something that each kid likes to do
Results
Strategies used to encourage school connectedness among students
Theme Example quote
Strength Everyone should have a little job, to teach that kid to do something, to get something
focus positive out of them. Most kids disengaged from school are the kids who think
they’re not worth anything. So try to engage them back into something
Equity & If a student has done something wrong, I would try to keep the relationship the same
fairness with them as it has always been and let them know that I still like them, it’s just their
behaviour that I’m not keen on
You need to know your stuff, what you’re doing, you need to be confident. And
you’ve got to be friendly to them, as well as be authoritative. They’ve got to know
that yep, he’s a cool teacher, but if you do something wrong, there’s consequences
Results
Perceptions and attitudes regarding professional development (PD) in
school connectedness, and what should be included
•Teachers indicated that training in connectedness and risk & injury
prevention would be useful, and gave a number of suggestions for the PD
Theme Example quote
Problem A lot of risk taking here is not just through sport. That’s simple stuff…the most risks
of risk they take here are drugs and alcohol and doing stupid stuff once they’re under the
taking and influence of one of those, so it would be a good idea to do some sort of in-service so
injury teachers can understand the kids a bit better
You need to know which kids could be at risk, maybe some simple signs or
symptoms. Some staff probably don’t understand that as much
Strategies If he’s not working in class, it’s up to you. Some teachers don’t realise it’s them its
-engaging not the kid. They need to find ways to engage the kid
students Just being able to give staff an idea how to speak to the kids about their problems
Summary of findings
• Teachers identified links between aspects of connectedness
and students’ risk behaviour
• Teachers saw the importance students’ connectedness to
school, especially among those at risk for problem behaviour
• Strategies used to promote connectedness include building
warm relationships, taking an interest, being inclusive,
focusing on strengths, and treating students fairly
• PD for teachers in connectedness seen as useful
Implications for intervention
• Teachers see professional development in
school connectedness as valuable
• Teachers’ suggestions can inform program
development
– Also provide ecologically valid material (e.g.
strategies) to include in program content
Conclusions
• The established link between school connectedness
and problem behaviour has implications for school
based prevention
• Targeting school connectedness, in conjunction with
individual level programs, may be an effective school-
based intervention strategy
– Particularly as teachers see this as valuable
Future research
• This research forms part of a larger theory based
project to reduce risk taking and injury among early
adolescents
– Student surveys - Association between school
connectedness and risk taking/ injury
– Development and pilot of a school connectedness
intervention (Teacher PD); in conjunction with a curriculum
based risk and injury prevention program
– Outcome and process evaluation
Questions?
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