A developmental study of violence-related problematic behaviors (3)

The present study was designed to examine the discrepancy between pupils' and teachers' normative consciousness with respect to the multiple problematic behaviors in the three groups of pupils. Participants were pupils from fourth- to sixth-graders (N= 285) and their teachers (N=69) in the elementary school, pupils from first- to third-graders (N=270) and their teachers (N=91) in the junior high school, and pupils from first- to third-graders (N=274) and their teachers (N=120) in the high school. Normative consciousness was measured with 49 items in eleven subscale areas of problematic behaviors. Each item was rated on a 4-point scale indicating how severely pupils were punished, from not at all (1) to very much (4). Pupils rated the extent to which they would receive punishment from their teachers if they would do each problematic behavior. Teachers rated the extent to which they would give punishment to their pupils if their pupils would do each problematic behavior. The main results were as follows. Pupils' ratings on nine subscales, such as bullying, violent behavior, defiant attitude, fashion, disturbance of activities in a class, shoplifting and use without permission, undisciplined school life, drinking and smoking, and undisciplined home life, declined with age. Contrarily, teachers' ratings did not change as a function of pupils' age on ten subscales excluding undisciplined school life. These findings show the discrepancy between pupils' and teachers' normative consciousness about problematic behaviors. Further studies are required to find out the factors which decreased normative consciousness of the high school students