Higher school discipline associated with better academic performance: study

Chris Baumann

By Chung Hyun-chae

Chris Baumann, an associate professor at Macquarie University in Australia and a visiting professor at Seoul National University (SNU), has found that better school discipline is associated with better academic performance.

"There are significant differences in discipline for low, medium and high performing students. Peak-performing students have the highest level of discipline," Baumann told The Korea Times.

Baumann and Hana Krskova co-authored a study, titled "School discipline, school uniforms and academic performance." Krskova is a research student at Macquarie University under the supervision of Baumann and Prof. Leigh Wood. Her research interest includes school discipline, academic performance and competitiveness.

They found that students peak perform when teachers create a disciplined atmosphere where students listen to them, noise levels in the classroom are low and they do not have to wait to start class and teach.

They drew such a conclusion by examining five school discipline components ― students listening well, noise levels, teacher waiting time, students working well, class start time ― in Europe, the Americas, Far East Asia, the rest of Asia and Anglo-Saxon cluster.

"East Asia and the rest of Asia have the highest level of discipline, and this likely contributes to a focused approach to teaching and learning, eventually leading to the previously alluded to peak performance of East Asian and other Asian students in international competitions," Baumann said.

He cited Korea as an example where the class leader greets the teacher entering the classroom and all students bow to the teacher as a start signal as well as a clear celebration of a traditional Confucian ritual.

"This approach subsequently results in practically no teacher waiting time, as we have found in our study," Baumann said.

He believes that Korea's Confucian approach to education appears to have resulted in strong academic performances.

"Mental health and dropping-out-of-school issues are always prominent in middle and high school level education, and of course Korea is not immune to such trends.

However, Korea's Confucian teaching approach assumes both a disciplinarian but also caring role, with clear guidance and pronounced role models," Baumann said.

"Western education focuses more on passing on of knowledge without a strong focus on the more holistic character building perspective common in Korean education."

According to his research, Europe and the Anglo-Saxon clusters have generally significantly lower levels of discipline.

"This may contribute to more time and energy used in attempts to restore order in the classroom, leaving less time and space for actual learning," Baumann said.

"Subsequently, students learning in these classrooms may be disturbed by discipline problems."

His study also found that uniforms contribute to better discipline in everyday school operations, recommending schools to keep the uniform policy or consider introducing it.

"The findings support that in general, implementing school uniforms might enhance discipline and allow for better learning," Baumann said.

Countering the argument that strict school discipline and mandatory school uniforms could be a kind of violence as they suppress the students, Baumann said these are educational tools that ultimately help them.

"It appears that both school discipline and uniforms not only contribute to higher levels of academic performance in one way or another, but also to lower levels of violence," he added.

The full text of the research is available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/IJEM-09-2015-0118.

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