Teachers’ Perceptions of Student Indiscipline in Elementary Schools: A Psycho-developmental, Social and Educational Analysis

Abstract

Understanding how teachers conceptualise student indiscipline is central to the development of coherent and effective behaviour management practices, particularly within non-punitive educational contexts. This study examines elementary school teachers’ conceptions of student indiscipline through three analytical perspectives: psycho-developmental, social, and educational. Adopting a descriptive survey design, data were collected from 160 elementary school teachers using a self-constructed questionnaire comprising 47 statements. Frequency and percentage analyses reveal that teachers predominantly endorse all three perspectives at a partial level, indicating pluralistic but weakly integrated conceptual understandings of student indiscipline. Among the perspectives, social explanations emerge as the most strongly endorsed, while psycho-developmental and educational perspectives exhibit comparatively higher levels of uncertainty and weaker endorsement. These findings suggest that teachers’ fragmented conceptual orientations may contribute to inconsistent interpretations of student behaviour, particularly in educational settings that emphasise non-punitive discipline. The study underscores the need for strengthened conceptual integration in teacher education and professional development to support reflective and theoretically informed approaches to student behaviour management.