Susan Steward

Promoting group work at key stage 3: solving an attitudinal crisis among young adolescents?

The attitudes and behaviour of 1040 pupils aged 12–14 years have been measured at the beginning and end of the school year with a battery of attitude, motivation and personality tests in an investigation of the differential effects of group work compared to whole‐class learning. A total of 44 secondary teachers of English, mathematics and science and their classes have been studied over a two‐year period. While subject attitudes and motivation scores fell significantly during the year, attitudes to group working held steady. Extraversion has been found to have a significant association with a positive approach to group work in English and mathematics. Cluster analysis has been used to identify four broad types of pupils who respond to group work in characteristically different manners. Two of the types show contrasting personality profiles, but display the least positive attitudes to school and classroom work. In 13 of 40 classes, these rather negative pupils made up at least half the class. There is evidence from English that group work in an appropriate task can arrest attainment decline for these pupils. It is argued that a shift from achievement to mastery motivation in schools with a role for cooperative group working could deliver a more effective education for disaffected youth.

Measuring children and young people’s wellbeing in the school context

Although being rooted in the work of ancient Greek philosophers, contemporary research on wellbeing is a relatively new phenomenon. As a term in the literature, wellbeing is often used interchangeably with others, such as happiness, flourishing, enjoying a good life and life satisfaction. Furthermore, the wellbeing of school-aged children is only beginning to be explored with increasing recognition that research conducted on adults cannot be uncritically applied to children and young people. This paper aims to address some of the complexities in conceptualising, and hence assessing, children and young people’s wellbeing by drawing on a recently completed study examining the role of creative initiatives in fostering wellbeing. The new instrument that was developed to capture children and young people’s perceptions of their wellbeing in school is outlined. Data are presented from a survey of 5170 students from 20 primary and 20 secondary schools across England that identify four dimensions of wellbeing. Differences in self-reported wellbeing relating to age, gender and type of school attended (Creative Partnerships versus other schools) are explored. The implications of these findings, particularly differences related to type of school attended, given the focus of this special issue, are considered.