An Analysis of Students Misbehaviour in Distance Learning

Copyright@2021 (author/s) Abstract: Online learning has become an inevitable trend in the world of education. Even before the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic, many educational institutions had implemented blended and distance learning in their teaching and learning activities. In fact, distance learning is an innovative step that allows the transfer of knowledge without time and space boundaries. Effective distance learning cannot be separated from behaviour of students. Students discipline is a crucial element to create an effective online class situation. The study has objective of analysing misbehaviour occurred in online class. The approach used in this research is qualitative using questionnaires and interviews as data collection techniques. 10 English teachers were interviewed to obtain the data about students’ misbehaviour occurred. Furthermore, the data were analysed descriptively. The results showed that the most common students misbehaviour in online class was failure of assignment submission, language aggression and disrespecting teachers.


INTRODUCTION
Online learning has become an inevitable trend in the world of education. Many educational institutions had implemented blended learning in their teaching and learning activities. In fact, online learning is an innovative step that allows the transfer of knowledge without time and space boundaries. 2019 is a year of massive transformation of education around the world. All institution were forced to change their conventional classrooms which usually done through physical contact among teachers and students become online. Physical contact was transformed into distance learning which is done through media such as portable computer, laptop, tablet or handphone.
The COVID-19 pandemic outbreak has affected education system all around the world. This pandemic forces all education institutions to change their learning method, from face-to-face interaction to distance computer or mobile device mediated interaction. This type of learning is known as e-learning. This sudden shift policy decision may become a challenge for the students. That is why the current research is conducted to find out how these students adapt to the rapid change of their learning methods Along with those changes, the change of students' misbehaviour type also occurred in distance learning. Discussing about students' misbehaviours, it actually happens both in conventional class and online learning.
However, due to a change in the form of classes from conventional to online learning, there are also changes in the form of students' misbehaviours. These changes include how students behave when participating in online learning, how the interaction between students-teachers and students-students, as well as student behaviour in carrying out assignments and evaluating learning.
Arbuckle and Little (2004) stated that misbehaviour kind of activity which able to cause stress for teachers, interruption of teaching, and teachers' continual comments from teachers to students. Charles (2008) mentioned that misbehaviour as inappropriate attitude of students which is happened and take a place in any setting or situation. This study defines misbehaviour as any behaviours which against common class rules and norms, disobedience teacher's order and interrupt teaching and learning process. Studies found that inappropriate behaviours affect the quality of teaching and interferes learning (Cothran et al., 2009). In literature, the term of problematic behaviours of students was defined as disciplinary violations, misconduct, misbehaviour (Thomson, 2009), disruptive behaviour and problem behaviour. Banos et al (2017) found that students misbehaviours give a serious impact on school and teachers satisfaction. The findings indicated that undisciplined behaviours in educational context can be a serious problem.
Obviously, both in conventional and online class, student misbehaviours could impair teaching smoothness and effectiveness and also annoy and his/her classmates. Moreover, misbehaviour in educational context is truly time and energy wasting and even impacts student's achievement in academical context. To decrease these negative effects caused by student misbehaviours, it is an urge to identify what kinds of misbehaviours exactly happened and includes in online-class.
The primary aim of this study is to examine online-class students' behaviours among students of Junior High School in East Java taken from teacher's point of view. The objectives of this study were to (1) provide types of students' misbehaviours based on teacher's perspective in online-class, (2) identify the most frequent misbehaviours done by students and the most inhibiting to teaching and learning and its reason. Practically, the findings of this study were expected to be a reference for counselling and guidance in the school context, especially for distance learning. Wheldall and Merrett (1988) listed several items which indicate student's misbehaviours including talking without permission, eating, disobedience, noise making, unpunctuality, lazyness, physical aggression, impede others, out of position and untidiness. Houghton et al at Sun et al (2011) conducted an analysis of student's behaviours to measure secondary school students' misbehaviours. They found that abusing other students verbally was more relevant to be called as misbehaviours and they did not consider eating as misbehaviour. Misbehaviour of students have been described through different terms in the literature. Misbehaviour can be seen as regulation breaking institution rules or disobedience performance of norms which disturb classroom setting. Weerman and Laan. (2007) referred lateness, devastation, have a fight, theft, and alcohol drinking as student disciplinary violation. Other behaviours problem stated by Ho and Leung, 2001 were such sleeping, failure of homework submission, talking out of topic, class interfere, verbal and physical harassment, and treat teachers rudely. These behaviours believed as cause of teacher's stress and bother class atmosphere. Based on those statements, student's misbehaviours in this study refer to all behaviours that disobey explicit and firm regulation or class standard, break the classroom order, and interrupt the teaching learning.

THEORETICAL SUPPORT
Apart from defining existed misbehaviours, it is also important to define the most frequent and most inhibiting based on teacher's point of view. Previous research done by Wheldall and Merret (1988) revealed that, hindering others, talking without permission, and idleness were described as the most common and disruptive misbehaviours in the UK and Australia. Another research finding by Little (2005) showed that talking out of shift was found as most common misbehaviour found at both primary and secondary school.
According to Hase (2009), student's readiness, maturity and discipline are important factors for a successful teaching and learning process. The lack of adolescent discipline can lead them astray. A research about student misbehaviour which involve teachers in EFL context was conducted by Öztürk (2017). The study aimed to examine how EFL teachers in a Turkish apprehend student misbehaviour and also their reason. The types of student misbehaviour found were talking out of shift, passive participation of class activities and showed disrespectful attitude to the teacher, for the reasons of misbehaviours caused by families, teachers and books/curriculum. Granero et al (2020) also conducted an analysis related to student's misbehaviours correlated with their gender. This research also tried to analyse student's satisfaction related to teacher's teaching competence. The objectives of the study were to understand school problems related to satisfaction, disruptive behaviours, and teaching competencies based on student's gender. The statistical results showed gender and teacher's competencies significantly affected student's misbehaviours. In conclusion, the study found that competency of teachers affects student's misbehaviours and school satisfaction.
Another study related to student's misbehaviour was done by Puspitaloka and Syafitri (2019). The research is entitled The Analysis of Student's Misbehaviour in Learning English Lesson. The study aimed to define student's misbehaviours characteristics and the caused factors. The findings showed that there are three kinds of student's misbehaviour occurred namely attention problem, disruption, and annoying others. The caused factor of student's misbehaviour is from internal and external such as attention seeking and society.
E learning is an innovation of technologies which has primary aim to improve education qualities (Rodrigues et al, 2019). The teaching learning process is expected to be open accessed, unique, active and interactive, learner-centred and to be an enjoyable learning process. Elearning also believed by Garrison (2017) to be able to transform educational context in a positive way. Online class in this study related to the use of technology media to conduct the teaching and learning. Here, the media can be phone, computer, laptop or tablet. The platform in this research is chat application, video meeting app and learning management system.
This research intended to respond the change of educations system and all its phenomenon. Above previous studies revealed students' misbehaviours in conventional or face to face physical classroom setting and some others obtain the data from student's perspective. This study focuses on online class while the previous studies both on conventional classroom based on teacher's perspective. In addition to the research of student's misbehaviours, this study tried to reveal student's common misbehaviours occurred in online class, the most frequent and disruptive ones.

METHOD
Descriptive qualitative research is used as the approach to conduct this study. Qualitative approach is used in order to investigate a problem of certain phenomenon so then it can be understood clearly (Cresswell, 2012). 10 teachers (7 females and 3 males) from 3 schools were invited to participate in this study. A questionnaire and interview guide were used to obtain the data. In the questionnaire and interview session, several questions used to collect teacher's opinion and perceptions of students' misbehaviours in online teaching context. The data then being analysed descriptively related to the following three research questions: 1) what student misbehaviours occurred in online class?
(2) Among these student's misbehaviours, which are the most frequent? (3) Among these misbehaviours, which are the most unacceptable for teachers?

RESULT AND DISCUSSION
First research question is about kinds of student's misbehaviours occurred in online class teaching learning based on teacher's perceptions. The data obtained from questionnaire and interview related to this question is presented on the table below First category that will be discussed is doing something in private. There are 13 responses related to this category. This category mainly referred to any activities done by students which is not related to teacher's instruction. In this category, student's misbehaviours found were students tried turning off camera on online class and dealing with personal stuff unrelated to teacher's instructions. Teachers reported that students sometimes turning off their camera while they are expected to turn it on. By turning off the camera, teachers could not know or monitor students' activities. On the other hands, even they are on camera, teacher reported that students sometime busy with other things like toys, papers or others which were not related to teacher's instruction.
Second category is talking without permission. There are 3 responses related to this category. This category referred to all speaking activities unrelated to teacher's instruction. In this category, teacher reported that students often unmute the speaker without teacher's permission and calling out friends or speaking something irrelevant. Another case reported also students often chatting on chatroom and discussing something out of the class topic.
Third category is verbal harrasment. There are 4 responses related to this category. Verbal aggression here referred to student's verbal speech which categorized as inappropriate and irrelevant to teacher's instructions. Speaking foul languages and teasing friend reported by teachers occurred in online class. In interview section it was revealed that those activity done when students unmute the speakers and talk without teacher's permission and commenting about other student's performance or answers.
Fourth category is disrespecting teachers. There are 19 responses related to this category. Here this category referred to student's attitude which refusing teacher's instruction or even doing the opposite and showing disobedient and disrespectful behaviour. In this category, teachers reported some student's behaviours which indicated disrespectful attitudes such as not joining/attending the class without any information, talking with someone else while having the online class and refuse to follow teacher's instruction.
Next category is out of position. There are 5 responses related to this category. This category referred to student's behaviour which tend to nonattentiveness to the class by disappearing from the camera or even ask someone else to stay on camera.
Another category is related to assignment problems. There are 14 responses related to this category. In this category, teacher reported that student's have some serious problems related to online assignment submission. Students often failed on assignment submission without any notifications. Other problems were related to students tend to submit the assignment overdue and the more serious one is about copying the other student's assignment or instantly taking from internet.
The following categories are related to students' attitude of having food while virtual meeting is ongoing. Passive engagement become the last category reported by teacher. This misbehaviour related to student's attitude in joining online class discussion both virtual or through chat room. Some students preferred to do not actively participated sharing their thoughts or ideas on discussion. These categories taken 2 and 6 responses per each.
Based on the data obtained and among various student's misbehaviours reported, problem of student's failure on assignment submission become the most common student's misbehaviours in distance learning. A teacher commented that "…..students late submission of assignment is a serious problem for me. Students often to submit their assignment overdue. Some students even did not submit it at all. They also like to submit at night or weekends, not in working days and hours. It is really disruptive attitude and affecting student's performance and ruined teacher's schedule" (Teacher 02) Teachers response related to the most unacceptable behaviours is conducted through questionnaire and interview. The results of data collection are available on table 2. Based on table 2, it can be seen that the most unacceptable student's misbehaviours are verbal aggression which rated by 4 teachers. In this case, talking foul languages is reported as the most disruptive. It is related to student's manner and attitude. Teacher 05 reported that "…talking foul languages is the most unacceptable for me. Some male students often unmuted speakers and shouted unacceptable languages." Another teacher reported that "…Students often had inappropriate conversation in chat room which talking bad related to teacher's instruction or assignment. It is not acceptable…" Other category which reported as unacceptable behaviour is disrespecting teachers. Unmuted the speakers while having a virtual meeting is mostly rated by students. Teacher 02 reported that "…in distance learning, it is quite hard to control what is around the students. When I am on explaining something, then suddenly there are some noises came from student's speakers, it is truly ruined other student's concentration" Another teacher added "…. engaging students focus is a challenge in distance learning. Students often busy with their personal life behind. They often to have conversation with others and it is truly disrespecting me as teachers, especially when I am in the middle of explaining something.
Problems of late submission of assignment also become unacceptable behaviours rated by teachers. Copying other student's assignment or taking instantly from internet is becoming something unacceptable for teachers. Teacher 01 reported that "….plagiarism is something unacceptable for me, and it is a challenge for me as a teacher to make sure that all assignment done by students themselves" Teacher 10 also add a statement related to this assignment problem "….some students think that distance learning means they can have unlimited time for assignment submission. They often send me their assignment in the middle of the night. It really annoyed me" Related to passive engagement, a teacher reported that noisy students is even better that passive students. Teacher 08 stated that "for me, having mutual connection in distance learning is important. I can be so frustrated when my students are passive. They keep silent and do not want to join the discussion both in virtual meeting and chat room" Based on the data come from teacher's point of view, this study tried to define types of student's misbehaviours, and to identify the most frequent and the most unacceptable student misbehaviours. Table  1 presents 18 student misbehaviours which categorised into 8 categories namely doing something privately, talking without permission, verbal harassment, disrespecting teachers, out of position, assignment problems, eating/drinking and passive engagement. Among those categories, the most common is problem of assignment submission and the most unacceptable misbehaviour were verbal harrasment followed by disrespecting teachers, submission problems and passive engagement. Teachers considered those behaviours as not acceptable and intolerable when they categorised as improper attitude, interfere teaching, and affect student learning performance. These findings showed that student's discipline, respect and obedience in distance learning become teacher's expectation.
This study reveals a unique aspect of distance learning, in this case is student's misbehaviour. Although the misbehaviours categories are quite similar with the previous studies found in conventional class, distance learning misbehaviours showed unique phenomena. Doing something in private of the previous studies (Öztürk, 2017) was regarded as student's misbehaviours which students busy with personal stuff, reading, doing other assignment, drawing and playing phone. In distance learning. busy with phone is not an issue anymore because students mostly use their personal phone for the distance learning. Doing personal stuff is more about students were distracted with other things unrelated to teacher's instruction, such as playing with pen, paper, toys, etc.
Student's misbehaviours reported in this category were students often turning off the camera while they are expected to turn it on. This behaviour makes teacher unable to monitor student's activity. With particular focus on distance learning, teacher's monitoring is limited on student's activities behind the camera on virtual meeting. Teacher can monitor only based on what it looks from the camera frame.
Similar to other studies (Granero, et al, 2020), verbal harassment appeared to be a serious misbehaviour which was disruptive, such as speaking inappropriate language as well as tease other students. This misbehaviour mostly happened in chat room on discussion session. The lack of sympathy believed as the reason behind these aggressive attitudes. Another category is "Disrespecting teachers" which showed student's disobedience, that is to refuse or to fail carrying out teacher's instructions [previous]. In distance learning, especially in this study, disrespecting teachers found as student's attitude of being absence without any notification, talking with other persons out of the lesson and also refuse to follow and to answer teacher's instruction or questions. Through interviews found that teachers mostly set high expectation of student's obedience on explicit rules and implicit norms.
Out of position also reported by (Öztürk 2017) as student's misbehaviour. While in conventional teaching and learning, this out of position identified as student's movement from their seat, in distance learning, this misbehaviour identified from student's attitude which of frame or camera, so then teachers could not monitor their position. Another case is students often ask someone else such as their parents or siblings to substitute their position in front of the frame. Teachers reported that they expect students to obey their online class rules of virtual meeting, that is to turn on the camera and stay on the frame. However, in reality, some conditions made students disobeyed this rule.
The following misbehaviour which also unacceptable by teachers is problem of assignment submission. As the previous studies reported by (previous), in classroom learning, students tend to submit their assignment late, they often submit at break time or on next meeting. In this study, the findings were quite similar, teachers reported late submission of assignment and also plagiarism. Data from interview showed that students submitted their assignment not in particular time asked, and some of them even submit it in the middle of the night and weekend. This kind of attitude not only affect student's performance but also disturbing teacher's schedule and personal life.
Although this study able to reveals some unique findings, some limitation also being a concern. First, since this study only involved 10 teachers from 3 schools as participants, representativeness become an issue. Second, as only this study focused on teacher's perspectives, it would be more comprehensive if student's perspective also can be obtained. For future study, teachers distance learning management class and strategy on managing student's misbehaviours could be done to complete the findings

CONCLUSION
Based on the discussion above, it can be concluded that student's misbehaviours found in this research are doing something privately, talking without permission, verbal harassment, out of position, assignment problems, disrespecting teachers, eating/drinking and passive engagement. The most common misbehaviours are problems of assignment, and the most unacceptable misbehaviours are verbal aggression, disrespecting teachers, submission problems and passive engagement.