PREVENTION OF SCHOOL FAILURE IN CONTEMPORARY TEACHING: A THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL APPROACH

Abstract

Through theoretical analysis of school failure factors and empirical examination, in a comprehensive and interdisciplinary way, we tried to explore this complex problem that is constantly present in the teaching process, and at the same time point out the importance of systematic work on its prevention. The context of the research problem is empirical and refers to the examination of the main factors of school failure. Students’ self-reflections on: 1. family relations, 2. curricula, 3. motivation for learning and 4. teaching methods and contents as possible factors of school failure were examined. Specific hypotheses set in the research refer to the existence of statistically significant correlation of students’ self-reflections on school failure factors with set independent research variables: grade students (p < 0.05) and school success (p < 0.05). Survey research method with scaling technique was used in the research. The research included 235 primary school students in the territory of southern Serbia, in the 2019 school year. The results show that the factor analysis from the Likert-type assessment scale constructed for the needs of the research, highlights 4 factors important for the research of school failure: family, curriculum, motivation, teaching methods and contents. The process of factor analysis extracted the main factors of school failure, which were brought into a correlative relationship at the level of statistical significance with students’ self-reflections. The results of the research indicate the theoretical and practical significance of the problem of school failure, thus representing a good starting point and incentive for further research work.