Academic Causes of School Failure in Secondary Education in Spain: The Voice of the Protagonists

Abstract

School failure is, at the international level, a problem that affects, most educational systems. In Spain, it is currently a current problem that remains unresolved. Therefore, our research aims to discover and analyze situations of school failure experienced by different agents with long experience in order to understand them and find out the possible responsibility of the school itself and the teacher. The methodology used in this research is qualitative in its focus on the phenomenological approach. The sample is constituted by the following: (a) active teachers; (b) retired teachers; (c) students who live school failure and (d) subjects integrated into the working world who experienced situations of school failure. The instrument used to collect information was the semi-structured interview and the focus groups, supported by a script designed and submitted to expert judgment. The results have been obtained from “content analysis” using the Nvivo11 Plus program. A wide overview of the main academic causes, incidents from the school and the classrooms that are involved in school failure is presented. Among the most relevant conclusions is that the school, with certain actions and in an indirect way, can lead to the construction of school failure.

Service Learning as an Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Teaching Strategy: Design, Implementation, and Evaluation in a STEM University Course

“…Not only was the effect significant, but also the size of the effect was very large (d = 1.30). Thus, the implementation and participation in an SL project could be seen as an appropriate strategy in teacher training [39,49], as the students engage effectively in the learning process. Similar results are also reported for active learning methodologies, such as performing project-based Learning (PBL), and activities that can later be applied in future teaching work [50], among other active methodologies [51][52][53].…”

“…Their study was carried out with pre-service teacher students, concluding with a high degree of satisfaction of all participants. Since students' demotivation is one of the main causes of current school failure [49], SL is a relevant teaching tool, since participation in SL projects favours the motivation of students, where the impact of the SL project was highly significant. In fact, as Hernández-Blanco et al [39] indicate, SL could be seen as an educational methodology that not only seeks learning, but also a social transformation.…”

A Study on the Causes of Low Level of Students in Undergraduate Level Compared to the Secondary School Level

“…reduces the success and continuity of kids in the educational system. One of the most pertinent findings is that the school may indirectly and by specific activities contribute to the development of school failure [4]. It is believed that students' perceptions of their power to influence a task's result have a significant impact on their behavior, motivation, and success [5].…”

Pedagogical change and innovation culture in secondary education: a Delphi study

“…Consequently, repetition is a phenomenon that particularly affects socially disadvantaged students. Educational compensation mechanisms in Spain are not effective (Martínez-Valdivia and Burgos-Garcia, 2020;López-Rupérez et al, 2021). Among the factors identified to explain the high retention rates of Spanish students in secondary education are the following: (a) a highly extensive, academicist and propaedeutic curriculum; (b) secondary school teacher training does not adequately trained teachers with the pedagogical skills needed to overcome isolated work in the classroom, it is dependent on the textbook and oriented, fundamentally, toward conceptual learning and mechanical activities; (c) educational investment in Spain does not provide sufficient resources to act regarding learning difficulties from the moment they are detected with the reinforcement and attention measures required by the diversity of students; (d) the organization of educational centers is based on a group of students per classroom that have one teacher in each teaching period who imparts a subject predominantly by means of the lecture class; (e) the different educational regulations governing assessment and the passing of the year have not managed to reverse the high rates of repetition in Spain in comparison with other European countries (Consejo Escolar del Estado, 2020).…”