Investigating non-compliance behaviour in kindergarten classroom a study in public schools in Jomoro Municipality, Ghana

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to investigate pupil‘s non-compliant behaviour and management practices employed by Kindergarten teachers in public KGs in the Jomoro Municipality. The study looked at the forms, effects and the management practices of non-compliance behaviour. The target population of this study comprised public school Kindergarten teachers in the Jomoro Municipality. The study adopted explanatory sequential mixed method design. Data was gathered through a semistructured interview guide and questionnaire. The stratified random sampling technique was used to select 25 schools. Simple random sampling was used to select 100 respondents to respond to the questionnaire. Purposive sampling was used to sample 20 respondents for the qualitative phase. Questionnaire and semi-structured interview were used in data collection. Quantitative data was analysed using mean and standard deviation. Qualitative data was analysed thematically using Atlas.ti software. It emerged from the data that, the forms of non-compliance behaviour were related to off task behaviour and destruction of properties. Also, it emerged from the study that the factors that accounted for non-compliant behaviour were environmental and parental lifestyle. The effects of children‘s non-compliant behaviour were related to threat to effective teaching and learning and violent behaviour. The management practices employed were related to visual and verbal cues, reward and punishment. Among others, the study recommended that, the Jomoro Educational Directorate and the head teachers from the schools should organize programmes in collaboration with the early childhood unit on how to cope and improve on non-compliant behaviour to ease the burden of parents and teachers