What influences how students behave at school? Is it deference to the school rules, or our system of punishments and incentives? Or do social factors, like status-chasing, and a desire to fit in, have the greatest impact on students’ behaviour?

I completed an investigation to see what was really the case: I interviewed the Headteachers of RGS Guildford and Nanjing, with my findings described in this article.

What the Headmaster Thought (Written by Mike Royds):

‘Interviewing the Headmaster in RGS Guildford (Dr Cox) and the UK Principal of RGSG Nanjing (Mrs Grieves) bears out these findings and gives a surprising take on the pressures of social conformity. Both schools are successful and friendly, their positive values manifested in the students’ actions. Both school leaders described the need for regular and consistent messaging around values; there are many influences on young people’s lives, and, without reinforcement, values can quickly fade from a community.

To this end, social conformity can be helpful. The younger students hold their seniors in high regard, following their example consciously and unconsciously. Prefects and senior students who model the values of the school play a vital role in passing positive values on to younger students. 

Both Dr Cox and Mrs Grieves shared stories, unaware of the other’s, of a remarkably similar nature. A 5^th Form student on a train in Guildford noticed a younger student had left their sports kit behind; the 5^th Former picked up the bag and emailed the younger student to tell him it would be delivered to his Form the next day. In Nanjing, a student struggling with a large instrument case was approached by a senior student: “‘little brother’ – let me help you”. The term of endearment translates well and reflects the supportive ethos older students cultivate. It is not surprising, in such a supportive environment, that senior prefects and students are so effective as role models. Social pressure may be a stronger deterrent than formal deterrents, but it is also a stronger support of great culture in both schools.

What I Hypothesised:

‘While aspirational, intellectually orientated students tend to accept benevolent authority and respond to strong environmental cues, their behaviour will only be slightly more influenced by authority-based factors, as developmental and evolutionary pressures such as puberty-related status seeking and conformity are mitigatory.’

Findings:

1. Consequences

The most general ratings showed that the perception of embarrassment, judgement and loss of peer respect were more influential than disciplinary consequences. In response to the question: ‘How strongly do you think informal/formal consequences at school affect the behaviour of students in your year?’, the following results were observed:

The data show a clear gap: 63.9% of students felt strongly influenced by social‑vulnerability consequences, compared with 23.4% for formal, authority‑based consequences, highlighting a markedly different influence pattern.

An influence score was calculated for both formal and informal consequences, from 1-5 depending on how strongly students felt they would be influenced, 1 = not at all influenced, 2 = slightly influenced etc. The score was 3.70 for informal consequences and 2.88 for formal consequences. This difference was statistically significant in the paired student’s t-test I completed, with p-value < 0.001, indicating that the probability of observing a difference this large by chance was less than 0.1%. This finding, if taken in isolation, shows a considerable deviation from my hypothesis, implying that informal consequences are significantly more influential than their formal counterparts.

When questioned about specific scenarios, the responses contradict the general statement that informal consequences are more influential. In Question 5 students were asked to imagine that they are to be punished and rank the following consequences from 6 to 1 – 6 being the punishment they would be most upset to receive, and 1 being the least alarming punishment. 

In defined scenarios they consistently suggested the formal consequences were worse. The punishments on the y-axis form three subgroups. A teasing comment once is roughly on par with a red flag; a one-hour detention is closest to being excluded from a party; and consistent bullying over one term is most like a Saturday detention. In each subgroup, students indicate they would be more upset to receive the formal punishment.

In conclusion, whilst specific formal consequences still carry significant weight in affecting behaviour, students generally perceive informal consequences to be more influential.

• How students’ behaviour influences each other

Perceived status carries more weight than visible adherence to authority. This finding hinges on responses to Scenario 5, which invites students to select the calibre of student they believe their year-group is more influenced by.

Student A ‘follows school expectations and is respectful’, Student B ‘is more rebellious but entertaining’ The results are displayed below:

56 respondents of the total 213 usable responses said their year-group would either struggle to pick between the two or be most influenced by Student A, the rule-following value-aligned student. Nevertheless, the majority across each year-group estimated their year would alter their behaviour to be resemble Student B’s. It is notable that there was some inter-year-group variation: in 1^st Form (Year 7), just under 20% of students thought that their year-group regarded Student A as the most influential in the year; by 4^th Form, this number had decreased to about 2%. Despite variation, the overarching trend informs us that in the RGS Community, anti-institution peer behaviour carries the greatest perceived status.

To examine how peer norms and school values interact in shaping behaviour, I included Question 10, “What makes someone popular at the RGS?”. If students are more influenced by peer norms, yet those norms are themselves shaped by school values, then the distinction between “peer influence” and “institutional influence” overlaps. The question was open-ended, and answers were sorted into categories.

Consistently, the significant factors in determining popularity are sporting abilities and humour. Kindness/friendliness appeared in 40.7% of the 1^st Form responses, but by 4^th Form only 20.9% of the cohort considered kindness to be a quality making students ‘popular’.

The headline results indicate that students are influenced by Student B, the popular, sometimes rebellious student.  This is an indication of behaviour being influenced by social norms. However, we must consider that within the description of Student B as ‘popular’, the above graph informs us that, to the respondents, popularity often encompasses ‘kindness’, a quality heavily promoted by the school. So, while these results broadly demonstrate that student behaviour is more influenced by societal, peer-orientated norms, this is not an extreme indication, since it is partly mitigated by the crossover between social norms and institutional ones.

• How perceptions of peers influence the behaviour

This finding points to student behaviour being dictated more heavily by societal, peer-orientated norms. It is based on the correlation between students’ perceptions and their own actual predicted behaviour. Students first estimated how their year-group would respond to each scenario, then gave their own predicted reaction when imagining themselves directly in the situation. Following examination, this effect was present across most of the scenarios; however the clearest example is shown by the ‘teacher-effect’ from Scenarios 2 and 3 (see survey design). The graphs map this correlation:

Students act how they expect most of the year-group to act

Those who strongly disagreed that they would themselves intervene in the no teacher scenario, predicted (on average) 4.4% of their year-group would intervene. However, in the same scenario, those who strongly agreed that they would intervene, were more optimistic about their peers, with their predictions for the cohort averaging 61.8%. The identical effect was true for the scenario with a teacher nearby.

To confirm the correlation, statistical analysis included a Spearman’s Rank. The result was perceived peer intervention correlated with own willingness at p=.588, a moderately strong correlation. This is illuminating, as it indicates to us that students’ behaviours are being heavily influenced by the group expectation, and the perceived ‘peer norms’. This supports the theme that peer norms are more influential.

Overall Conclusion:

Student Behaviour in the RGS Community is more heavily shaped by Peer-Orientated Social Norms than Authority Based Expectations, to a limited extent. All three key findings, whilst often in some part mitigated, overall indicated peer orientated social norms to be most influential.