School failure: some causes and determining factors

In the last decade it has been observed a notable increase in the prevalence of school dropouts of the Spanish population, going from 14% in 2011 to 20% in 2015, to the point where this country reaches the highest rate compared to the rest of the members of the European Union (Eurostat, 2016).

The most commonly detected difficulties refer to alterations in reading and writing or dyslexia (with an average rate of 10%) or relative to Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (with a proportion ranging between 2 and 5% of the students).

However, there are other problems that, without being as frequent as those indicated, can cause the existence of a disorder of the learning significant enough to eventually lead to failure schoolchildren.

• You may be interested: "Bullying: precipitating factors in bullying"

School failure and its causes

School failure, understood as the difficulty to assimilate and internalize academic content established by the educational system depending on the age and development of the child, it can be motivated by multiple causes of different kinds. Therefore, it cannot be considered that the responsibility should fall exclusively on the student, but that both the educational community and the family environment have a very relevant influence.

Among the factors that can precipitate the appearance of school failure in the student the following are distinguished:

• Aspects related to the level of psychic-physical maturation of the student, such as psychomotor or cognitive abilities (attention, memory, perception, etc.).

• Specific developmental disorders, linked to the existence of significant difficulties in basic skills such as reading (dyslexia), writing (dysgraphia), or mathematical reasoning (dyscalculia).

• Learning disorders, referred for example to the presence of entities more of a clinical nature such as Attention Deficit Disorder and its different modalities (with the presence of hyperactivity, combined, impulsivity, etc.).

• Pedagogical disorders, due to a difference in adjustment between the school objectives set for the student and their adaptation to them.

• Strictly psychological disorders, such as the presence of fears, strong fears, phobias, emotional and behavioral inhibition and / or excessive shyness.

• Other problems related to basic memory, attention, verbal or numerical skills that affect inevitably to the student's performance or other problems derived from the overload of activities or contents to learn.

On the other hand, as mentioned above, there are a series of circumstances that refer to the poor functioning, in some cases, of the education system, which considerably aggravate the consequences derived from the existence of the factors listed above. Methodological issues, teaching attitudes, non-individualized and obsolete teaching styles cause the teaching figure to may not be sufficiently prepared to serve these students with the indicated characteristics, in itself more complex.

Other factors that increase school failure

Below are exposed three of the problems that usually go unnoticed since they differ from the usual difficulties related to literacy.

In the same way as this, those that are exposed next can be cause of scholastic failure of the student if they are not detected and they are intervened properly.

Acalculia and Number Reasoning Problems

Acalculia is circumscribed within the so-called Specific Learning Disorders and is defined, as proposed by Salomon Eberhard Henschen (who first coined the term in 1919) by a type of alteration of the calculation that can be derived from a brain injury or also due to the presence of difficulties in the course of learning academics.

According to this author, acalculia does not coexist with aphasic symptoms or linguistic dysfunction in general. Later, his disciple, Berger, made the distinction between primary and secondary acalculia. In the first case, reference is made to a specific type of alteration of the aptitude of calculation and not related to aptitude deviations of other basic cognitive processes such as memory or attention. On the contrary, secondary acalculia has a broader and more general character and is linked to alterations in these basic cognitive processes.

Henri Hécaen's classifications emerged from the initial approaches, who distinguished between acalculia allexica (understanding of mathematical characters) and agráfica (written expression of arithmetic characters), spatial (arrangement and location of numbers, signs and other mathematical elements in space) and arithmetic (correct application of the operations arithmetic).

Some peculiarities of calculation problems

McCloskey and Camarazza have described a differentiation between the nature of the alteration in the processing or numerical reasoning (understanding and production of numerical characters) regarding of those more related to the calculation process (procedures to carry out operations arithmetic).

In relation to the first type of difficulty, it is possible to distinguish between two components, which can lead to two types of alterations: the elements involved in the production of Arabic numbers and those involved in the production of numbers verbal This last component consists in turn of two procedures: lexical processing (phonological, related to the verbal sound of numerical characters, and graphological, set of written signs and symbols) and syntactic (relationships between elements to give a global meaning of the numerical expression).

In reference to alterations in the calculation It should be noted that adequate operation must be available at the level of prior numerical processing, since the ability to understand and produce correctly the numerical elements that confirm a certain mathematical operation, as well as the relationships between the different arithmetic characters and their functioning.

Even so, with an adequate capacity for numerical processing, it may be difficult to execute a correct order in the sequence of steps to follow to carry out this type of procedure or in the memorization of the usual arithmetic combinations (such as the tables of multiply).

• You may be interested: "Dyscalculia: the difficulty in learning mathematics"

Psychopedagogical Disorder Due to Inattention

Psychopedagogical Disorder takes place when the student is not capable of assuming the psychopedagogical objectives proposed for that particular academic year. This fact results in an accumulation of unattained psycho-pedagogical learning that accumulate in later courses if it is not detected and acted upon when the first confirmatory indicators are observed.

The subjects that are most frequently affected are elementary: language and mathematics. Usually the origin of this type of complications derives from:

• The application of teaching methodologies not adapted to the particular characteristics of student learning, either due to excess (under-endowed students) or by default (gifted students).

• Educational parenting styles that do not emphasize the relevance of learning acquisition.

• Differential characteristics of the student himself with respect to his peers (presence of behavioral alteration, little competence in a certain area, etc.).

This type of alteration differs from ADHD since the latter must meet criteria in the three affected areas: attention, impulsivity and / or hyperactivity.

Intellectual giftedness

Refering to intellectual giftedness, there are several factors to consider in the prevention of school failure in students with very high intellectual capacities:

Environmental awareness

It's very important awareness and assimilation by the educational community that this type of group has particular characteristics and, therefore, special educational needs.

Institutional changes to create inclusive educational centers

Once the previous point has been passed, it must be given an adaptation of the general education system to create educational institutions (schools, institutes, universities, etc.) that allow serving this type of student body. Equally important is the fact of endowing these institutions with the material, economic, personal and professional staff that allow the institution itself to offer its educational service properly.

The myth of chronological age

Another important issue is that the traditionally accepted idea that an academic year must correspond to a certain chronological age must be banished. It seems to be assimilated to a greater extent in the case of “repeating” students, but not so much in those who must be more “advanced”. As it has been transmitted throughout the entire agenda, each student presents some peculiarities and it must be the educational system that adapts to the characteristics of the student and not the opposite. Thus, the consideration of implementing curricular adaptations for this group should be applied without reluctance and in a generalized way.

Thus, the objectives to be pursued in said curricular adaptations should be aimed at:

• Encourage divergent and creative thinking of students, in order to allow them to develop all the potential that is possible;
• Promote scientific reasoning and logical development.
• Offer free access to more complex educational media, especially in more specialized academic areas such as music, science or art.
• Encourage and motivate the development of potential through rewards and positive reinforcement such as contests, exhibitions or debates where the gifted student obtains satisfaction from her work and effort.

In conclusion

After what is stated in the text, it seems relevant to consider all the factors that are leading to such high dropout rates.

Far from blaming exclusively the presence or absence of the student's will to learn, there are many other aspects related to the type of teaching provided, the pedagogical methodology applied, the habits and values ​​transmitted by the family in relation to learning that must also be taken into account to achieve an improvement in the objective of reducing the current percentage of school failure.

Bibliographic references:

• Escudero, J. M, González, M. T., and Martínez, B. (2009). School failure as educational exclusion: understanding, policies and practices. Ibero-American Journal of Education, 50, 41-64.

• Marchesi, A. (2003). School failure in Spain. Madrid: Alternativas Foundation. Working Document 11/2003.