Communicative Learning Difficulties of Primary School Student’s

The article describes the main learning difficulties primary school students face in communication. To identify these difficulties we useda digital adaptation of the School Anxiety Test (Phillips Test). Primary school students from 5 subjects of the Russian Federation were recruited for this study (The Republic of Tatarstan, Lipetsk Region, Volgograd Region, Chuvash Republic, Samara Region). 2031 4th grade students aged 9-11 years participated in the research. The data obtained revealed a significant percentage of primary school students with increased and high levels of anxiety and fears associated with school, which can be predictors of educational difficulties and school failure. Experimental testing of the developed diagnostic program proved that: 1) our initial theoretical assumptions about the forms of manifestations of learning difficulties of primary school students in the communicative area were reasonable; 2) the diagnostic method of some specific manifestations of learning difficulties is valid.

Introduction

The phenomenon of learning difficulties belongs to the category of educational phenomena that is a major focus of interest of specialists dealing with this sphere. Original psychological and pedagogical research studies dedicated to the problems of schoolchildren’s learning difficulties state that 15 to 40% of students somehow experience difficulties in learning [1, 5]. One of the reasons for these difficulties might be in the deviation from the normal course of communicative activities employed in the educational process. As a rule, these said deviations lead to adverse implications of a socio-psychological and personal nature. The students may reveal difficulties in the communicative sphere in their interaction with peers as well as with teachers and parents. A contributor to the decline in the motivation for learning and demonstrating academic progress is that parents or teachers might be reluctant to recognize the student’s right to express his own opinion and prove his point of view. There is a wealth of examples for when parents or teachers at a based on their life experience and knowledge, conclude that they are to know, and their child or student is to simply listen and follow directions without objection. However, this constitutes the restriction of the independence of thought. It is important to realize that the educational process is an interaction in which students have the opportunity to ask questions, express their assumptions, and reason for their views [13, 14].

The research conducted proves that a significant percentage of primary school teachers experience trouble with identifying and understanding the causes of students’ difficulties, including those of the communicative sphere [3, 7, 16]. Such an insufficient level of troubleshooting awareness of teachers is due to the fact that theoretically grounded methods for identifying the causes of educational difficulties based on psychological and pedagogical diagnostic data is not available in the practice of organizing the educational process in primary general education.

The purpose of the study is to identify, document and analyze the main difficulties in the communicative sphere among primary school students and to justify the choice of diagnostic method.

The stated purpose required the delineation of the main difficulties of primary school children revealed in the communicative sphere. Diagnostic procedures were analyzed and selected to identify the main communicative difficulties in primary school students. The diagnostic program regarding communicative difficulties in primary school children obtained an experimental validation.

Methods

Sample description.

2031 4th grade students took part in an experimental validation of the diagnostic program regarding communication difficulties in younger schoolchildren. The study involved primary school children from 5 constituent entities of the Russian Federation, namely, from the Republic of Tatarstan, Lipetsk region, Volgograd region, the Chuvash Republic, and Samara region. The sample consisted of primary school students aged 9–10 years, of which boys comprised 51.0% (1036), and girls composed 49.0% (995). The distribution of study participants by the constituents of the Russian Federation is presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Distribution of Study Participants by Constituents of the Russian Federation

Methods and procedures

The accomplishment of the stated study purpose involved methods like the analysis of domestic and foreign scientific literature on the problem of communicative learning difficulties in primary school children, the analysis of existing psychodiagnostic tools, a psychological and pedagogical diagnosis of difficulties in primary school children that manifest themselves in the communicative sphere.

Based on the analysis of existing psychodiagnostic tools [10, 12], the “School Anxiety Test (Phillips test)” was selected to be included into the diagnostic portfolio to identify the main learning difficulties in primary school students in the communicative sphere. Pursuant to the study, the selected method was exposed to a digital adaptation. Study participants were offered consistent survey questions in an electronic format with 15 minutes, which were distributed by the 8 factors of school anxiety according to Phillips [12].

The analysis of the results of the Phillips School Anxiety Test allowed for the identification of the reasons for the student-adult and student-peer communication impairment with a substantial description of those reasons.

Description of Communicative Difficulties in Teaching Primary Schoolchildren

In an attempt to figure out the difficulties in teaching primary school children, the authors took “cultural development” as the fundamental concept of learning [2]. This concept presumes that active cultural capability (skill, competence) is only possible when the student assimilates the sign structures that are the ultimate expression (landmarks) of the cultural way to behave. The cultural method is mastered through participatory action. Communication with adults or peers constitutes the ontological basis of a child’s development. In this case, evolving educational practice takes the form of the integrity and interconnection of activity, cognitive, communicative and interactive processes [4, 8]. This view of the educational process envisages the learning difficulties to be manifested in communicative, general educational and universal activities, or socially adaptive areas of the students’ life. The basic communicative difficulties in teaching primary schoolchildren are depicted below.

Typical learning difficulties in the communicative sphere might reflect the result of the student’s impaired communication 1) with teachers, 2) with peers, 3) with parents. Deficiency in the development of means of speech and means of information and communication technologies leads to difficulties in solving not only communicative, but also cognitive tasks [2].

The relationship with teachers identifies the following main communication difficulties.

1. The inability to follow the code of behavior in lessons and during breaks. Students failure to follow the rules of conduct or so-called disciplinary violations put the teacher under the necessity of disciplinary measures. Such disciplinary actions by the teacher, firstly, distract other students from completing educational tasks, and prevent the establishment of cooperation between the teacher and the student. Difficulties in learning can manifest themselves in the disruption of the teacher’s contacts in educational activities.
2. The student fears negative assessment from the teacher and feels helpless. A younger schoolchild, especially at the initial stages of his school life, strives for a positive assessment of his educational results, expressed in high, typically excellent grades. This tendency may not be overcome by the practice of abolishing grades in the first grade of primary school. Expressing the fear of getting a low grade leads to helplessness when completing a new academic topic, concerns of being unable to cope with the educational task and, as a result, being exposed to difficulties in mastering the educational material.
3. The inability to properly communicate with the teacher in educational activities. The inability to build a communication procedure during the course of the learning process can be caused by the student’s underdeveloped speech skills. The student’s poor command of the language of instruction impedes him from addressing the teacher. This includes a misunderstanding of the essence of a learning task as well. The student is unable to recognize the causes of learning problems and ask for help. In this regard, the younger student is unable to involve the teacher in cooperation in finding ways to be active in learning , or  make a specific request for missing information. The student’s inability to be reflective in assessing a learning problem or constructing an at of speech in accordance with the task at hand precludes the student from verbally addressing the teacher.
4. The difficulties of inclusion into shared (frontal and group) educational activities organized by the teacher. Difficulties of inclusion in shared activities are manifested in the lack of initiative in establishing and maintaining good cooperation based on educational interests, and in accepting educational cooperation. The inability to consider any other standpoint, to agree on points of view, to show respect for the interlocutor, to follow the rules of dialogue and discussion lead to difficulties in learning.
5. The individual psychological characteristics of the student. Difficulties in communication with the teacher are also vested in the individual characteristics of the student: timidity, shyness, speech defects (for instance, stuttering) and others.

In relationships with peers, the following main communication difficulties may be detected.

1. The inability to argue with one’s point of view, or to defend one’s position. Peer-to-peer communication suggests the presence of a partnership and equality of positions. Peers tend to preserve these conditions. Attempts to impose one’s point of view, one’s opinion in communication and interaction with peers destroys educational cooperation and leads to difficulties in mastering educational material.
2. The communication difficulties associated with the specific cultural norms and rules in the family where the child lives. Complicated communication with peers, which causes learning difficulties, may be associated with the student’s foreign culture. The difference in cultures is clearly manifested in verbal communication, in its lexical content and social pragmatics of speech. The inability to perceive and formulate judgments and express emotions in accordance with the goals and conditions of communication adopted in another culture leads to mutual misunderstanding and learning difficulties.
3. The failure to maintain a productive dialogue, of getting on the same page and to successfully interact with peers. Students-peers recognize each other as partners in educational activities and leisure forms of activity. The ability to conduct a productive dialogue and express one’s attitude towards a presented point of view are integral attributes of the educational activities of primary school children. Immature communication skills lead to difficulties when accepting or setting an educational task, or with planning ways to solve it.
4. The lack of skills to collaborate with peers in educational, research, project and other types of activities. Communication skills are of particular importance when carrying out educational, research and project activities. These types of educational activities are usually employed in group work. A lack of communication and interaction skills in these types of activities hampers an effective completion of the research tasks and project assignments.
5. The difficulties in building communications with peers in educational and extracurricular activities, determined by individual psychological characteristics. Difficulties in communication with peers, leading to learning difficulties, lie in the individual psychological characteristics of the student. Peers avoid communication and educational cooperation with classmates that are distinct in character traits and manifest themselves as arrogant, boastful, aggressive, unassertive, etc.

In relationships with parents, the following main communication difficulties are identified.

1. The child’s puerility in relations with parents. The student’s parents participate as much as possible in his studies and life, by helping out with homework, explaining something, searching for material, organizing events at school and monitoring classroom life on a day-to-day basis. Such parent attitude slows down the development of independent educational goal setting and responsibility for its results.

2. Loose contact with parents, a fear of negative assesment or punishment for bad grades. Parents express a formal attitude towards how their child does at school. The main attention is paid to the grades that the child receives, and while positive grades are rewarded, bad grades are frowned upon and punished. A shortage of parental support in the form of gentle encouragement and participation in the child’s school life reduces the internal motivation of learning and deprives educational activities of personal meaning.

All of these difficulties manifest themselves in the communicative sphere and, most often, they are paid attention to by teachers or concerned parents. A psychologist builds up interaction with the child and his family during the course of discussing problematic situations. However, most often described symptoms reflect a poor organization of the educational process and a lack of productive communication between all of its participants. It has been established that the context for the development of proactive behavior in the cognitive sphere is a group of equals or peers, jointly solving a problem [9]. Therefore, when organizing the educational process based on the principles of developmental education, the main task of the teacher is to organize the class in a form of learning community that capable of cooperation in carrying out the tasks that are beyond the capabilities of each individual participant in the common work. In the context of educational cooperation, emotional support is provided for the student who expresses his thoughts about something unknown. The social and functional connections and relationships of all participants in educational work are supposed to share the motivation to get involved in the educational process instead of dropping out of it [6, 9]. The cooperation with adults and peers is a proven area of activity where cultural ways of acting are mastered with the most success [11, 15]. Collaboration in a group of equals is a source of development of a reflective and decentering way both in the intellectual, emotional and personal spheres [9].

Developmental education can also be considered as the diagnosis object, while the subject of diagnosis of individual development in education is the educational process as the unity and integrity of the processes of communication, cognition, and interaction in joint educational activities. The unit of diagnostics of development is the child-adult alliance in the educational context.

In this regard, the basic tool for overcoming the onset of communicative difficulties in learning among younger schoolchildren is the improvement of the didactic and methodological competence of the teacher.

Results

Descriptive statistics. The evaluation of the sample comprising 2031 students of 4th grade, demonstrates that the majority of children experience not only general school anxiety, but also specific anxiety symptoms that indicate certain problems. Additional data presented in Table 2 detail the results for all scales.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for the Phillips School Anxiety Test (N = 2031)

As shown in Table 2, distributions on the scales 1. General anxiety at school, 2. Experience of social stress, 3. Frustration of the need to achieve success, 6. Fear of not meeting the expectations of others and, in particular, 7. Low physiological resistance to stress of the School Test Phillips' anxiety scores have a pronounced right-sided asymmetry (the sign of A is negative, the module A is a multiple of the standard error of the asymmetry), which means that higher indicators are predominant in the sample. All distributions differ from normal (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, p = 0.000, p < 0.001). The distribution of respondents according to the levels of severity of these indicators of school-related anxiety in children of primary school age makes one think (see tables below).

Tables 3–10 present the distributions of indicators by severity levels for all 8 subscales of the Phillips test.

Table 3. Distribution of Primary School Children by Levels of General Anxiety at School According to the Phillips test (N = 2031)

Table 4. Distribution of Primary School Children by Levels of Severity of Experiencing Social Stress According to the Phillips test (N = 2031)

Table 5.Distribution of Primary School children by Levels of Frustration of the Need to Achieve Success According to the Phillips test (N = 2031)

Table 6. Distribution of Primary School Children by the Degree of Fear of Self-Expression According to the Phillips test (N = 2031)

Table 7. Distribution of Primary School Children by Levels of Fear of Knowledge Testing Situations According to the Phillips test (N = 2031)

Table 8. Distribution of Primary School Children by Levels of Fear of Not Meeting the Expectations of Others According to the Phillips test (N = 2031)

Table 9. Distribution of Primary School Children by Levels of Low Physiological Resistance to Stress According to the Phillips test (N = 2031)

Table 10. Distribution of Primary School Children by Levels of Severity of Problems and Fears in Relationships with Teachers According to the Phillips test (N = 2031)

Data analysis presented in Tables 3 through 10, allows for several observations. Firstly, it turned out that 18.2% of primary school children experience a high or increased level of frustration when it comes to achieving success. This means that these children almost constantly express frustration or dissatisfaction with their academic performance. Moreover, 23.6% of children are exposed to social stress. This may be due to difficulties in communication with peers or situations where the child feels insecure. It was also found that 24.7% of children have a low physiological resistance to stress. 38.6% of children face overall school anxiety. This may be due to the feeling of constant tension or anxiety that they experience staying at school.

More than 40% of children (41.1%) experience fear of failure to meet the expectations of others. This concern might be related to not living up to the high expectations of their parents or teachers. More than half of the students (52.1%) experience problems and fears in relationships with teachers. This may be due to insufficient support from teachers, conflicts or misunderstandings, which can negatively affect the learning process. In addition, 55.0% of children experience a fear of self-expression. This may be associated with a lack of confidence in their abilities or a fear of being judged or rejected by others if they express their opinions or disclose their individuality. And finally, almost 60% of children (59.9%) experience a fear of getting their knowledge tested. A possible reason for that is a fear to fail or to receive a low grade, which can create additional pressure and anxiety during the learning process.

The findings above suggest that many younger students experience various types of stress and anxiety in the school environment.

The research conducted, aimed at diagnosing communicative learning difficulties in 4th grade primary school students, allows for a conclusion on the feasibility of the assumptions regarding the forms of manifestation of learning difficulties in the communicative sphere of primary school students. The method for diagnosing the specific manifestations of difficulties in the communicative sphere is valid. The study revealed five action levels of primary school children in an experimental situation, including a high level corresponding to the age reference, slightly below the norm, a low level and a very low level of communicative development. Henceforth, the diagnostic results facilitate the classification of students to a certain level of communicative development based on completed tasks. The students with below-norm levels of communicative development, or a low level and very low level of it, should be placed into a special focus. These results indicate the presence of difficulties in the communicative sphere which require differentiated psychological assistance and individual pedagogical work.

It's also worth noting that a large percentage of schoolchildren from this sample possess increased or high levels of anxiety and fears associated with school, a fact that can’t help but raise certain concerns. This is precisely the area of school life which often is out of the teacher’s attention, but which is of a significant importance, acting as factor and predictor of the emergence of educational difficulties and performance failure.

The description of students' difficulties, which manifest themselves in the communicative sphere united with the diagnostic method, enables the identification of existing developmental deficits in students' communicative competencies, as well as the development of a program for the formation of metadisciplinary educational results (in terms of the formation of communicative competencies) and improvement of the educational process.

Conclusion

Difficulties in the communication sphere may occur at the very initial stage of schooling. Advanced communication between students, teachers and peers significantly conditions personal development, cognitive activity and educational output.

Difficulties in the communicative sphere in communicating with peers can manifest themselves in the inability to argue their point of view, achieve mutual understanding and successfully interact with peers; to build a productive interaction when carrying out educational, research and project activities; to be on the same wavelength with peers in educational and extracurricular activities. All possible impediments in this case are determined by individual psychological characteristics, as well as generally by the inability to defend one’s position and conduct a constructive dialogue.

Difficulties in communication with teachers often take the form of the inability to follow the rules of conduct in class and during breaks, a failure to build communications with the teacher in educational activities, to participate in joint (frontal and group) educational activities organized by the teacher, or in the student’s fear of a negative assessment by the teacher, in a feeling of helplessness.

In relations with parents, the following main communication difficulties are interrelated with the child’s immaturity in relations with parents and a lack of good interaction with parents, as well as a fear of negative assessment and punishment for bad grades.

Difficulties in learning are attributed, first of all, to the learning process itself. Developmental education is built on the basis of a productive student-teacher communication as well as student-student interaction in joint educational activities. This way, everything that happens in the learning process is the product of joint actions. Once the teacher timely identifies the emerging problems in the communicative sphere among students, the overall pedagogical interaction might be organized in an effective way.

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