Student perspectives on leaving school

Best things about leaving school

As a broad framing question, we asked students what they thought would be the best things about leaving school. We provided a series of statements from which students could choose a level of agreement, covering relevant themes for young adults approaching the point of transition from school—changes in maturity and social status, new choices and decision making opportunities, new responsibilities, increased financial means and imperatives, different learning situations, and changing relationships and routines. Although the focus of this report is on careers and the transition from school, keeping this question broad allowed us to situate young people’s careers and transition perspectives in relation to the broader context of early adulthood.

Student responses show an overall positive and open outlook on leaving school. More than 50 percent of students agreed or strongly agreed with 14 of the 18 statements. In other words, few items were not seen as being “best things” about leaving school. More than three-quarters of the students agreed or strongly agreed with many of the statements focused around making decisions and having a greater range of choices (or having the means to follow up different choices):

• earning money (85 percent);
• more freedom to choose what to do with my time (83 percent);
• being treated as an adult or being an adult (82 percent);
• making my own decisions about life (81 percent); and
• meeting different kinds of people than I met at school (80 percent).
  

Most students also agreed or strongly agreed with statements about learning and career or work:

• studying what I want (83 percent);
• establishing a career (77 percent);
• learning things that seem relevant and “real life” (76 percent);
• learning in a way that suits how I like to learn (69 percent); and
• putting what I learnt at school into practice in the real world (68 percent).
  

While earning money was the “best thing”, drawing the most overall agreement from students (85 percent) and the most strong agreement (36 percent), the main means for earning money, getting a job, drew less overall agreement (62 percent) and far less strong agreement (15 percent). This suggests that while students are thinking positively about having choices and making decisions, they may be slightly less positive about the responsibilities that come with these (e.g., actually getting a job and performing in that role).

There is also a difference in levels of overall agreement for “establishing a career” (77 percent) and “getting a job” (62 percent). It is possible that the former may be aligned with choices and decisions and the latter aligned with responsibilities and new pressures or developing new skills and relationships which seem more challenging. The only three statements to get less than 50 percent of students’ agreement were to do with re-orienting relationships and living situations: making new friends or getting away from my old friends or enemies (38 percent agreement); getting away from my family (just 19 percent agreement and 50 percent disagreement); and getting away from my home town (just 16 percent agreement and 50 percent disagreement). Around of third of students were unsure about these three statements (29–32 percent).

The following figure shows the statements about what is best about leaving school in order of the frequency with which students strongly agreed or agreed with them.

Figure 1: What is best about leaving school?

There were some statistically significant relationships between some of the measures used throughout the Competent Children, Competent Learners project and the statements most closely related to a transition away from something (e.g., “not having to do school work”, “getting away from my family”, “not having teachers hassling me”) or involving a new responsibility (e.g., “establishing new routines”, and “getting a job”). These are discussed in the following subsections.

It is interesting that we found no statistically significant relationships between some other measures and the best things about leaving school. For example, students with low levels of motivation at 14 were just as likely as students with high levels of motivation at 14 to agree with statements about ongoing learning, such as “studying what I want” and “learning things that seem relevant and ‘real life’”.

Breaking out of school

Other than students whose mothers had no qualifications (63 percent), the overwhelming majority of students (92 percent tertiary/senior secondary, 90 percent university, and 84 percent trade/middle secondary) agreed/strongly agreed that studying what they want is a best thing about leaving school.

Students not doing well in areas closely aligned with behaviours and competencies favoured by school were more likely to agree that not having teachers hassling them and not having to do school work would be best things about leaving school. The following table shows the variables associated with agreement with “not having teachers hassling me”. Students scoring in the lowest quartiles or categories for these variables agreed or strongly agreed more than students scoring in the highest quartiles or categories. Notably, there were no associations here for gender, ethnicity, and school decile.

Table 3: Agreement with “not having teachers hassling me”

	Lowest quartile or category	Highest quartile or category
	% who agreed or strongly agreed
Risky behaviour (reversed)*	85	40
Focused and responsible	80	40
Total no. of Level 1 NCEA credits	80	30
Social skills	77	47
Social difficulties (reversed)*	74	53
Cognitive composite competency	73	47
Mother’s qualifications	60 (none)	44 (university)
Family income at 16	55 (< $40K)	45 (> $100K)

* As mentioned in the Table 2 overview of measures used, the scales of risky behaviour and social difficulties are reported in reverse: low ratings on these two scales are shown in our tables as more risky behaviour or more social difficulties.

 

A distinction also showed up for subject cluster. Compared to academic students (37 percent arts and 61 percent science), more non academic students (71 percent contextual and 78 percent vocational) agreed/strongly agreed that a best thing about leaving school would be not having teachers hassling them.

These students in non academic courses were also more likely to agree that “not having to do school work” was a best thing about leaving school. The following table shows the other associations with students’ agreement with “not having to do school work”. Students scoring in the lowest quartile for several variables were more likely than those scoring in the highest quartile to agree or strongly agree. This pattern suggests that students scoring in the lowest quartile for these variables are not as likely to have been behaving in the ways that school values (or that teachers don’t hassle you about). Students in the lowest quartiles may be showing a desire to get away, not just from school work and teacher hassles, but from school itself.

Table 4: Agreement with “not having to do school work”

	Lowest quartile or category	Highest quartile or category
	% who agreed or strongly agreed
Social skills	67	43
Risky behaviour (reversed)	67	43
Total no. of Level 1 NCEA credits	65	20
Cognitive competency	59	39

Other than academic arts students (35 percent), more than half of the other students (65 percent contextual, 58 percent science, and 54 percent vocational) agreed/strongly agreed that not having to do school work would be the best thing about leaving school. However, this does not necessarily mean that academic arts students enjoyed their school work more, as 51 percent of them gave a neutral response to the statement. It may also be that students in different clusters had different reasons for thinking not having to do school work was a best thing about leaving school. For example, students taking contextual and vocational subjects tend to be less well catered for than students taking academic subjects (Hipkins, 2005) so these students may not have enjoyed many of their school subjects. In On the Edge of Adulthood, we found that students in the vocational and contextual clusters had lower average scores on many variables, whether it was their own reports of school engagement, teacher reports of their attitudes and approaches, or, to a lesser extent, their reports of their relationships with family, and parent views of their attitudes (Wylie et al., in press). Students taking science subjects may appear to be better catered for by virtue of taking academic subjects at school but may actually be looking forward to tertiary-level study or study in a tertiary context where they are even better catered for—there is evidence that some students take certain science subjects “under sufferance” because they are prerequisites for tertiary courses (Hipkins, Roberts, Bolstad, & Ferral, 2006), which would explain their tendency to align with non academic students in agreeing with “not having to do school work”.

Students who were less likely to want to get away from school-related stresses were also the most likely to disagree that “getting away from family” and “getting away from home town” were the best things about leaving school.

Breaking away from home

Students in the lowest quartile for risky behaviour (35 percent) were more likely to agree/strongly agree that getting away from their families would be one of the best things about leaving, in contrast with students in the highest quartile (15 percent). However, in the following table there are associations with enjoyment of reading and cognitive competency for disagreement with “getting away from family”.

Table  5: Disagreement over “getting away from family”

	Lowest quartile or category	Highest quartile or category
	% who disagreed or strongly disagreed
Total no. of Level 1 NCEA credits	33	85
Cognitive competency	37	59
Enjoyment of reading	28	53

When it came to disagreement with “getting away from my home town”, students in the highest quartile for enjoyment of reading (55 percent) were more likely than students in the lowest quartile (16 percent) to disagree that this was a best thing about leaving school.

For secondary school students, getting a job is possibly one of the options most different from being a school student. There is not necessarily any formal study or training involved, it confers the status of “employee” rather than “student”, and offers a level of (financial) independence. The pattern of motivation at 14 and social difficulties variables associated with getting away from school-related stresses and home or family as “best things” also appear in terms of students who see “getting a job” as a “best thing”, although the differences between groups are not as marked here.

Table 6: Agreement with “getting a job”

	Lowest quartile or category	Highest quartile or category
	% who agreed or strongly agreed
Motivation at 14	70	60
Social difficulties (reversed)	70	54

Hardest and easiest things about leaving school

We asked students what they thought would be the hardest and easiest things about leaving school, again providing them with a range of different statements from which they could choose a degree of hardness or easiness. Like the question about “best things” in leaving school, this question covered a wide range of aspects about leaving school. However, it differed from the “best things” question in that it aimed to get a sense of the degree of challenge students associated with each aspect of leaving school. We wanted to gain some insight into students’ perspectives as young people who were “responsibilised” through a secondary school system that requires them to make complex decisions about subject choice, school (and workplace learning) programmes, and career plans, linking them to an increasing range of individualised school–tertiary–work options and pathways (Vaughan, 2003), and even “producing”, rather than simply gaining, their school-based qualifications (Hipkins, 2005). So we wanted to know whether and how hard students thought some of these decisions and possible options would be.

The frequency data show that leaving school is generally seen in challenging terms. For example, of the 17 items provided, students rated nearly twice as many items hard (11 items) as they rated easy (six items). The items rated hardest by more than half of the students tended to be focused on career or pathway decisions (“establishing a career”, 65 percent; “working out what I want to do”, 53 percent), and on management of new routines and options around time, money, and tertiary study (“having less time to spend on leisure activities or with friends”, 65 percent; “managing my money or earning enough money”, 59 percent; and “learning how to do assignments or learn study skills at tertiary level”, 61 percent).

Several statements drew a high proportion of neutral responses from students, suggesting that they did not have enough knowledge about some issues or areas to know how hard or easy this change might be. Around half of the students were neutral on “still living with my family and would rather not” (47 percent), “feeling bored or not challenged enough” (55 percent), and “size of the institution I will go to” (44 percent).

There were a number of interesting distinctions in students’ perceptions about what is harder or easier. Students saw “finding a job” as easier than “establishing a career”. Media publicity about high employment rates, skills shortages, and employer readiness to recruit, train, and retain workers may have contributed to a perception that actually finding a job is not necessarily difficult (and students rated “learning a new job” as harder than finding it). However, since 41 percent of students were neutral on “finding a job”, it may be that they simply do not have yet enough labour market information or experience to know how hard or easy this might be.

Students are also possibly distinguishing between a job as utilitarian (for example, a way to earn money) and career(s) in terms of broader questions of work and lifestyle choices and personal identity. Career has become more of a long-term process involving a series of decisions and activities over time—a process rather than a structure (Wijers & Meijers, 1996). Students may well have a sense of this, particularly where it involves further studies before (and also even after) finding a job. Thus the nature of the modern career has been shifting and theorised as “boundaryless” (Arthur, Inkson, & Pringle, 1999) and “produced” rather than simply entered or found (Vaughan & Roberts, 2007). This means that for today’s students, the life task of finding a job (and keeping it) becomes less important than finding jobs repeatedly throughout life (Wijers & Meijers, 1996).

It may also be finding jobs throughout life now depends more on figuring out what you want, rather than following a set path. Students rate “working out what I want to do” as harder than “finding a job” but easier than “establishing a career”. Making things work in the larger sense of establishing a career is yet another challenging step beyond choosing something or making a decision about what you want. This is particularly so given that what you want is likely to involve a series of decisions and different activities and to change over time.

Students’ responses also indicate a distinction between “learning how to do assignments or learn new study skills at tertiary level” (61 percent hard or very hard) and “getting used to new teachers/tutors/lecturers” (29 percent hard or very hard). Students may be acknowledging that tertiary-level study requires different skills than that of school-level study but that the new relationships involved (student–lecturer/tutor/teacher) either do not require very different skills from their school experience or expectations of student–teacher relationships or not seen as a major component of tertiary study success.

The following figure shows student perceptions of hardness or easiest for each item, ordered from very hardest and then hardest, down to easiest and very easiest.

Figure 2: What is hardest or easiest about leaving school?

 

Moving from secondary study to tertiary study

There were statistically significant associations between two tertiary study items and four of the Competent Children, Competent Learners measures: cognitive composite competency, enjoyment of reading, focused and responsible, and mother’s qualifications.

Students in the highest quartile for cognitive composite competency (65 percent) were more likely to think assignments and study skills would be harder than students in the lowest quartile (48 percent). This may be because the highest quartile students in these categories are more likely to undertake tertiary study at university or have more information about the challenges of undertaking tertiary study. Students who scored in the highest category for enjoyment of reading (61 percent) were also more likely than those in the lowest category (50 percent) to think that “learning to do assignments/learn study skills at tertiary level” would be hard. Those who scored in the highest category (60 percent) tended to think “working out what I want to do” was harder than students who scored in the lowest category (32 percent).

Some students were also more likely to “miss the routine of school”. Almost a third (31 percent) of students in the highest quartile for focused and responsible thought that missing the routine of school would be hard/very hard, compared with just 15 percent of students in the lowest quartile. Students with mothers with no qualifications (27 percent) and students with mothers with university qualifications (31 percent) were both more likely than students with mothers with trades/middle secondary qualifications or tertiary/senior secondary qualifications to see missing the routine of school as hard/very hard. However, they are likely to do so for different reasons. Students with mothers with no qualifications are less likely to go on to tertiary study and enter professional or technical (and associated professional) occupations, suggesting their options are fewer (see Section 3). So this small group may be more likely to miss the routine of school because it offers a known option and schedule of activities that may contrast with the potential for less secure options. Students with mothers with university qualifications may be more likely to miss the routine of school because they are more likely to also be associated with behaviours that schools value (and they may therefore enjoy school more).

Gender differences

There were few gender differences. Overall, female students tended to be more anxious about leaving school than male students. Female students seemed particularly concerned with maintaining old relationships, or establishing new ones, compared with male students. They were also more concerned with the practical issues of managing or earning money and with tertiary study skills. The following table shows the differences between males and females in relation to different things that students found hard and very hard.

Table 7: Gender differences for hard and very hard things about leaving school

	Male	Female
	% who agreed or strongly agreed
Having less time to spend on leisure activities or with friends	61	72
Learning how to do assignments or learn study skills at tertiary level	52	72
Manage money/earn enough money	48	72
Missing old friends from school and still seeing them	35	50
Living away from family	32	41
Size of institution expected to attend	18	31

The pattern in the previous table continued with male students tending to show more confidence than female students in a number of areas. Male students were more likely to embrace aspects of launching into post-school life—moving away from school routines, establishing new teacher/lecturer/tutor relationships, making their own decisions about life, and finding a job.

Table 8: Gender differences for easy and very easy things about leaving school

	Male	Female
	% who agreed or strongly agreed
Miss or forego the routine of school	56	34
Get used to new teachers/lecturers/tutors	47	27
Making own decisions about life	41	25
Find a job	39	21

 

Best things and hardest things

When similar items from the “best things” and “hardest/easiest things” questions are viewed alongside each other, an interesting “good news/bad news” story emerges. The things that students considered best about leaving school also tend to be the things they considered hardest about leaving school. The following figure illustrates this story through a number of item pairings. These pairings show that for most of the responding students, family and home town are regarded positively and most “disagree” or “strongly disagree” that leaving them would be “best” and think that leaving them would be “hard” or “very hard”. However, students regard a number of items related to career, options for their time and leisure, and managing money as the best things, but also the hardest things, about leaving school.

Figure 3: Comparing the hardest/easiest things about leaving school with the best things about leaving school

That the tasks or issues seen as most challenging are also seen as providing the best rewards and satisfactions points to anxiety about the life tasks ahead. Researchers have measured complex relationships between dimensions of security and exploration in young people’s transition narratives (Vaughan, Roberts, & Gardiner, 2006) and mapped responses to ever more insecure employment options (Mills, 2004). Young people’s anxiety has been theorised as a generational issue related to rapidly increasing options and choices (Mackay, 1997), increased pressure leading to commitment delay (du Bois-Reymond, 1998) and “just-in-time and just-in-case” commitment balancing acts (Vaughan, 2005).

These kinds of insights have also been theorised in terms of an increasing emphasis on individual responsibility and choice in modern societies that masks the way that social structures continue to constrain or enable choices for individuals or groups (Furlong & Cartmel, 1997; te Riele, 2005). In other words, when modern societies pose issues and possibilities in terms of individual choice and responsibility, there is a double-edged sword which confers greater freedoms upon the individual to move beyond some boundaries and limits, as well as an onus on the individual to make things work well in their life through their own individual efforts and (use of) resources—and the fact that some of these boundaries and limits remain and operate at a societal level (e.g., there are patterns of inequality), may remain hidden behind the rhetoric of individual choice and responsibility. Some of these patterns appear through the social variables used in this report.

In New Zealand, modern educational structures constrain or enable choices through the establishment of a “pathways framework” which presents educators and most young people at the secondary school level—including our 16-year-old participants—with a wide range of possibilities for school subjects, qualifications, secondary–tertiary course alignment, and post-school study and career options (Vaughan, 2004). While there are many more options and choices, secondary students are not necessarily well equipped to make the decisions required by these new possibilities, raising questions about school-based provision of career information as well as career development skills for students (Vaughan & Gardiner, 2007). Some New Zealand research has highlighted a particular anxiety around career decision making and the comprehension and applicability of career information and guidance for students and young people (Higgins & Nairn, 2006; Vaughan, 2005; Vaughan et al., 2006). This anxiety is exemplified in students’ perceptions about the attraction to, and challenges of, establishing a career as well as other life tasks which now carry a greater range of possibilities and choices (for example, more choice about one’s own time but concerns over how to manage it, and more chance to earn money but an awareness that it must be managed and that adulthood also carries more financial responsibilities). It seems likely that students in our sample are reflecting an awareness of, and level of anxiety about, these issues through their responses which emphasise the “good news” (new opportunities) and the “bad news” (new responsibilities or loss of the familiar) of modern youth transition.