School failure: some causes and determining factors

There are some facts whose role in the appearance of academic problems goes unnoticed.

In the last decade there has been a notable increase in the prevalence a notable increase in the prevalence of school dropout rates in the Spanish in the Spanish population, rising from 14% in 2011 to 20% in 2015, to the point where this country reaches the highest rate with respect to the rest of the members of the European Union (Eurostat, 2016).

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

School failure, understood as the difficulty in assimilating and internalizing the academic contents established by the educational system according to the age and development of the child, can be motivated by multiple causes of different nature. It cannot be considered, therefore, that the responsibility should fall exclusively on the student, but rather that both the educational community and the family environment have a very relevant influence.

Among the factors that can precipitate the onset of school failure in the student, the following can be distinguished:

• Aspects related to the level of psychophysical 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, referring for example to the presence of more clinical entities such as Attention Deficit Disorder and its different modalities (with the presence of hyperactivity, combined, impulsivity, etc.).

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

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

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

On the other hand, as previously mentioned, there are a series of circumstances that refer to the deficient functioning, in some cases In addition, as mentioned above, there are a number of circumstances that refer to the deficient functioning of the educational system, in some casesThese circumstances considerably aggravate the consequences derived from the existence of the factors listed above. Methodological issues, teaching attitudes, non-individualized and obsolete teaching styles cause that the teaching staff may not be sufficiently prepared to attend to these students with the indicated characteristics, which in themselves are more complex.

Other factors that increase school failure

The following are three of the problems that usually go unnoticed, since they differ from the usual literacy because they differ from the usual difficulties related to reading and writing.

Like this one, the following problems can be the cause of school failure if they are not detected and properly intervened.

Acalculia and numerical reasoning problems

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

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, it refers to a specific type of alteration of calculation skills and is not related to aptitudinal deviations of other basic cognitive processes such as memory or attention. Secondary acalculia, on the other hand, has a broader and more general character and is linked to alterations of these basic cognitive processes.

From the initial approaches arose the classifications of Henri Hécaenwho distinguished between algebraic acalculia (comprehension of mathematical characters) and agraphic (written expression of arithmetical characters), spatial (arrangement and location of numbers, signs and other mathematical elements in space) and arithmetical (correct application of arithmetical operations).

Some particularities of calculus problems

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

In relation to the first type of difficulty, we can distinguish between two components, which can result in two types of impairments: the elements involved in the production of Arabic numerals and those involved in the production of verbal numerals. The latter component in turn consists of two procedures: lexical processing (phonological, related to the verbal sound of numerical characters, and graphological, set of written signs and symbols) and syntactic processing (relationships between elements to give a global meaning to the numerical expression).

In reference to the alterations in the calculation It should be noted that it is necessary to have an adequate numerical processing capacity, since the ability to understand and correctly produce the numerical elements that confirm a given mathematical operation, as well as the relationships between the different arithmetic characters and their functioning, is known to be necessary.

The Psychopedagogical Disorder occurs when the student is not able to assume the psychopedagogical objectives proposed for that particular academic year. This fact derives in that an accumulation of unachieved psycho-pedagogical learning which accumulates in subsequent courses if it is not detected and acted upon at the moment when the first confirmatory indicators are observed.

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

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

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

• Differential characteristics of the student him/herself with respect to his/her peers (presence of behavioral disturbance, poor competence in a given area, etc.).

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

Intellectual giftedness

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

Awareness of the environment

It is very important awareness and assimilation on the part of the educational community that this type of 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 overcome, the following must take place an adaptation of the general education system to create educational institutions (schools, institutes, universities, etc.) to cater for this type of student body. Equally important is the fact of providing these institutions with the material, economic, personal and professional resources that allow the institution itself to offer its educational service appropriately.

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 should be more "advanced". As has been conveyed throughout the syllabus, each student has his or her own particularities and it should 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 manner.

Therefore, the objectives to be pursued in such curricular adaptations should be the objectives that should be pursued in these curricular adaptations should be aimed at should be aimed at:

• Encourage divergent and creative thinking of students, in order to allow them to develop their full potential;
• 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.
• Incentivize and motivate the development of potential through rewards and positive reinforcement such as competitions, exhibitions or debates where the gifted student gets the satisfaction of their work and effort.

By way of conclusion

After what has been exposed in the text, it seems relevant to consider all the following factors that are leading to such high school dropout rates.. 

Far from blaming exclusively the presence or absence of willingness to learn in the student, 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.

Bibliographical references:

• Escudero, J. M, González, M. T., and Martínez, B. (2009). School failure as educational exclusion: understanding, policies and practices. Revista Iberoamericana de Educación, 50, 41-64.

• Marchesi, A. (2003). El fracaso escolar en España. Madrid: Fundación Alternativas. Working Paper 11/2003.