Influence of peer group on high school student’s misconduct in Malaysia: Social influence psychology

Introduction

Over the years, the influence of peer groups have been a topic of discussion among academicians and practitioners. This is based on the view that what children and adolescents do might not be entirely their choice as such could be influenced by others. Thus, researchers have sort to understand this form of influence and how to handle them.

By definition, peer is an individual that can exercise domineering role or influence on others, and leave their mark on these people, such as a friend that can influence the decision of others (Kamus Dewan, 2013). The term ‘friend’ is used to reference a companion, acquaintance, or someone that is close to another person. On the same not, ‘peer’ is someone that shares the same age group with other, such as children, adolescents, or adults. Finally, the term ‘teens’ refer to young people that grew up with their peers in school via social development process, and have successfully created their own identity. These group of people seem to be affected seeking fun without the intention of risking the consequences of their actions; and their peers are the main contributors of misconduct among such teens. At such a young age, these students have less of a stoic instinct and nature of giving head to new thing within themselves and their environs. Generally, peers are considered to be the main factor that shapes students’ behavior and attitude (Willes & Strasburger, 1998).

In literatures, it has been noted that mingling with peers that have good qualities and attitudes does push a students to possess similar features and brighten the student’s future academic performance (Ryan, 2000; You, 2011). Thus, researchers are of the view that good peer group does have significant positive influence on the success of a student both in the school and outside the school. On a contrary, UNICEF (2011) noted that peers that have negative features will influence the attitudes and behavior of other people negatively. In fact, record have it that some students are negatively influenced by their peers in school to believe that school policies are not important; they would eventually start to create a certain group that gains high interest in exhibiting bad conducts and disobeying school policies (Asmak, 2006). This is based on the understanding that peers play pivotal role when it comes to shaping the behaviors and attitudes of other students (Willes & Strasburger, 1998). In the event that students engage in negative activities with their friends, it results to varied social vices including drug addiction (Asmak, 2006).

In accordance with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF, 2011), n most of the countries in the world, majority of the population are teenagers. The same report also has it that an estimate of one in every five adolescent in the world does have behavior related issues. On that note, behavioral issue in a global phenomenon that all counties face, and Malaysia is not an exception. Considering that peers are the closest individuals that students have after their guardians, it is understandable to see why they yield the strongest influence on their colleagues (Asmak, 2006), and this is even more complex because student always see their peer groups as a family, building bonds that sometimes become unbreakable (Warren et al., 2000). To students, peers are pivotal because they can always share their feelings with them (Chiam, 1994). However, if students associate with peers that engage in negative activities and lifestyle, they would eventually be pushed into engage in misconducts, which will definitely bring about negative outcomes on both the students and the society at large. UNICEF (2011) also highlighted some of the activities that result to negate influence on students to include alcohol consumption, drug abuse, smoking, and other risky behaviors.

Although numerous studies acknowledge that peer influence strongly shape the behavior and attitude of students, identifying these peer effects is a very difficult task. This is because parents and students normally choose schools and peer groups where they have similar features with other members. As such, measuring the characteristic of these peer groups might bring about other unnoticeable individual features that could impact on the outcomes, such as the student’s willingness to engage in necessary academic activities, and the resources and ambitions of the parents. Such an endogenous choice does bring about the issue of bias in selection. Other issue is that the outcome of an individual and that of the person’s peers are formed simultaneously – which does to imply that the performance of a student is influenced by that of the person’s classmates and vice versa. The outcome of this is a standard simultaneity bias issue, which Manski (1993) termed ‘reflective’ problem. Also, the inference of peer effects does seem to be particularly vulnerable to a general issue of misspecification – omitted variable bias, as a result of the fact that both the peers and individuals share a common environment.

In recent decades, efforts by researchers to understand the influence of peer groups have come from all parts of social science. However such studies have not been able to reach a consensus. As an example, an instrumental variable method was employed by Evans, Shwab, and Oats (1992), and their findings indicate that there is no significant influence of peer groups on the behavior of teenagers. On a similar note, another study was conducted by Hanushek et al. (2003) estimated the moderate effect of peer groups on the achievement of students in Texan schools. They covered across-school selection with the aid of fixed effect strategies, and employed legged measures of peer achievement to eliminate the issues of simultaneity with their study showing no significant influence of peer groups on the academic achievement of students. Sacerdote (2001) and Zimmerman (2003) performed two random studies with college roommate data and discovered that there is a significant relationship between the academic performance of roommates and the individual achievement of students.

Peer support is also seen as a factor that can influence the classroom engagement of students and their overall academic performance. For instance, a study by Steinberg et al. (1996) did show that peer support provided necessary encouragement for student to be more involved in their learning process and brought about higher academic performance. On a different note, it was found that peer support does not bring about enhanced student engagement (Furrer and Skinner, 2003). Additionally, it was discovered by Vigdor and Nechyba (2004), Kindermann (2007) and Betts and Zau (2004) that the academic performance of students were influenced positively by peer factors.

Thus, the findings have be varied with some findings significant relationship between peer groups and student’s outcome while others have found no significant influence between the two variables in question.

Rational of study

When it comes to the formation of an individual’s personality and self-esteem, peers represent a pivotal factor. This is because peers have their own inherent values. In the event that student associate with people that are studious and diligent, they will indirectly start to act in line with these characteristics (Ee, 2002). In contrast, if the peer group is one that doesn’t take education seriously and enjoy disobeying the school policies, their members will also be affected (Ryan, 2000; You, 2011).

In line with the Social Cognitive Theory, or Social Learning, as proposed by Bandura (1977, 1986), it was made known that one of the reasons behind an individual’s decision to learn a given attitude via observation is to ensure that they are effectively accepted and welcomed by the cycle that exhibits such attitude. As a result of this, majority of the peer behavior are considered to be a model learned through observation, with the intent of aligning one’s behavior with that of other people. Some studies have also pointed out that peer acceptance is a form of appreciation for the students, even though the accepted student doesn’t seem to consider the positive or negative influence of such.  As such, in the event that the student mingles with a group that plays against social rules, the likelihood of the student being involved in committing disciplinary misconduct will be increased significantly (Mok, 2012).

Based on this understanding, conducting a research that explores the relationship between peer group and their influence on student’s misconduct behavior is vital. This is because it will allow school managements to apply the right measures to combat these negative influence and provide a more comfortable school environment for all students.

Research objectives

In line with the above discussion, the objectives of this research is to:

·         Present a critical study of peer group and their influence on student’s outcomes

·         Analyze how peer groups influence school misconducts among high school students in Malaysia.

Research method

Research design

Considering that the topic in this research is based on social science, qualitative research will be used because it is the most appropriate for this form of research. The type of qualitative research that will be adopted is participant observation. This is one of the technique employed in an ethnographic research, and the researcher’s investigation are flexible with the details of the approach normally modified as the research goes into play. In accordance with Robson (1995) the reason to apply flexibility in this form of research is because if the research begins the investigation with definitive hypothesis, it might lead to misconception in the setting. Thus, it is necessary hat the researcher allow the participants to define the setting and views as such cannot be clearly known until the research has been initiated (Bogdan and Biklen, 1983; Walker, 1985; Gay, 1987).

In the case of this research, the participants are secondary school students in Malaysia. The prerequisite is that the participants must be a member of a given peer group or have close ties with a certain peer group in their school.

Qualitative method used

For this study, unstructured interview will be used. This is because the research aims to provide an air of flexibility in data being gathered and this is possible through unstructured interview because both the researcher and participants have greater level of freedom and flexibility although the researcher has control over the purpose of the research, content, questions, and wording (Kerlinger, 1970). Although this form of interview is more casual, it is also well-planned

Analytical method

For this research, thematic analysis will be used. It is a common type of data analysis in qualitative research and it entails a cluster of methods that is focused on highlighting patterned meaning across different dataset. Since this research is focused on peer groups, the epistemological basis will be social constructivism. In accordance with this, the human development is socially situated and when people interact with others (peer groups), they construct their knowledge. Finally, the analysis will be based on inductive research approach. It is a form of reasoning in which the premise are considered to have supply of necessary evidence for the research to come to a conclusion. That is to say, if there are similarities between the respondent’s views, then such could be adopted as the conclusion or discovery form he research.

Study sample

The sample for this study will be a total of 50 high school students. In order to participate, the student must first acknowledged to be a member of a given peer group or have direct link with certain peer group in their school. The participants will be recruited at their school premises during break-time.

Research timeline.

Time frame 2018
July 10 – 15
July  16 – 25
July  26 – August 20
August 21 - 25
August 26 – 30
	Chapter 1	Chapter 2	Chapter 3	Chapter 4	Chapter 5

Ethical considerations.

There are two ethical considerations in this case. The data gathering and data analysis. During data gathering, the researcher will ensure that the response are not influenced in anyway by forcing a response path for the respondent in as much as the respondent is still within the context of the research. For data analysis, data will be gathered through audio recorder, which will allow the researcher to transcribe the information as communicated by the respondents. The researcher will not in any way influence either the data gathering or data analysis to push for personal desires.

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