Current Situation and Coping Strategies for Teachers’ Disciplinary Education in Primary School Classroom Management: A Case Study of Tuanjie Primary School in Xincheng District, Hohhot ()
1. Introduction
Against the backdrop of the comprehensive educational reform advancing in depth during the new era, the standardized application of educational discipline in primary school classroom management has become a significant research topic in the field of basic education. Educational discipline serves not only as a crucial means to maintain classroom order and regulate student behavior, but also as a key link in cultivating students’ good character and self-discipline. However, with the continuous evolution of educational concepts, teachers face multiple challenges when implementing discipline, such as differences in understanding, insufficient awareness of relevant laws and regulations, and a narrow range of disciplinary methods. These issues not only undermine the effectiveness of educational discipline but may also negatively impact students’ mental health, such as causing anxiety. Therefore, an in-depth exploration of the current situation and coping strategies of educational discipline in primary school classroom management not only holds practical significance for improving educational quality and promoting students’ all-round development, but also theoretically deepens the systematic understanding of educational discipline, bridges the tension between instrumental rationality and educational value, and expands the research boundaries of regional educational governance. Taking Tuanjie Primary School in Xincheng District, Hohhot, as an example, this study reveals the status quo of teachers’ implementation of educational discipline, analyzes the root causes of problems, and proposes improvement strategies through field surveys and data analysis. It aims to provide localized empirical references for constructing an educational discipline system with Chinese characteristics.
2. Current Practices of Educational Discipline in Classroom Management
To enhance the validity and depth of the research findings, this study adopted a methodological triangulation strategy. The qualitative data obtained from in-depth interviews (e.g., teachers’ specific interpretations of disciplinary concepts, implementation challenges and reflections, evaluations of school policies) and the quantitative results from questionnaire surveys (e.g., proportions of different conceptual endorsements, statistical data on legal awareness levels, frequencies of commonly used disciplinary approaches) mutually verified, complemented, and interpreted each other. For details regarding the basic information of teachers in the survey and interviews, see Table 1.
2.1. Questionnaire Survey Method
This study utilized a questionnaire designed for the master’s thesis titled The Current Situation of Teachers’ Educational Discipline in Primary School Classroom Management and Coping Strategies: A Case Study of a Primary School in Dali City. The questionnaire was administered to 100 frontline teachers at Tuanjie Primary School in Xincheng District, Hohhot. The survey instrument was structured around core dimensions including teachers’ conceptual understanding of educational discipline, practical methods, existing challenges, and influencing factors, ensuring the collected sample data possessed typicality and universality.
2.2. Interview Method
This study selected 10 teachers from Tuanjie Primary School with different years of teaching experience and disciplines for semi-structured in-depth interviews. The interview data were processed through coding using thematic analysis. First, the transcribed interview texts were read sentence by sentence to conduct open coding and extract initial concepts. Second, related concepts were classified and integrated to form core themes such as “Cognitive Divergence on Discipline Ideologies”, “Barriers in Understanding Laws and Regulations”, “Logic of Discipline Approach Selection”, and “Perception of Influencing Factors”. Finally, through selective coding, the core problem thread running through the interview data was extracted to systematically present teachers’ in-depth understanding of educational discipline practices and their experiences of dilemmas.
Table 1. Basic information of teachers in the survey and interviews.
Characteristic Variable |
Category |
Survey Sample (N = 100) |
Interview Sample (N = 10) |
Gender |
Male |
26% |
3 |
Female |
74% |
7 |
Age |
20 - 30 years |
28% |
3 |
31 - 40 years |
46% |
4 |
41 - 50 years |
21% |
2 |
>50 years |
5% |
1 |
Years of Teaching Experience |
≤5 years (Novice) |
21% |
2 |
6 - 15 years
(Mid-career) |
65% |
6 |
>15 years (Experienced) |
13% |
2 |
Subject Taught |
Chinese/Math |
53% |
6 |
Other Subjects |
47% |
4 |
3. Identified Issues in Educational Discipline Implementation
Survey and interview data show that the problems and deficiencies in educational discipline practices by teachers of the surveyed schools in classroom management mainly involve the absence of educational punishment philosophy, weak legal and policy awareness, uneven approaches to educational discipline, and complex influencing factors of its implementation. The specific data are shown in Table 2:
Table 2. Core survey and interview data.
Category |
Core Dimension |
Proportion/Data |
Core Views |
Importance Recognition |
78% |
Purpose Clarity |
62% |
Misconceptions |
|
Equated with punishment |
22% |
Discipline/punishment confusion |
14% |
Order & Norms |
|
Maintaining classroom order |
68% |
Promoting behavioral normalization |
52% |
Problems & Risks |
|
Emotion-driven discipline |
20% |
Excessive discipline |
18% |
Lack of Standards |
68% |
Disciplinary Methods |
Commonly Used Methods |
74% |
Verbal warnings |
56% |
Assigned tasks |
48% |
Methodological Deficiencies |
19% |
Influencing Factors |
Individual Factors |
|
Educational philosophy |
45% |
Environmental Factors |
|
Student characteristics |
67% |
Systemic Factors |
|
School management systems |
58% |
3.1. Divergent Teacher Philosophies on Educational Discipline
3.1.1. Conceptual Ambiguity
Different teachers hold varying perspectives on educational discipline, primarily due to differing understandings of its conceptual definition and implementation methods. According to the survey data, 62% of teachers highly endorse the school’s current disciplinary mechanism, believing it effectively maintains classroom order while also promoting students’ value shaping through positive guidance. As one interviewed teacher noted: “Educational discipline should go beyond mere punitive actions; it must also help students clarify behavioral boundaries and establish a sense of rules”. However, 22% of teachers expressed reservations, focusing excessively on discipline’s restrictive function while overlooking its inherent educational value. This misconception directly contributes to noticeable differences in disciplinary practices among teachers, thereby affecting the implementation effectiveness of educational discipline in classroom management.
3.1.2. Purpose Misalignment
At the level of value cognition concerning educational discipline, significant divergence in perspectives exists among teachers. Some teachers misconstrue educational discipline as a mere instrument for behavioral control, overemphasizing its restrictive function while diluting its fundamental educational purpose. Conversely, other teachers position it as an educational approach aimed at guiding students to correct misconduct and facilitate individual development. They emphasize instilling a sense of behavioral responsibility and shaping students’ correct values and ethical standards through the disciplinary process. Survey data indicates that approximately 14% of teachers narrow educational discipline down to compulsory punitive measures in practice, focusing excessively on the immediate correction of student behavior while neglecting its inherent educational value. As expressed by a novice teacher during an interview: “Sometimes I get really furious about certain student behaviors. I feel only disciplinary measures can make them remember; otherwise, they won’t change.” This sentiment is particularly evident among newly qualified teachers, whose conception of discipline leans more towards short-term control measures, with insufficient consideration for students’ long-term healthy development. This cognitive bias directly manifests in educational practice, leading some teachers to adopt simplified and formulaic disciplinary approaches, thereby weakening the educational efficacy of discipline.
3.1.3. Inconsistent Method Selection
When addressing student misconduct, teachers exhibit significant individualized variation in their choice of educational discipline methods. The root cause of this phenomenon lies in the diversity of teachers’ educational philosophies, personal experiences, and value orientations. Survey data reveals that only 30% of teachers view educational discipline not merely as a means to alter behavior, but also as a pedagogical tool for cultivating responsibility and self-discipline. Many teachers perceive a lack of clear definitional standards for educational discipline, finding it difficult to reach consensus on how discipline should be implemented and appropriately moderated. Approximately 60% of teachers still confine the objectives of discipline solely to the correction of behavioral outcomes. Most teachers candidly admit that due to the absence of clear and explicit definitional standards, it is challenging to determine the appropriate severity and method of discipline in specific implementation scenarios. As one experienced teacher stated: “The purpose of learning is to help students establish norms; it cannot be merely about venting emotions.” In practice, the lack of unified implementation guidelines and operational protocols often leads teachers to select disciplinary methods based primarily on personal experience and subjective judgment. This arbitrariness not only diminishes the educational effectiveness of discipline but may also raise ethical concerns.
3.2. Insufficient Legal and Policy Awareness
3.2.1. Limited Legal Knowledge
Currently, there exists a significant gap in teachers’ awareness and understanding of relevant policies, laws, and regulations concerning educational discipline. Although China has continuously emphasized, standardized, and guided educational discipline in recent years, enacting various laws, regulations, and policy documents such as the Law on the Protection of Minors’ Rights and the Ministry of Education’s School Management Regulations, many teachers in actual classroom settings cannot clearly articulate the precise provisions or applicable scope of these regulations. Survey data indicates that 40% of teachers admit that sometimes their disciplinary actions towards students are driven not by the need to uphold rules or regulate behavior, but by their own emotional factors. Particularly when dealing with disruptive or defiant students, teachers often struggle to suppress their anger, making them prone to adopting harsh disciplinary actions. Only 10% of teachers can correctly identify the specific chapters or articles pertaining to educational discipline within these regulations, while the majority can only recall their conceptual definitions without having engaged in deep learning or practical application. This dual deficiency in legal knowledge and rule-of-law literacy leads to the use of non-standard disciplinary methods. Such practices not only risk causing potential harm to students’ physical and mental well-being but also easily trigger parent-school conflicts and legal disputes, posing significant risks to school management. Addressing this issue through enhanced legal training and improved institutional norms represents an urgent need.
3.2.2. Practical Application Barriers
Due to teachers’ weak legal awareness or their insufficient understanding and implementation of provisions protecting students’ rights, educational discipline may be improperly administered. Alternatively, inappropriate disciplinary methods may be employed without considering students’ age characteristics or actual developmental circumstances. These situations can inadvertently infringe upon students’ legitimate rights and interests, making them prone to legal disputes (Liu, 2016). Questionnaire data reveals a deeper dilemma: Over 45% of teachers with 10 or more years of experience selected the response “understand but don’t know how to effectively use it” when asked about “grasping and effectively applying educational discipline”. This indicates that even among teachers who possess some familiarity with relevant regulations, significant difficulties persist in practical application. Teachers implementing discipline often operate within complex and diverse educational environments, facing varied students and behaviors. They must skillfully discern the legal boundaries and determine how to help students achieve alignment with the educational goals of discipline. This requires substantial accumulated practical experience and refined professional skills (Wang, 2024).
3.3. Deficiencies in Disciplinary Methods
3.3.1. Underutilization of Non-Punitive Approaches
In the survey on “commonly used educational discipline methods”, approximately 70% of teachers reported employing approaches such as verbal warnings, assigning extra homework, or imposing standing penalties. Among these, verbal warnings were the most frequently used method, with around half of the teachers indicating they would first choose this method to warn students about the consequences when behavioral issues arise. Approximately 48% of teachers stated they would utilize measures like cleaning desks and chairs or assigning additional academic tasks as disciplinary actions for students presenting greater management challenges. While these methods reflect teachers’ cautious selection of disciplinary tools to some extent, some approaches still suffer from blurred boundaries—such as unclear time standards for standing penalties or questions regarding the appropriateness of post-class labor—highlighting an urgent need for more scientifically grounded and standardized institutional frameworks. Such frameworks would guide teachers in achieving a balance between maintaining educational order and safeguarding student rights.
This reveals a significant gap in teachers’ understanding of non-punitive disciplinary education methods. Some teachers demonstrate a stronger inclination towards direct punitive measures, suggesting they believe only swift punishment can make students clearly aware of their wrongdoing while also serving a deterrent function (Liu & Zhang, 2020). In contrast, non-threatening disciplinary approaches—such as heart-to-heart talks, psychological counseling, and emotional guidance, which align more closely with students’ psychological development patterns, are often overlooked by teachers.
3.3.2. Psychological Impacts of Inappropriate Discipline
In the practice of educational discipline, some teachers often overlook the potential harm that prolonged disciplinary measures, particularly extreme forms such as corporal punishment, can inflict on students’ mental health. Such actions may induce or exacerbate students’ mental health issues. Survey findings indicate that children subjected to prolonged physical abuse or harsh punitive actions typically exhibit problems such as an inferiority complex, anxiety, and depression. Furthermore, these negative emotional states often persist into their future learning experiences and daily habits. Crucially, during the implementation of such punishments, children’s self-confidence and emotional well-being are frequently disregarded, leading to heightened internal stress (Lai, 2006). This approach, prioritizing behavioral correction over psychological well-being, not only deviates from the fundamental purpose of education but may also cause irreversible harm to students’ personality development. It demands urgent attention from educators.
3.4. Influencing Factors on Disciplinary Practices
The study of survey data reveals that teachers’ behavioral logic in implementing educational discipline is influenced by three dimensions: endogenous traits, exogenous environmental factors, and institutional norms. These elements synergistically shape the professional standards and educational efficacy of disciplinary practices:
First, Endogenous Traits: These encompass intrinsic characteristics such as teachers’ educational philosophy, life experiences, and emotional regulation skills, which significantly influence their disciplinary actions. Survey data indicates that approximately 25% of teachers believe their educational philosophy determines their choice of disciplinary methods and their effectiveness during instruction. For instance, teachers holding an inclusive and empathy-focused educational philosophy tend to utilize non-punitive approaches more frequently.
Second, Exogenous Environmental Factors: These include the influence of individual student characteristics and classroom dynamics on the determination of disciplinary methods. Around 60% of teachers mentioned that student age, temperament, and emotional state affect their decisions on disciplinary approaches. Specifically, younger students are more receptive to verbal warnings and demonstrate quicker introspective behavioral responses, while older students may require stricter measures for effectiveness.
Third, Institutional Norms: These refer to school management systems, regulations, and policies. Fifty-eight percent of teachers reported that school regulations, the oversight mechanisms for teacher disciplinary actions, and the level of parental cooperation significantly impact the implementation of educational discipline.
Therefore, standardized and effective educational discipline practices must comprehensively consider these three dimensions to achieve a balance between educational objectives and the protection of students’ rights.
4. Improvement Strategies
4.1. Unifying Teacher Philosophies and Knowledge
4.1.1. Establish Consensus and Standards
The effectiveness of classroom management in primary schools is closely linked to the scientific soundness of teachers’ concepts regarding educational discipline. To enhance the standardization and professionalism of teachers’ disciplinary practices, systematic measures can be implemented in three key areas:
First, strengthen the construction of professional training systems. By regularly conducting specialized training sessions and academic seminars, teachers can deepen their understanding of educational discipline. Simultaneously, offer standardized courses to systematically teach the principles of discipline, practical techniques, and relevant laws and regulations, while bridging gaps in disciplinary approaches caused by differences in individual educational philosophies and experiences.
Second, encourage mutual exchange and sharing of successful practices or failures in classroom management among teachers through methods like group discussions and case sharing (Liu, 2020). This helps foster consensus within the group and facilitates the formulation of reasonable disciplinary rules tailored to students’ individual differences.
Third, establish unified standards for educational discipline. This provides teachers with clear guidelines to follow when addressing student issues, thereby better promoting students’ behavioral correction and mindset reform (Fang & Yang, 2009).
4.1.2. Enhance Professional Development
The proficiency of teachers in guiding educational discipline is not only constrained by the advancement of their educational philosophies, but also closely related to the accumulation of their professional competence and the depth of their continuous learning. Therefore, to systematically enhance teachers’ ability to implement discipline, schools need to establish regular learning mechanisms. These mechanisms should organize teachers to deeply study core knowledge systems such as educational principles, developmental psychology, and educational laws and regulations, thereby solidifying the professional foundation of disciplinary practice at the theoretical level.
Educational discipline is both a classroom management technique and a professional competency for educators. When encountering student misconduct, teachers are required to exhibit sensitive responsiveness and employ mental health counseling approaches. This means teachers must not only possess teaching skills but also continuously update their knowledge of classroom management and their management methodologies.
Within the school’s continuing education system, diversified pathways for capability enhancement can be provided to teachers through online learning platforms or the development of specialized development courses. By conducting regular training sessions focused on discipline, schools can ensure teachers stay abreast of cutting-edge educational discipline concepts and methods. This effectively mitigates issues such as rigid or inappropriate disciplinary measures stemming from outdated knowledge.
4.2. Strengthening Legal Awareness and Policy Support
4.2.1. Legal Training
With the advancement of educational governance modernization, the legal and policy framework regulating educational discipline has become increasingly refined. To ensure the legality and rationality of disciplinary actions, schools must establish regular legal training mechanisms. These mechanisms should guide teachers to deeply understand the legal boundary requirements and implementation guidelines for disciplinary behavior. Only by exercising disciplinary authority within the scope defined by school regulations can arbitrary punishment be prevented, thereby safeguarding students’ legitimate rights and interests.
This not only helps enhance teachers’ legal awareness but also strengthens their educational capacity to operate schools and administer education according to law. Furthermore, teachers need to systematically master legal policies related to student psychological development and educational ethics. This ensures disciplinary measures not only comply with legal norms but also foster students’ holistic development from a long-term perspective.
4.2.2. Policy Implementation Guides
To prevent educational discipline from becoming excessive or improper, schools must establish detailed and clear implementation guidelines grounded in educational practice. These guidelines should cover core elements such as fundamental principles, execution procedures, operational details, and response mechanisms for special scenarios. This provides teachers with clear rule-based guidance and a standardized procedural framework for implementing discipline.
By constructing refined implementation guidelines, schools can help teachers accurately understand the value and operational essentials of educational discipline. Simultaneously, this effectively eliminates arbitrariness and uncertainty in disciplinary practice, thereby safeguarding the fairness, justice, and educational effectiveness of the teaching process at an institutional level.
This standardization is not only a necessary safeguard for the legitimacy of educational discipline but also a crucial pathway for transforming disciplinary measures from a “management tool” into an “educational instrument.” It ensures that disciplinary actions consistently serve students’ holistic development and healthy growth.
4.3. Optimizing Methods for Educational and Psychological
Balance
4.3.1. Promote Non-Punitive Alternatives
Traditional educational punishment methods often rely on punitive measures, such as physical reprimands, standing penalties, etc. Although such approaches may effectively correct students’ misbehavior in the short term, they neglect students’ emotional needs and psychological development. Consequently, students may develop negative emotions or harbor resentment toward teachers.
To address this, we should actively adopt alternative disciplinary measures, such as one-on-one communication, reward systems, and reflective behavior correction exercises. These assist students in self-awareness and behavioral improvement.
This non-punitive, positive guidance model not only effectively improves student behavior but also enhances trust and communication between students and teachers. This fosters a positive classroom atmosphere.
4.3.2. Prioritize Mental Well-Being
When implementing educational discipline, teachers must simultaneously focus on students’ psychological well-being, avoiding mental harm caused by erroneous educational approaches. Particularly for primary school students, whose minds are in a sensitive stage of emotional development and who are often struggling to build self-worth, their hearts and feelings are relatively fragile. Therefore, teachers must be especially attentive to observing children’s inner feelings and reactions when applying disciplinary measures. They should strive to avoid using overly harsh or demeaning methods, opting instead for approaches rooted in communication, understanding, and care to guide children toward change, rather than resorting to simple, crude punishment.
During the disciplinary process, teachers should use conversations as opportunities to delve into the underlying psychological motivations behind a student’s behavior, guiding them to engage in deep reflection at both behavioral and emotional levels. Psychological counseling and emotional education should be integrated throughout the entire disciplinary process.
Schools need to establish regular mechanisms, such as themed class meetings and psychological counseling services, to tailor disciplinary plans according to students’ psychological differences and the specific nature of their issues. This approach promotes behavioral correction while safeguarding their mental health development, supporting students in achieving growth and transformation within a positive mindset.
4.4. Deepening Home-School Collaboration
4.4.1. Build Communication Platforms
The refinement of the home-school cooperation mechanism has a direct impact on student growth and serves as an essential supporting measure for school education. Schools need to establish efficient home-school communication systems. By creating diverse information exchange platforms, they can ensure in-depth dialogue between teachers and parents regarding students’ academic development and mental health status.
Specifically, leveraging channels such as regular parent-teacher conferences and digital home-school communication platforms, schools can systematically convey educational philosophies and practical case studies. Simultaneously, they can provide dynamic updates on students’ in-school performance and behavioral improvement trajectories, helping parents accurately understand the school’s educational goals.
On this foundation, smooth home-school information channels enable teachers to gain deeper insights into the educational approaches of different families. They also allow parents to develop a clearer understanding of the school’s teaching methodologies and management systems. By effectively bridging gaps in home-school education through reasonable and collaborative efforts, both parties can foster a coherent and consistent educational ecosystem for student development.
4.4.2. Cultivate Parental Engagement
Parents, as the core educational agents during students’ growth stages, exert a profound influence on student development through their level of educational involvement. To enhance educational effectiveness, parental engagement must be strengthened through diversified pathways. Schools can systematically elevate parents’ conceptual understanding and operational capabilities regarding educational discipline by regularly organizing parent-teacher meetings, thematic workshops, and parent-child practical activities. This helps parents clarify their responsibilities and roles within corrective discipline education, enabling them to proactively participate in guiding students’ behavioral norms.
Home-school collaboration not only ensures consistency in educational concepts and methods across both home and school environments but also integrates resources from both sides to form a powerful synergistic educational force.
Parents’ deep involvement in disciplinary practices helps students internalize external behavioral norms into self-regulatory principles, fostering a deeper understanding of the educational essence of discipline. This co-educational model between home and school not only effectively promotes student behavior improvement but also constructs a solid safeguard for students’ mental health development through emotional support and rational guidance, thereby maximizing the educational value of discipline.
5. Conclusion
This study takes Tuanjie Primary School in Xincheng District, Hohhot as a sample to systematically analyze the practical status of educational discipline in primary school classroom management, revealing core issues such as differences in teachers’ discipline concepts, insufficient awareness of laws and regulations, and simplification of disciplinary approaches, as well as a three-dimensional influence mechanism composed of endogenous traits, exogenous environment, and institutional norms. The study shows that the standardized implementation of educational discipline requires coordinated promotion from four dimensions: constructing conceptual consensus, enhancing legal literacy, optimizing disciplinary approaches, and promoting home-school collaborative education. Specifically, it is necessary to bridge teachers’ cognitive biases through standardized training systems and discipline norms; consolidate the legal foundation of disciplinary behaviors by relying on legal education and institutional construction; reconstruct the disciplinary system with non-punitive measures as the core, balancing behavior correction and psychological care; and ensure the consistency of discipline concepts in home and school settings through the combined efforts of home and school education. This research not only provides an operable strategic framework for primary school educational discipline practices but also offers empirical references for constructing a disciplinary system featuring “legal protection, humanistic care, and scientific standardization” at the basic education stage. It is of great theoretical and practical significance for promoting the value transformation of educational discipline from a “management tool” to an “educational carrier”.
This study has three limitations: the sample is only from a single school, so the research conclusions need to be carefully validated when generalized to regions with different economic development levels and cultural backgrounds; the data mainly rely on teachers’ self-reports (questionnaires and interviews), which may have social desirability bias, such as the tendency to underreport emotion-driven discipline and excessive disciplinary actions; and the lack of student psychological assessments and parental feedback makes it difficult to comprehensively evaluate the educational effects of disciplinary measures. Future research can focus on the following directions: first, conduct cross-regional comparative studies (such as urban-rural areas and primary schools in eastern, central, and western regions) to explore the impact of regional cultural and policy implementation differences on disciplinary practices; second, construct a “teacher-student-parent” tripartite evaluation system and use mixed research methods to track the long-term educational effects of disciplinary measures; third, design intervention experiments on school-based discipline guidelines to empirically test the effectiveness of standardized training in enhancing teachers’ professional capabilities.