Help-Seeking Behaviours of Brunei Lower Secondary School Students: Engagements with the Self, Parents, Peers and Teachers

The survey looked at how 171 randomly selected Brunei lower secondary school students (140 females) were engaged academically with the self, peers, parents and teachers in the context of the ongoing inclusive education and SPN21 curriculum reforms. Data were collected using the Research Assessment Package for Schools – Students in Middle schools version, RAPS-SM (Institute for Research and Reform in Education [IRRE], 1998). In general, both genders and students in the two participating schools expressed satisfaction with their engagements with the selected stakeholders and scored in the expected positive direction on most items and sections of the instrument. However, there were a few exceptions. Females and students in the girls’ school scored significantly higher on the emotional security with the self-variable while participants in the mixed-gender school outperformed those in the other type of school on the teacher emotional security section of the instrument. In addition, females and students in the girls’ school scored much higher than other peers on the parent autonomy support variables. Furthermore, males scored higher on the teacher involvement and teacher autonomy support items. Moreover, students in the co-education school scored higher on some items of the teacher involvement, teacher autonomy support and teacher structure variables. Overall, these findings call for appropriate educational and counselling interventions to be provided. Mixed-methods research involving a bigger number of schools was recommended to provide more insights.