What does “positive school behaviour” mean? Dimensions (not) shared by students and teachers.

Like other European countries, recent Italian school legislation has turned the attention of the education community to the importance of student behaviour in school, and asks for a precise and detailed evaluation of this behaviour. In this light, schools have begun to look for appropriate evaluative tools. During the preliminary phases of creating a behaviour evaluation rubric in a high school, research was carried out with the aim of exploring and identifying the meanings given by teachers and students to the idea of "positive school behaviour", and whether these concepts are shared. Using a mixed method design, researchers have individuated some dimensions of the construct of "positive school behaviour" in teachers and students. Analyses highlight that, in this context, the idea is a construct comprising dimensions which are not always shared by students and teachers. In this light, there is an emerging need for schools to activate processes of sharing, as a preliminary moment in the behaviour assessment process, and to work towards a "sustainable evaluation"