La difficulté scolaire, du fait de ses conséquences psychologiques et sociales, est l’enjeu principal de notre système éducatif. Les différentes recherches qui étudient les difficultés scolaires ont lieu généralement à l’école et ciblent des facteurs éducatifs ou institutionnels. L’objectif principal de cet article est de comprendre le lien potentiel entre les performances académiques des enfants et leur vie quotidienne hors de l’école. À partir d’un échantillon de 131 enfants en classe de sixième issus de collèges en ZEP ou non ZEP, deux sous-groupes d’élèves ont été sélectionnés : l’un en difficulté scolaire et l’autre en réussite. Grâce à la méthode d’échantillonnage des expériences, les enfants ont enregistré, en temps réel, les différentes activités qu’ils ont pratiquées, leur environnement physique et social. Les résultats montrent que plusieurs activités, environnements et routines de la vie quotidienne étaient différents chez les enfants en difficulté par rapport à ceux en réussite. Ces résultats sont discutés pour repérer et comprendre les domaines de la vie quotidienne les plus associés à la performance scolaire afin d’être en mesure de proposer une intervention efficace.

In light of its high prevalence and important consequences for future opportunities, academic failure is a major preoccupation of the French educational system. Difficulties at school are associated with later social and professional exclusion and may have an important psychological impact on students, notably concerning self-esteem. However, while the majority of research concerning academic difficulties has been conducted at school or within educational contexts, there is a growing literature demonstrating its association with extracurricular activities. The study of daily life activities poses several problems for the researcher in that students may not accurately recall specific behaviors or correctly report their frequency when assessed retrospectively over long time delays. In order to understand the daily life experiences of students outside of school, this investigation therefore used the Experience Sampling Method in order to collect information at several times throughout the day concerning the environments, activities and routines of students.

All students and their parents provided written informed consent to participate. Students were selected from ten junior high schools in Southwest France, including five traditional schools and five ‘education priority’ schools based on low academic performance in the school district. Within each type of school, 65 students were selected for being in academic difficulty (defined as having scores below 50% on national evaluations of both French and Math) and 66 were selected for being in academic success (defined as having scores above 80% in these same subjects). Following recruitment into these groups, students were trained in how to complete electronic interviews for a 1-week period using a personal digital assistant (PDA). This device was then programmed to provide three signals a day after school between 6pm and 9pm, and five signals a day on the weekend between 10am and 9pm. At each signal, the PDA administered an electronic interview asking the students to describe at that given moment their geographic location, social environment, and specific activities. At the end of the 1-week period, the PDAs were returned and data were analyzed using multilevel modeling using a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons.

Students in the academic difficulty and success group did not differ by sex, maternal language, country of birth, or by type of school. However, students in the academic success group more often had fathers with higher career or professional status. Concerning daily life experiences, students in academic difficulty were more likely to be spending time in academic or commercial locations, more likely to be with domestic animals or with persons other than family and friends. These students were also more likely to be ‘doing nothing’, and less likely to be performing sustenance or leisure activities. However, students in the academic difficulty group were more likely be doing school work, and several differences were also observed in the structure of these daily life routines across days.

Using an ambulatory monitoring protocol, daily life activities and environments were recorded in real-time and in natural contexts among students experiencing either difficulty or success. The findings demonstrating greater passivity, fewer leisure activities, and fewer moments spent with family for students in academic difficulty may indicate that less structured or unsupervised time schedules should be examined for its potential role in academic difficulty. While students in difficulty were also more often in academic settings and likely to being doing school work, these seemingly paradoxical findings are likely to reflect the academic tutoring or other intentional strategies to cope with such difficulties. Future research should consider extracurricular activities and contexts when investigating risk and protective factors associated with academic performance.