Introduction chapter knowledge of individual differences between learners

2.2 Characters among peers
Both attitude to school context and reputation among peers are related to degree of behavioural adjustment at school. Individual differences in these variables contribute to the explanation of why some adolescents engage in antisocial behaviours and other do not. In general, adolescents who display negative attitudes to formal figures and institutions, such as teachers and the school context and who search for social recognition as non-conforming individuals, are more likely to develop behavioural adjustment problems. School environment and school experience are key factors in determining the desire for a particular reputation among peers as well as attitudes in relation to the school as a formal institution.
Thus, misbehaviours at school may be reflecting the need to establish a social identity and gain recognition while conveying a message of rejection of formal authority. These findings have some relevant practical implications. First of all, it is important to highlight that interventions should not only focus on the particular individuals involved; this would be to overlook relevant contextual factors that need to be taken into consideration to understand and mitigate the problem.
Intervention programs that improve family climate and relationships with parents, while improving commitment to school and attitudes to teachers and educational centres would be very useful. School-based prevention and intervention programs should consider several levels of intervention. For instance, numerous programs focused on changing the school and classroom environment as a whole have been proved to be effective in reducing behavioural adjustment problems in adolescence. The findings confirm the positive relationships between peers' and children's interpersonal character and reveal an important moderating role of prestige status, especially social visibility, among the relation
CONCLUSION
In my conclusion,individual differences can be defined as personal characteristics that distinguish learners from each other in the teaching and learning processes. Learners are unique individuals who bring a critical set of variables to each learning situation, including delicate traits as indicators of their potential and the history of achievement as signs of previous accomplishments and predictors of future performance. There are a number of individual differences that affect performance and attitudes of learners during teaching and learning. The most common differences of learners are gender, age, intelligence, ability, interest, prior knowledge, learning style, motivation, locus of control, self-efficacy, and epistemological beliefs.
Each decision made by individuals is a test of one’s knowledge, which refers to situational dynamics. What one does at any point in time depends on one’s knowledge at that time, and on the logic of the situation in which that knowledge is used. Behavioural changes result from changes in one’s knowledge as well as from intended or unintended changes in one’s situation . Defining learning processes benefits from the distinction between two competitive theories of knowledge: the “bucket” versus the “searchlight” theories of knowledge. This distinction has been introduced by Karl Popper and is analysed in Boland and Fowler. In the “bucket” theory of knowledge, individual learning processes are nothing but an accumulation of data and “raw” experience.
Many of a learner’s personal characteristics can affect how he or she learns.
Individual differences are often explanations for differences in learning and
performance among learners. The study of individual differences among learners’
permits is done with the idea that results can help educators design instruction that better meets the needs of each learner’s needs. Learn more in: Teaching Style in the Online Classroom2.Each learner is unique like by the age, gender, aptitude, attitude etc. The differences among the learners are considered individual differences.