School dogs contributed to happier students and reduced absenteeism

Problematic school absenteeism is a major and continuing current challenge for Swedish schools, especially in upper secondary school. Inspired by international studies, which have shown that reading dogs have a positive effect on the fear of reading aloud, Swedish researchers wanted to investigate how the use of school dogs could reduce problematic absenteeism.

- There are many theories about what happens when a child reads to a dog instead of an adult, but that they become calmer because the dog does not question how they read is one of them, says Lena Lidfors, researcher at SLU.

She explains that the reading dogs in particular are trained to lie next to the student so that she can pet him and contribute to calmness and the release of oxytocin.

- The dogs are also trained to follow the student's finger with their eyes when they point to the book they are reading, which allows the student to feel that the dog is interested and listening.

The Swedish research project, which was the first of its kind, took place during 2022 and 2023 and included 60 students in grades 3 to 9. Each student got to meet a dog with a dog handler or special teacher 20 to 24 times during an entire semester. The main aim was to investigate whether students with problematic school absence could regain a higher motivation for school, higher school attendance, better goal fulfillment in Swedish and mathematics and better well-being with the help of a trained school dog together with its handler compared to a more traditional effort by the school's special teacher.

- All dog handlers included in the study had previous experience of working in schools and had a lot of their own material with them. The activities during the meetings could be about everything from the dog putting on a large cloth cube to stimulate knowledge in mathematics or spinning a wheel of fortune to choose different themes to them taking conversation cards from a jar. When the dog got to decide, it became more fun for the student to devote himself to it, says Lena Lidfors.

The study showed that student absenteeism decreased in the group exposed to the school dogs, although the average decrease was less than the researchers expected.

- Before the intervention, this group had an average absenteeism of 38 percent. During the study, it dropped to 36.1 percent, but increased by just over a percentage point again after the end of the effort. But the spread among the students was great.

But there were more parameters that spoke for the school dogs. The students who got to meet the dog team went to significantly more meetings than those who got to meet the special teachers, and in addition, there were some students in the latter group who canceled the intervention before it was finished.

But what really stood out in the study was the joy the students showed when they met the dogs.

- Maybe I was staring blindly at attendance and achieved learning goals, instead of focusing on the mental well-being that is so important for the students at school. Today, many people are stressed, have stomachaches, headaches and don't want to go to school. So experiencing that it is positive to go to school, that you feel good at school, that can be so important.

Video footage from the meetings showed that the students in the dog group laughed and smiled to a significantly greater extent than those who got to meet the special teachers.

For Lena Lidfors and her research colleagues, a new study now awaits where they will see how socializing with horses can support school students.