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Students’ Perceptions of School Climate During the Middle School Years: Associations with Trajectories of Psychological and Behavioral Adjustment

  • Original Paper
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American Journal of Community Psychology

Abstract

A cross-domain latent growth curve model was used to examine the trajectories of change in student perceptions of four critical dimensions of school climate (i.e., teacher support, peer support, student autonomy in the classroom, and clarity and consistency in school rules and regulations) among 1,451 early adolescents from the beginning of sixth through the end of eighth grade; and the effects of such trajectories on the rate of change in psychological and behavioral adjustment. Findings indicated that all of the dimensions of perceived school climate declined over the 3 years of middle school. Furthermore, declines in each of the dimensions of perceived school climate were associated with declines over time in psychological and behavioral adjustment. Moreover, the direction of effects between each dimension of perceived school climate and psychological or behavioral adjustment were often unidirectional rather than bi-directional, underscoring the role of perceived school climate in the psychological and behavioral health of early adolescents. Gender and socioeconomic class differences in these patterns are noted.

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Notes

  1. Connell and Wellborn (1991) refer to a psychological need for sense of relatedness, autonomy, and competency among students rather than relatedness, autonomy, and consistency. However, they note that a sense of competency will often emerge in an environment that is fair and consistent.

  2. We gratefully acknowledge the contribution of the researchers at the Illinois Center for Prevention Research and of Robert D. Felner, who served as Principal Investigator of the Alliance of Illinois Middle Schools network evaluation. The evaluation was funded by a Carnegie Foundation grant to the University of Illinois.

  3. A two tiered consent procedure developed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at the participating university allowed the investigators to use passive consent procedures. The first step required each school to create a Parent Advisory Team (PAT) that was reflective of the children and families attending that school. The PAT was asked to review the surveys and consent form that would subsequently be sent home to parents for their approval. The PAT was to consider community norms and values when reviewing the topics covered in the surveys, and they were to determine if the consent form accurately represent the goals and purposes of the study. Parents serving on PAT team were also asked to serve as resources to other parents who might have questions supporting the surveys, and copies were kept in the school from office for parental review. Once the PAT signed the advisory form, schools were required to send home letters to parents and were asked to return the form if they did not want their child to participate.

  4. In none of the unconditional models were the errors allowed to correlate over time, which may have resulted in better fitting models.

  5. Results from the multiple imputations more strongly indicate that the pathways of influence do emerge from the dimensions of school climate to student adjustment implying the need to further study these processes in a larger sample.

  6. Preliminary models that included school size were examined. Inclusion of grade size did not change the pattern of results observed in the current study.

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Acknowledgment

We gratefully acknowledge the support of Peter Mulhall at the Illinois Center for Prevention Research. In addition, we are grateful for the support of the Spencer Foundation who provided the first and third author with a grant to analyze the data presented in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Applied Psychology, New York University, Steinhardt School of Education, East Building, Suite 400, 239 Greene Street, New York, NY, 10003, USA

    Niobe Way

  2. University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA, USA

    Ranjini Reddy & Jean Rhodes

Authors
  1. Niobe Way
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Correspondence to Niobe Way.

Appendix A

Appendix A

Instructions: How often are the following things true about THIS SCHOOL? Mark the best answer for each statement.

Never

Hardly ever

Sometimes

Most of the time

Always

(1)

   

(5)

Teacher Support

  1. 1.

    Teachers take a personal interest in students.

  2. 2.

    Teachers go out of their way to help students.

  3. 3.

    If students want to talk about something, teachers will find time to do it.

  4. 4.

    Students really enjoy their classes.

  5. 5.

    Teachers help students to organize their work.

  6. 6.

    Teachers help students catch up when they return from an absence.

Peer Support

Negative peer interactions

  1. 1.

    Students in this school are mean to each other.

  2. 2.

    There are kids in this school who pick on other kids.

  3. 3.

    Students in this school have trouble getting along with each other.

  4. 4.

    In classes, students find it hard to get along with each other.

  5. 5.

    Students in this school fell students are mean to them.

Affiliation

  1. 1.

    Students in this school get to know each other really well.

  2. 2.

    Students in this school are very interested in getting to know other students.

  3. 3.

    Students enjoy working together on projects.

  4. 4.

    Students get to know each other well in classes.

  5. 5.

    Students enjoy doing things with each other in school activities.

Student Autonomy Climate

  1. 1.

    Students in this school have a say in how things work.

  2. 2.

    Students help decide how class time is spent.

  3. 3.

    In our school, students are given the chance to help make decisions.

  4. 4.

    Students get to help decide some of the rules in this school.

  5. 5.

    Teachers ask students what they want to learn about.

Clarity and Consistency in School Rules

School Structure

  1. 1.

    Teachers make a point to sticking to the rules in classes.

  2. 2.

    When teachers make a rule, they mean it.

  3. 3.

    Students are given clear instructions about how to do their work in classes.

  4. 4.

    Students understand what will happen to them if they break a rule.

  5. 5.

    If some students are acting up in class, the teachers will do something about it.

School Harshness

  1. 1.

    Teachers are very strict here.

  2. 2.

    Students get in trouble for breaking small rules.

  3. 3.

    Students get in trouble for talking.

  4. 4.

    It is easy for a student to get kicked out of class in this school.

  5. 5.

    The rules in this school are too strict.

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Way, N., Reddy, R. & Rhodes, J. Students’ Perceptions of School Climate During the Middle School Years: Associations with Trajectories of Psychological and Behavioral Adjustment. Am J Community Psychol 40, 194–213 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-007-9143-y

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