Creating Positive Classroom Climate for Secondary School Goal Attainment in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

The study examined the strategies for creating positive classroom climate for secondary school goal attainment. The descriptive research design was adopted. The population comprised all the 6,956 teachers in the 278 public secondary schools in Rivers state. The sample of 250 teachers was selected using purposive and stratified random sampling techniques. A 20 item questionnaire titled ‘Creating Positive Classroom Climate for Secondary School Goal Attainment Questionnaire’ (CPCCSSGAQ) structured on a four point modified likert type scale of Strongly Agreed (4points), Agreed (3points), Disagreed (2points) and Strongly Disagreed (1point) was used for data collection. Data collected were analysed using mean to answer the research questions while z-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The findings showed that creating positive classroom climate can be done by building relationship between teachers and students, organising the physical environment, developing and reinforcing rules to guide the class and promoting collaboration among students by creating groups based on different skills and interest. It concludes that when these strategies are adopted to enhance positive classroom climate, that good teaching and learning leading to attainment of secondary school goals will be achieved. Based on the findings the following recommendations were made; that teachers should be given adequate orientation on the strategies for creating positive classroom climate so that they can adequately apply them in their classes, the government should provide teachers with good incentives to motivate them relate and interact well with the students to enhance effective teaching and learning and finally that the principals should engage in adequate supervision of teachers encouraging them to adopt the strategies to create positive classroom climate to achieve effective teaching and learning leading to attainment of secondary school goals.