How School Climate Relates to Other Psychosocial Perceptions and Academic Achievement across the School Year

AbstractThe research literature indicates that school climate is important for student outcomes; however, research assessing school climate and achievement-related outcomes across time is limited. In this study, the relationship between school climate, students’ psychosocial perceptions, and student achievement was examined across an academic school year in a cohort of 531 9th-grade students. A series of hierarchical linear regressions indicated that school climate predicted 10.5% of the variance in both hope and academic motivation, 8% of the variance in self-efficacy, 5% of the variance in academic self-concept, 3% of the variance in goal valuation, and 2% of the variance in spring semester GPA. Further, despite school climate being operationalized as school culture, attitude toward teachers, and attitude toward school, only attitude toward teachers significantly predicted any of the outcome variables. These results suggest that some aspects of school climate contribute more than others in crafting students’ psychosocial perceptions and achievement.Impact StatementDespite the widespread belief that school climate is important for student outcomes, the existing school climate research lacks investigations across time. This study assessed the relationship between school climate, academic-oriented psychosocial perceptions, and student achievement across an academic school year. This study’s results indicate that attitude toward teachers was the only significant predictor of psychosocial perceptions and that hope and academic motivation were most influenced by school climate perceptions.Keywords: Motivationself-conceptstudent teacher relationshipsASSOCIATE EDITOR: Tamika La Salle-Finley Additional informationNotes on contributorsErsie-Anastasia GentzisErsie-Anastasia Gentzis received her bachelor’s degree (Honors) in psychology from the University of Houston and her master’s degree in school psychology from Michigan State University. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the School Psychology Doctoral Program at Michigan State University.Dante D. DixsonDante D. Dixson received his bachelor’s degree (Honors) in psychology, master’s degree in education, and Ph.D. in School Psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. Currently, he serves as an Associate Professor at Michigan State University within the School and Educational Psychology Programs and is certified for the practice of psychology both inside and outside of schools.