classroom climate

Practical improvements in students’ overall success can be made if we take into account the contribution of learning environments to learners’ various attributes that would greatly affect their academic selves. This study aimed at scrutinizing the possible associations among Iranian EFL students’ perceived classroom climate, academic self-concept, learning self-regulation, and academic identity status. 420 university students were asked to fill out College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI), Academic Self-Concept (ASC) Scale, Learning Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ-L), and Academic Identity Status (AIS) Questionnaire. Using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) and based on its several goodness-of-fit criteria, the proposed model of the possible interactions of the main variables was confirmed. Furthermore, classroom climate was correlated positively with subscales of learning self-regulation and academic self-concept and negatively with academic identity status. Besides significant correlations among study variables, the final model also revealed some intra-scales associations. Multiple regression analysis also indicated some significant predictions. The findings could provide classroom instructors and university syllabus designers with implications so that they can plan the EFL environments and class activities taking into consideration students’ various academic characteristics. This involves their status of self-concept, identity, and regulation to help them achieve highly recognized long-term academic objectives.

Classroom climate has been demonstrated to associate with individuals’ various attributes and outcomes. Recent research has also confirmed students’ goal orientations deserving to be recognized as a significant achievement-related outcome. In this line, the current study intended to examine the relationship between Iranian EFL students’ perceptions of their classroom environment and their achievement goal orientations. The study also aimed to see whether different genders held different perceptions concerning the main study variables. To accomplish this aim, 570 high school students were randomly recruited and the two scales of students’ perceived climate questionnaire (WIHIC) and achievement goal orientation questionnaire (AGQ) were applied. The results indicated that learners held distinct perceptions of classroom climate and different goal orientations with gender having a significant influence on some of their components. Furthermore, correlations were obtained among diverse factors of the study scales. The findings provide implications for understanding the EFL learners’ perceived classroom climate and their achievement goals and hence planning the learning environments taking into account the students' goal orientations and the significant role of gender.

Students’ engagement in classroom activities has been at the center of attention these days that affect learners’ success, mental health and alternatively, their disengagement impacts their achievement and may also affect their future professional well-being. Motivation is another important contributor to success in education, which is also in line with engagement. Likewise, demotivation has been a concentration point of instructional research; yet, it has not obtained much concentration in the realm of language acquisition. Indeed, English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ demotivation has an essential role in hindering their learning in the English language learning classroom. The level of these two concepts, namely disengagement and demotivation is influenced by different factors in students and as far as EFL teaching is concerned, one of these factors is school climate which is deemed as a predictor of academic success. Indeed, the learning climate has been attracting the attention of researchers for decades given that this construct improves or prevents student achievement and poor mental health. Nevertheless, its contribution to mitigating learners’ demotivation and disengagement has not been scrutinized yet. Accordingly, this review presents the power of the learning climate where EFL students are learning a language and its role in students’ demotivation and disengagement. Subsequently, this is followed by giving some implications for EFL teachers, school authorities, and researchers.