Secondary Student Perceptions of School Climate Elements and Self-Reported Academic Self-Efficacy as Factors of School Continuous Improvement

Marianne Arzadon Torales, University of Texas at El Paso

Abstract

State and national agencies recognize the link between school quality and student academic and behavioral outcomes. Research has shown that a positive school climate and high academic self-efficacy are associated with positive academic and behavioral student outcomes. Determining the school climate factors that contribute to academic self-efficacy will add to the limited research on the relationship between these two constructs and provide information to prospective and current school leaders in cultivating an effective school. A multiple regression was used to determine how student-perceived school climate factors predict self-reported student academic self-efficacy and of these factors, which one provided the strongest explanation to the amount of variance observed on the outcome variable academic self-efficacy. The factors of school climate investigated in this study are connectedness, classroom environment, safety and belongingness, and academic optimism. In this context, school climate is defined as the quality of a student’s school experiences and academic self-efficacy is defined as a student’s self-reported level of confidence in discrete academic skills such as reading and writing skills. The results of a multivariate statistical analysis conducted on a secondary data set from a school climate survey administered to nearly 20,000 secondary students in a large, urban school district situated on the US-Mexico border will be discussed.

Subject Area

Educational leadership|Secondary education|Educational sociology

Recommended Citation

Torales, Marianne Arzadon, "Secondary Student Perceptions of School Climate Elements and Self-Reported Academic Self-Efficacy as Factors of School Continuous Improvement" (2020). ETD Collection for University of Texas, El Paso. AAI27999814.
https://scholarworks.utep.edu/dissertations/AAI27999814

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