The connection between classroom behavioral climate and school well-being of Finnish sixth grade students

Abstract

Jenni Leinonen. 2018. The connection between classroom behavioral climate and school well-being in Finnish sixth grade students. Master’s thesis in special education. Department of Education. University of Jyväskylä. The aim of this master’s thesis is to investigate the connection between classroom behavioral climate and school well-being. The effect of a negative, mediocre or positive classroom behavioral climate on an individual’s school well-being is also studied. The participants are 597 Finnish sixth grade students and the data is from the research project Pro Koulu. The results in this study indicate that all the variables of classroom behavioral climate correlate with the variables of the school well-being measure. However, all correlations remained relatively low. The results show that classroom behavioral climate indicators explain 18% of commitment to school, 18% of feelings of justice at school, 16% of student relations at school, 11% of student-teacher relations and 14% of workload at school. Students in the positive classroom behavioral climate report higher commitment to school, more feelings of justice at school, better student relations, better student-teacher relations and less feelings of high workload at school, than students in groups of less positive behavioral climates. This study indicates that caring for the classroom environment is an important factor in supporting student well-being. Feelings of psychological and physical safety also have a significant effect on school well-being, while the effect of disruptive behavior and learning climate is smaller. Overall it seems that the ability to learn well is not a deciding factor in school well-being. The teacher’s role is significant in nurturing school well-being.