Exploring students’ attitudes, confidence and satisfaction by examining classroom environment factors

JOURNAL OF SCIENCE OF HNUE Interdisciplinary Science, 2014, Vol. 59, No. 5, pp. 144-151 This paper is available online at EXPLORING STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES, CONFIDENCE AND SATISFACTION BY EXAMINING CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT FACTORS Tran Van Dat Deputy Head of Research and International Relations Office, An Giang University Abstract. This study is a report on the validity of the hypothesis that students’ perception of the learning environment in a psychology classroom reflects their attitude, confidence and sense of satisfaction with regards to psychology. It examines data obtained from 110 students in 2 psychology classes of the Faculty of Education, An Giang University, to identify how students’ perceptions of the classroom learning environment varies and the extent to which this reflects attitudes, confidence and satisfaction. The results indicate that some classroom learning environment factors are related to positive attitude, student confidence and learning satisfaction. Keywords: Classroom learning environment factors, attitude, confidence, satisfaction. 1. Introduction There are classroom learning environment variables which may be used to predict cognitive variables and evaluate affective variables (e.g. confidence, attitude, motivation and satisfaction) [11]. The classroom climate that is perceived as student-centered, safe, friendly, warm, supportive and non-threatening has been reported to correspond to higher confidence, satisfaction and a more positive attitude toward their learning [1, 6]. In Vietnamese higher education the issue of classroom environment is rarely addressed. Vietnamese students generally perceive the classroom learning environment to be passive, non-cohesive, not satisfying and not student-centered [9]. The purpose of this study is to investigate the association between the classroom learning environment and student attitude, confidence and satisfaction in Vietnamese higher education. Received February 2, 2014. Accepted June 19, 2014. Contact Tran Van Dat, e-mail address: tvdat@agu.edu.vn 144 Exploring students’ attitudes, confidence and satisfaction by examining classroom... 2. Content 2.1. Research on learning environment The classroom learning environment is defined as being “the interpersonal relationship among students„ the relationships between students and their teachers, the relationships between students and both the subject matter studied and the method of learning and teaching and the students perception of the structural characteristics of the class” [7;7]. In recent years, studies involving the learning environment have emerged within the scope of social science research [1]. The results of several research studies [12, 11, 1, 13] found a strong correlation between the aspects of the My Class Inventory instrument and measures of cognitive and affective learning outcomes. Some studies reviewed [4] provide credible evidence that aspects of the classroom environment may account for 13% to 46% of the variance in learning outcomes. Accordingly, students learn more when they perceive their classroom activities as being positive (e.g. student-centered learning, satisfaction, cohesiveness and professional teaching), and that students learn less when they perceive their classroom activities as being negative (e.g. difficulty, friction and competitiveness). The findings of these associations show that the classroom environment can be analyzed to predict student cognitive and affective learning outcome [3]. In addition to the established influence of the classroom environment on student outcome, some aspects of classroom environment have been found to be predictors of a number of students’ affective outcomes [12, 16, 11, 1, 13, 14]. This review shows that almost all studies which supported the importance of the classroom environment for the prediction of achievement and evaluation of confidence, attitudes and satisfaction were conducted in the setting of western education [2, 4]. Until now no known study has examined the issue of classroom environment on student learning in the setting of Vietnamese higher education. The current study adds to the literature by reporting the results of an investigation to determine whether students’ perception of the learning environment of the psychology classroom in Vietnamese higher education can predict their attitude, confidence and satisfaction towards psychology. 2.2. Research method A correlational design was utilized to examine correlations between the learning environment factors of the psychology classrooms and the scales of confidence, attitudes towards psychology and satisfaction of students in learning. The sample used for this research consisted of 110 first-year psychology students (100 females and 10 males with a mean age of 18.36) from 2 classes of the Faculty of Education at An Giang University. This study used four scales to examine the relationship between independent variables and dependent variables. For each item, respondents marked a 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 for their response, the numbers corresponding to, SD (Strongly Disagree), D (Disagree), U (Undecided), A (Agree), SA (Strongly Agree), respectively. The Learning Environment Inventory [7] and the Instructor and Instruction Scale 145 Tran Van Dat [15] were utilized to investigate the students’ perception of their psychology classroom learning environment. The first factor, called efficacy for student engagement, contained 4 items (e.g. the teacher made the information easy for the students to understand, the teacher made the lesson interesting and student were encouraged to ask questions). The second factor, called the learning goal direction, consisted of 7 items (e.g. the class knows exactly what it has to get done, the objectives of the class are not clearly recognized and the class realizes exactly how much work it is required to do). The third factor, called professional capacity, contained 3 items (e.g. the teacher seemed knowledgeable and the teacher seemed to be enthusiastic about the subject). The fourth factor, called student-centered learning, consisted of 9 items (e.g. students exchanged information, students discussed the learning material with other students and students taught each other). The fifth factor, called cohesiveness, contained 7 items (e.g. members of the class do favors for one another; each student has the opportunity to get to know all the other students in the class and all of the students know each other very well). The study indicated that the internal consistency reliability (alpha coefficient) based on the sample of 110 students was accepted for all 5 factors. Table 1 describes the means, standard deviations (SD), sources and alpha coefficient of the five factors. Table 1. Conbach’s Alpha of independent and dependent variables Variable Mean SD Source Alpha (α) No. Items Classroom learning environment Efficacy for student engagement (EL) 3.77 .649 Tran & Lewis (2012a) .74 4 Learning goal direction (GD) 3.76 .593 Fraser et al., (1982) .84 7 Professional teaching (PT) 3.79 .723 Tran & Lewis (2012a) .79 3 Student centered learning (CL) 3.94 .697 Tran & Lewis (2012a) .86 9 Cohesiveness (CH) 3.85 .774 Fraser et al., (1982) .85 7 Attitudes toward the subject matter Researcher Values of the subject matter (VP) 3.78 .761 .89 9 Enjoyment of the subject matter (EP) 3.65 .607 .81 5 Self-esteem toward the subject matter Researcher Academic confidence (AC) 3.76 .746 .88 9 Social confidence (SC) 3.65 .588 .83 6 Satisfaction 3.75 .907 Fraser et al., (1982) .87 7 Note: n = 110 146 Exploring students’ attitudes, confidence and satisfaction by examining classroom... The attitude scale developed by the researcher was used to measure the attitude of students toward psychology. This scale comprised 14 items and was in a format of Likert type. The scale consisted of two components. The first component, called value of psychology, contained 9 items (e.g. psychology has contributed greatly to science, psychology is not important for the advance of civilization and society, and an understanding of psychology is needed by artists and writers as well as scientists). The second component, called enjoyment of psychology, contained 5 items (e.g. psychology is enjoyable and stimulating to me, I am interested and willing to acquire further knowledge of psychology and psychology is very interesting). The students’ responses to the two scales were checked for internal consistency by computing respective Cronbach Alpha coefficients. Table 1 describes the means, standard deviations, sources and alpha coefficient of the two components. The present study used the confidence scale developed by the researcher to measure the students’ self-esteem in psychology. This scale included 15 items, and was in a format of Likert type. The scale consisted of two components. The first component, called social confidence, consisted of 9 items (e.g. I like to do psychology tasks with my classmates, my lecturer discusses psychology with my classmates and my classmates did little to help me study psychology). The second component, called academic confidence, consisted of 6 items (e.g. I believe that I have the ability to study psychology, I am intelligent enough to study psychology and I have the ability to use my knowledge of psychology to solve social issues). Student responses to the two scales were checked for internal consistency by computing the respective Cronbach Alpha coefficients. Table 1 describes the means, standard deviations, sources and alpha coefficient of the two components. A satisfaction scale [7] was used to measure student satisfaction in learning. This scale contained 7 items (e.g. the students enjoy their class work; the students look forward to going to class meetings; after class, students are well satisfied with the work of the class). The study indicated that the internal consistency reliability (alpha coefficient) was accepted this factor. Table 1 describes the means, standard deviations, sources and alpha coefficient of this factor. 2.3. Procedure and data analysis All 110 first-year students of the 2 psychology classes in the Faculty of Education at An Giang University were invited to participate in this study. Participants completed the four questionnaires within 60 minutes. The relationships between the variables of learning environment and scale of attitudes, confidence, and satisfaction were investigated using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were also conducted to determine if there were any attitude-environment associations, any confidence-environment associations or any satisfaction-environment associations. For all tests, the significance level was determined with p < .05. The results of the multiple correlation analyses showed that CH should enter the multiple regression analysis as the first variable since it showed the highest correlation 147 Tran Van Dat with the ST and SC scores (r = .866, p < .000; r = .852, p < .000, respectively). The second variable to enter the analysis was CL since it showed the highest correlation with the ST and VP scores (r = .800, p < .000; r = .735, p < .000, respectively). The third variable to enter the analysis was EL since it showed the highest correlation with the EP and AC scores (r = .657, p < .000; r = .627, p < .000, respectively). The fourth variable to enter the analysis was GD since it showed the highest correlation with the VP and ST scores (r = .626, p < .000; r = .595, p < .000, respectively). The last variable to enter the analysis was PT since it showed the highest correlation with the SS and VP scores (r = .287, p < .000; r = .278, p < .000, respectively) as they showed lower correlation coefficients. These correlation coefficients showed that classroom learning environment factors were useful in measuring attitude, confidence and satisfaction of students towards psychology. 2.4. Results and discussion The research question inquired as to which of the independent variables (students-centered learning, efficacy for student engagement, goal learning direction, professional teaching, or cohesiveness) were significant predictors of attitude, confidence and satisfaction. Primary analyses were conduced to ensure no violation of the assumptions of multicollinearity. The results show that there was no violation of assumptions of multicollinearity on the five regression analyses (Tolerance value > .10, VIF [Variance inflation factor] < 10). Attitudes The first multiple regression model with all four predictors explained 65.5% of the variance in the VP scale (R2 = .655), F (5,104) = 37.911 and df = 109, p < .001. The three variables were positively and statistically significant, with the value of CL (t = 8.533, p < .001), GD (t = 4.049, p < .001) and CH (t = 11.990, p < .001). The EL scale (t = .493, p > .05) and PT scale (t = -1.507, p > .05) were not statistically significant with regards to the VP scale. The results show that in the process of learning, students shared information, learned in groups, taught each other and discussed the learning material with other students. They also reported that they realized exactly what it had to get done and knew the goals of the course. In addition, students reported that members of the class do favor certain individuals and all students in the class know each other very well. Similarly, the second multiple regression model produced 46.9% of the variance in the EP scale (R2 = .469), F (5,104) = 18.349, df = 109 and p < .001. The two variables were positively and statistically significant, with the value of EL (t = 8.217, p < .001) and CH (t = 2.237, p .05), GD (t = 1.340, p > .05) and PT (t = .259, p > .05) were not statistically significant predictors in this model. The results show that students reported that the lecturer made the information interesting and easy to understand and they were encouraged to ask questions. They also reported that the relationship among students was cohesive and close. The results obtained from the first twomodels indicated that student-centered learning, efficacy for student engagement, goal 148 Exploring students’ attitudes, confidence and satisfaction by examining classroom... learning direction and cohesiveness were significant predictors of attitude. The results indicate that when students perceive the classroom learning environment as one which is more student-centered learning, engaging, cohesive and directive, they tend to perceive psychology as being more valuable and enjoyable. The results of this study are consistent with the findings of previous research [12; 11; 1] which indicate a significant relationship between the classroom environment and student attitude. Confidence The third multiple regression model with all four predictors explained 64.6 of the variance in the SC scale (R2 = .646), F (5,104) = 34.757, df = 109 and p < .001. The three variables were positively and statistically significant with regards to the value of CL (t = 7.163, p < .001), GD (t = 2.899, p < .05) and CH (t = 11.769, p < .001). The EL scale (t = .395, p > .05) and PT scale (t = -.586, p > .05) were not statistically significant with regards to the SC scale. Similarly, the fourth multiple regression model explained 43.2% of the variance in the AC scale (R2 = .432), F (5,104) = 15.834, p < .001. The CL, GD and PT variables of the learning environment were not significantly related to the AC scale in this model with the beta value of CL (t = 1.615, p > .05), GD (t = 1.327, p > .05), and PT (t = .185, p > .05). The results indicate that student-centered learning, efficacy for student engagement, goal learning direction and cohesiveness were all significant predictors of self-esteem. Specifically, when students perceive the classroom learning environment as being more student-centered, engaging, cohesive and directive, they tend to have higher self-esteem in academic ability and to receive more social support in solving psychology issues. The findings of this study supported the results of other recent studies [1; 13] that indicate an appreciable self-esteem-environment relationship. Satisfaction The last multiple regression model with all four predictors explained 64.8% of the variance in the ST scale (R2 = .648), F (5,104) = 35.954, df = 109 and p < .001. The three variables were positively and statistically significant, with regards to the value of CL (t = 4.006, p < .001), GD (t = 2.730, p < .05) and CH (t = 15.470, p < .001). The EL scale (t = .620, p > .05) and PT scale (t = -1.489, p > .05) were not statistically significant with regards to the ST scale in this model. The results indicate that student-centered learning, goal learning direction and cohesiveness were significant predictors of satisfaction. Specifically, when students perceive the classroom learning environment as being more student-centered, cohesive and directive, they tend to obtain more satisfaction when learning psychology. The findings of this study support the results of other recent studies [1, 13, 12, 5] that indicate an appreciable satisfaction-environment relationship. 3. Conclusion This study may be one of the first studies of the psychology classroom environment in the setting of Vietnamese higher education. The results support the hypothesis that student perceptions of the learning environment in the psychology classroom may predict 149 Tran Van Dat their attitude, confidence and satisfaction towards psychology. The findings reveal that only the professional teaching factor was not statistically significant with regards to scale of attitude, confidence or satisfaction. The findings also indicated that students-centered learning, efficacy for student engagement, goal learning direction and cohesiveness were significant predictors of attitude. In this case, it was shown that the student-centered learning approach (e.g. group work, learning together and cooperative learning) should be applied in the psychology classroom [11]. Such a learning approache has been reported to help students perceive the learning activities as being more student-centered, engaging and cohesive and they perceive the learning goals as being more directive because students in student-centered situations are encouraged to work together in groups rather than individually [10]. In the classroom, psychology lecturers should pay more attention to all aspects of the classroom learning environment to become more reflective and improve their teaching practice. It seems that fostering a positive student attitude towards psychology and enhancing their confidence in learning psychology, as well as improving their satisfaction in learning, are necessary mandates of lecturers. A positive learning environment should, therefore, be created in Vietnamese higher education institutions. REFERENCES [1] 1. Chionh, Y. H., & Fraser, B. J., 2009. “Classroom environment, achievement, attitudes and self-esteem in geography and mathematics in Singapore”, International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 18, 29-44. [2] Fisher, D. L., & Khine, M. S., 2006. Contemporary approaches to research on learning environments: Worldviews. Singapore: World Scientific. [3] Fraser, B. J., 1998. Science learning environments: Assessment, effects and determinants. In B. J. Fraser & K. G. Tob (Eds.), The international handbook of science education (pp. 527-564). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. [4] Fraser, B. J., 2007. 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