The Role of Classroom Environment in Students' Goal Orientations

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the classroomenvironment, namely the satisfaction with school, trust in teachers,positive teacher student interaction and loneliness in school, inexplaining individual differences in students' goal orientations. Inaddition, the study aimed to determine gender and age differences in theperception of classroom environment and goal orientations. The samplecomprised 417 students in the sixth and the eighth grades of elementaryschool. They completed the questionnaires for assessing their perceptionof several aspects of classroom environment and the Inventory of schoolmotivation. Results confirmed some well established gender differencesin goal orientations, showing that girls achieve higher scores onmastery and social relations goals, whereas boys score higher onego-goals and extrinsic goals. Sixth graders scored higher on socialrelations and mastery than did the eighth graders. Female students weremore satisfied with school and showed a greater trust in teachers. Allof the aspects of classroom environment were positively related withgoal orientations, while the regression analyses revealed some specificrelations between aspects of classroom environment and certain goalorientations.