The Future of Education
School Climate: a Comparison of Students’ Perception
Barbara Bocchi, Faculty of Education, Free University of Bolzano-Bozen (Italy)
Abstract
The relationship between learning, the quality of the learning experience and psychological well-being of the students is a matter that should be considered as part of the problems related to raising the quality of education.The learning process is, in fact, considered more and more a social path, characterized by relationships between people. The learning environment is a human environment: therefore, the different quality of the relationships mentioned above determines the effectiveness (or otherwise) of the whole process.
Pursuing a positive school climate in the educational relationship means, first and foremost, to worry that students live a good learning experience as a whole, helping them to identify and develop their personality, to discover the characteristics that make each person able to strengthen interests and attitudes, and to rebuild the true path of personal growth and development in life.
The main aim of this research is to compare the results obtained in a population study directed at eliciting and correlating student, parent, teacher and non-teaching staff’s perceptions of school climate.
This project is a study which focuses on Italian language schools in South Tyrol. The questionnaires were administered to all students, teachers, parents and non teaching staff.
In Italy, there is no validated standardized instrument to measure school climate. Therefore, a questionnaire was developed in order to collect data in schools, to be used as part of a pilot project headed by the research group of Dozza, Cavrini and Chianese, in collaboration with the Italian School Intendancy of the Province of Bolzano, in northern Italy.
13,500 questionnaires were administered between January 2012 and April 2012 and 10,130 were collected.
Our research aims at having a relevant impact on the school of the Bolzano province, giving data aggregated at the “school system” and individual data for each school, providing cause for reflection and allowing to develop improvement plans.
In particular, we will present the preliminary results of students’ perceptions.
