Propósitos y Representaciones E ne.– Jun. 2015, Vol. 3, N° 1: pp. 177-231. ISSN 2307-7999 http://dx.doi.org/10.20511/pyr2015.v3n1.71 e-ISSN 2310-4635 ARTÍCULOS DE INVESTIGACIÓN The classroom climate according to grant holders 18 (Becarios 18) and regular students from a private university in Lima El clima de aula según becarios 18 y alumnos regulares de una universidad privada de Lima Julio B. Anaya1a & Federico R. León1b* 1Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola, Lima, Perú. aPsychology Degree. bPh. D., University of Maryland. Partner of León & Bustamante Consultores. Received: 09-03-15 Approved: 20-05-15 *Correspondencia Citar Como: Email: [email protected] Anaya, J., & León, F. (2015). The classroom climate accor- ding to grant holders 18 (Becarios 18) and regular students from a private university in Lima. Propósitos y Representacio- nes, 3(1), 177-231. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.20511/ Notas pyr2015.v3n1.71 The authors acknowledge the suggestions of Mario Tueros, Denisse Manrique y Alberto Alegre. © Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola, Vicerrectorado de Investigación y Desarrollo, 2015. Este artículo se distribuye bajo licencia CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Internacional (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). The Classroom ClimaTe aCCording To granT holders 18 (BeCarios 18) and regular sTudenTs from a PrivaTe universiTy in lima Summary The admission of poor students sponsored by the Beca 18 social program into Lima universities is a recent phenomenon that requires studies on their adjustment and academic performance. This research targeted Beca 18 students at USIL and compared their responses to a questionnaire on perceptions of classroom climate with those from regular students. Both were participating in the course on math analysis offered to engineering students. In the general context of positive perceptions of classroom climate, Beca 18 students slightly differed from regular students, showing more positive perceptions of professor’s behavior in terms of creation of a working environment, class pace, interest in the student, and promotion of cooperation and group work. A greater difference was observed in regard of the avoidance of a climate of competition, which should be studied in greater depth. On the other hand, Beca 18 students complained more about the lack of solidarity, which can be explained by their adaptation to the more collectivistic culture observed in Peruvian provinces. Keywords: Beca 18, university environment, classroom climate, motivation for studying Resumen La inserción de beneficiarios pobres del programa social Beca 18 en universidades limeñas es un fenómeno reciente que amerita estudios relativos a su adaptación y desempeño académico. En la presente investigación se analizaron las respuestas de becarios 18 en USIL a un cuestionario de percepciones del clima de aula, y se les comparó con las de alumnos regulares para establecer si había diferencias. Ambos participaban en el Curso de Análisis Matemático que se imparte a estudiantes de ingeniería. En el contexto general de climas de aula bastante positivos, los becarios se diferenciaron ligeramente de los alumnos regulares por una percepción más positiva del comportamiento del profesor en términos del ambiente de trabajo creado, el ritmo de la clase, el interés por el estudiante y el fomento de la cooperación y trabajo grupal. Mayor diferencia se observó respecto a la evitación de un clima de competición; esto debería investigarse a mayor profundidad. De otro lado, los becarios se quejaron más de la falta de ayuda por parte de otros alumnos, lo cual se explica por la mayor solidaridad existente en provincias, cuya población es más colectivista que la de Lima. Palabras clave: Beca 18, ámbito universitario, clima de aula, motivación para el estudio. 208 Propósitos y Representaciones. Vol. 3, Nº 1 Julio B. AnAyA & Federico r. león Introduction Beca 18 is one of many social programs held by the Government of Peru. It encourages the inclusion of young people from low-income backgrounds and it relies on good quality institutions so that they can start, stay and culminate a professional or technical training at a higher education center. The project was motivated by several aspirations: “fighting poverty”, “social mobilization”, “decentralization”, “access and culmination of a quality higher education”, “human capital training”, “social justice in educational matters”, “vigorous national productive model”, “pride on multicultural diversity” and “being in accordance with the demands of a world that is increasingly becoming more competitive and globalized” (Pronabec, 2013, p. 7). The program Beca 18 not only takes into account the idea of providing low-income young people with better professional development opportunities, but also the aim of contributing to the development of their own regions (Pronabec, 2013, p.40). In order to achieve its goals, it summons students with a high grade point average among 300,000 people ranging from 16 to 22 years old, coming from public schools and from households living in poverty, and it selects those who stand out because of their motivation in school and intellectual abilities. Once included in higher education, it gives them material support and academic and psycho- pedagogical care. Beca 18 started functioning in 2012. The Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola (USIL) has welcomed 4 groups of grant holders so far (from the first semester of 2013 to the second semester of 2014). The Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) of Peru will be in charge of evaluating the impact of the program with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and the Latin American and Caribbean Demography Center (CELADE). As an incipient program, Beca 18 lacks of any information about the way the grant holders are adjusting to the exacting demands of the universities who welcomed them. The present investigation has explored their perceptions of classroom climate in comparison to regular USIL students. Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola 209 The Classroom ClimaTe aCCording To granT holders 18 (BeCarios 18) and regular sTudenTs from a PrivaTe universiTy in lima Classroom Climate. The climate generated in a university classroom is fundamental to achieve successful learning. This is shown in several studies which state that the classroom climate is the most important variable in learning. There is enough certainty in psychology books that the classroom climate significantly contributes to improve or deteriorate school learning. (UNESCO, 2002). Several researches show that the sum of all out-of-school factors, the materials, the human resources and the psychological factors is not as important as the emotional climate achieved in the classroom. The concept of “classroom climate” stems from Lewin’s Force-Field Analysis (1978) which defined the “life space” as a space where behavior is a function of the person and their environment. Lewin included the idea of “psychological atmosphere” to refer to the reality of this field as a whole. The Expectancy- Value theories come from Tolman and Lewin’s work. They proposed that behavior is led by positively valued objects and that it eludes negatively valued objects. According to the assumptions of this theory, individuals tend to take more responsibility for a task when they expect to perform it well and when it’s important to them (Meece, Anderman & Anderman, 2006; Tollefson, 2000). The model presumes that this greater effort is the result of the hope of success and the value attributed to the reward. There will be no sacrifice from the student if the reward has little or no significance to them. In addition, if the students do not expect to successfully perform a certain task, they will not attempt to achieve it, even if the reward has some value to them (Good & Brophy, 1996). The concept of “classroom climate” is also related to that of “organizational climate”, which is the meaning that people attribute to different aspects of their work (Schneider, Erhard & Macey, 2012). In terms of this perspective, classroom climate would be configured, on the one hand, in the interaction between the behavior of the teacher and the other students, and in the perception and behavior patterns brought by the students by coming into contact with the academic environment. For that reason, the main question of this research is if the beneficiaries of Beca 18, 210 Propósitos y Representaciones. Vol. 3, Nº 1 Julio B. AnAyA & Federico r. león coming from subcultures that are generally different to the one from Lima and from a disadvantaged socioeconomic status, perceive the classroom climate in the same way the regular USIL students do, considering that they usually come from Lima’s modern culture and from homes that do not suffer the disadvantages of low socioeconomic strata. One concept that relates to classroom climate is the “school culture” (Maehr & Midgley, 1991), connected to the value that the school gives to certain policies linked to academic goals. As the students interact with what they perceive and how they feel about their teachers, the general staff and the physical and psychological environment, the school culture contributes to configure the classroom climate (Sink & Spencer, 2005). The ideal environment is non violent and it has no disturbances to study, on one hand, and the presence of good friends, on the other. Motivational Environment. The motivational environment perceived by the students in the classroom contributes significantly to the classroom climate. Classroom motivation is crucial to learning, both for the students and the teachers. This motivational dynamic inside the classroom will make the difference between the student’s success and failure (Vanderberghe, D’hertefelt & De Wever, 1993). Several authors state that a positive climate in the classroom implies several attributes, such as activities in the classroom, their organization, work pace, formulation of objectives, work procedures, teacher’s preferences, the use of free time and other variables that influence in a determinant way on the academic behavior (Alonso, 1992). A good climate is given by good relations between the members of a university community, where cordiality, friendliness, confidence and solidarity among classmates are what matter. It is also said that encouraging work under these conditions is highly positive as enthusiasm, challenge, mutual respect and team work are generated (Arancibia, 1992). Researches focused on the class have examined how the teachers can create different objective systems by using different instructional, group and Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola 211 The Classroom ClimaTe aCCording To granT holders 18 (BeCarios 18) and regular sTudenTs from a PrivaTe universiTy in lima evaluation strategies (Meece, Anderman & Anderman, 2006). A teacher can encourage learning by inviting students to perform attractive tasks that spark their curiosity and interest. A task is considered nice if it challenges all of the student’s talents while allowing them to have a certain control of the challenge. Researches state that when a teacher gives more support to the students, they feel more comfortable, they ask for help and they ask more questions. The teacher’s responsibility is to give stimuli to question, to teach how to ask questions and how to answer them, and also to reward or sanction when necessary (Ryan, Pintrich & Midgley, 2001). It is important as well not to compare the student’s achievements with those of their classmates. In some cases, low academic achievement students strive to study more during the class, but the teacher’s and the other student’s behavior can be so demoralizing that they will ask no questions in case of doubt (Good & Brophy, 1996). The environment generated in the classroom influences both directly and indirectly on learning. The influence is direct when the student achieves a good academic performance, and it is indirect when they commit and sustain the effort (Linares et al., 2005). Objective and Hypothesis of the Study. The classroom climate and its components were analyzed in this research to characterize the prevailing situation in USIL classrooms according to the perception of two student groups: those coming from Beca 18 and the regular students of USIL. The study hypothesizes that there will be significant differences between the perceptions of both groups. Method The type of the study is correlational and comparative of two groups. Participants. The participants of the study were alumni of the Mathematical Analysis 1 class of the first term of 2014. They were asked if they wanted to take part in 212 Propósitos y Representaciones. Vol. 3, Nº 1 Julio B. AnAyA & Federico r. león a social research. It took place during class hours and the class coordinator recruited the volunteers. Answers were obtained from 63 grant holders and 86 regular students. Grant holders were 40% male and 60% female and regular students were 44% male and 56% female. The average age, respectively, were 18.13 and 18.62. That is, both groups were relatively equal in terms of gender and age. Instrument of Data Collection. The Motivational Climate in Class Questionnaire was developed by Alonso and García (1987) and adapted in Venezuela by Irureta (1995) and in Peru by Thorne, Centeno and Wetzell (2009). It is designed to evaluate the motivation generated by the teacher in class and it’s easily applied (Appendix A). The application time is of twenty minutes approximately. The test considers five subjects: work environment, stressful class pace, interest on the student’s learning, competition-cooperation climate, and team work. The work environment refers to the order inside the classroom (noise level and allowance of movement during class), the organization of activities and the specificity of learning goals by the professor. The stressful class pace refers to the anxiety generated by the speed to which the professor explains the subject, the time given to the tasks accomplishment and how long they stop on each subject. The interest in the student’s learning takes the feeling of how every student is encouraged to progress without considering the progress of the others. The competition climate refers to aspects such as favoritism of the professor towards the more capable ones, to the frequent comparison between the students made by the teacher, and to the activities they organize to put in evidence who are better or worse. The scale of cooperation and team work considers the degree in which the professor encourages team work and help behavior in class. In Thorne et al. study (2009) the coefficients of internal consistency by area varied between .62 and .81. Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola 213 The Classroom ClimaTe aCCording To granT holders 18 (BeCarios 18) and regular sTudenTs from a PrivaTe universiTy in lima Procedure of Data Collecting. Data collecting was made with the support of the coordinator of the Mathematical Analysis 1 class, who gave the list of blocks and schedules and sent messages to the professors of the block where the questionnaire would be applied. Before the application there was a coordination with the professors and the respective authorization was asked, both from the teachers and the participants. The questionnaire was applied by groups in the respective classrooms of the participants. It was performed in one twenty minute session. The evaluator was introduced and explained the reason for the visit and the objective of the research and the questionnaire. It was guaranteed to the students that their participation would be anonymous and that there wouldn’t be right or wrong answers. Students were told that the test would be invalid if more than one alternative was marked or if there were any unanswered questions. It was also stated that the participation was voluntary that anyone who didn’t want to participate could leave. Analytic Strategy. It was not necessary to invalidate any tests. Each answer was given a Likert score that ranged from 0 to 3: total disagreement (0), disagreement (1), agreement (2), and total agreement (3). While grading, it had to be taken into account that, out of the 42 items, 18 are inversed (3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, 18, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 32, 35, 37, 38, 41, 42). In consequence, scores were inverted. According to converted scores, the higher the score, the better the classroom climate. Statistical analysis, other than Cronbach’s Alpha and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, included de t test for independent samples and factor analysis. Results Descriptive Analysis. Table 1 shows the five most positive items of the questionnaire prior to the transformation of the scores, and the five least positive items. The complete 214 Propósitos y Representaciones. Vol. 3, Nº 1 Julio B. AnAyA & Federico r. león list of the scores is in the table A1 of the Appendix ranged from high to low, together with the averages and standard deviations with which they came out from the analysis. It can be observed that on the top of the Likert scale (from 0 to 3) there were items such as “The professor frequently says that we should make an effort to achieve our goals”, “The professor of this class treats us all equally, with no preferences”, and “The professor is concerned about each and everyone’s learning”, while on the bottom there were items such as “While supervising the performance of the students, the professor dedicates more time to better students”, “I think that it’s hard to concentrate in this class because very frequently somebody gets up an goes from one place to another unnecessarily”, and “In this class almost nobody pays attention because a lot of time is wasted and it’s too noisy”. This suggests that, in the perception of the whole group of students, the global classroom climate is clearly more positive than negative. The total score of the classroom climate presented a normal distribution according to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (p = .607). The internal consistency coefficient for the sum of scores was α = .72 for non transformed scores. However, when they were inverted considering that some descriptions were negative as indicators of a good classroom climate (according to the ideology of the authors of the questionnaire), the coefficient rose to α =.87. Among the grant holders it reached .82 and, among regular students, .88. Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola 215 The Classroom ClimaTe aCCording To granT holders 18 (BeCarios 18) and regular sTudenTs from a PrivaTe universiTy in lima Table 1. Score average for the five most positive items of the classroom climate questionnaire and the five most negative ones, from high to low. Scores non transformed. Item Average The professor frequently says that we should make an effort to achieve our goals 2.21 The professor of this class treats us all equally, with no preferences 2.19 The professor is concerned about each and everyone’s learning 2.19 The professor constantly verifies through question that everybody has easily 2.17 understood the class The professor answers any question without considering if the student who 2.15 asked it is a good or a bad student The professor teaches without caring if we understand or not. 1.02 With this teacher the most important thing is to be among the best students 1.00 and not how much we learn In this class almost nobody pays attention because a lot of time is wasted .98 and it’s too noisy. I think that it’s hard to concentrate in this class because very frequently .93 somebody gets up an goes from one place to another unnecessarily While supervising the performance of the students, the professor dedicates .93 more time to better students Factor Analysis. In order to understand the internal structure of the questionnaire and to better interpret the results, two main components that, while rotated, respectively explain the 15.7% and the 14.2% of the variance, were extracted. The factorial loads for the items with higher loads in each factor are shown in table 2. Factor 1 seems to contain a motivational complex under the leadership of a professor who orientates and encourages cooperation in a way that a student can make efforts to accomplish the learning goals but without competing with their classmates. Factor 2 suggests a classroom climate dimension configured by a biased professor who supports the best students and gives them more attention against a professor who avoids encouraging competition between students in order not to undermine the learning of those who are less 216 Propósitos y Representaciones. Vol. 3, Nº 1