Second language learners' perceptions of school climate and educational satisfaction and their relationships to academic achievement and the mediational effects of gender.

Abstract

The purposes of this study were (1) to compare perceptions of school climate measured by 10 subscales of the NASSP School Climate Survey and student satisfaction measured by 8 subscales of the Student Satisfaction Survey of language-minority students to those of non-language-minority students and (2) to investigate whether students' perceptions of school climate, student satisfaction, gender, or language group affected students' academic achievement. The sample population included ninth-grade students at Nogales High School. Students were classified as second-language learners according to the district's Identification, Assessment, and Program Placement flow chart. The study used four independent predictors of reading and math achievement: language group, gender, school climate, and student satisfaction. A multiple regression analysis tested relationships between the predicated variable and independent predictors. The Pearson product-moment correlation determined the relationship between student satisfaction and perception of school climate. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) distinguished whether satisfaction and perceptions of school climate were different for second-language learners and non-second-language learners and whether there was a difference in satisfaction and perceptions of school climate by gender among second-language learners and non-second-language learners. The findings of this study indicated a moderate correlation between student satisfaction and perceptions of school climate. Statistically significant differences were found by language group for student satisfaction and for satisfaction by gender among non-second-language learners. No statistically significant differences were found by language group for school climate, for gender among second-language learners for satisfaction or school climate, or between perceptions of school climate for boys and girls among non-second-language learners. The parameter estimates showed that gender, school climate, and language group were significant independent predictors of reading achievement, while student satisfaction was not. Language group was the only significant independent predictor of mathematics achievement.