Does an Open Classroom Climate Predict Student Social and Emotional Well-Being? Findings from the School Culture 360 2.0 Survey

CRYSTAL SPRING, Johns Hopkins University
Andrea Ochoa, Johns Hopkins University

An open classroom climate that fosters student discussion and encourages productive conflict has been positively associated with civic knowledge and political efficacy. Less explored has been a potential relationship between open classroom climate (OCC) and student well-being. The School Culture 360TM 2.0 Survey, which contains validated measures of OCC as well as social and emotional competencies, provides an opportunity to parse this relationship. Data collection is currently underway from thousands of students in Grades 6-12 in hundreds of schools across the United States. Using this data, the proposed study seeks to understand the extent to which students’ social and emotional competencies (SEC) vary by school, the relationship between perceptions of OCC and SEC, and how this relationship varies by student demographic characteristics. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we will test the hypotheses that there will be sizable school-level variance in student SEC, and that perceptions of OCC will strongly and positively predict student SEC. Additionally, we hypothesize that the predictive effect of perceived OCC on student SEC will be the same across demographic groups. Findings from this study may shed new light on the connection between students’ exposure to open dialogue in schools and their social and emotional competencies, which are crucial components of well-being.

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 Presented in Session 155. Educational Institutions and Student Well-Being