Browsing by Subject "MCI-mittari"

Objectives. Positive classroom climate has direct effects on students’ school satisfaction and motivation to learn. Character strength interventions implemented in schools also have a connection with students’ school satisfaction and their enjoyment of school. The aim of this study was to translate a classroom climate questionnaire for finding out whether the students’ and teacher’s experience of the classroom climate dimensions were similar before the intervention and whether the character strength intervention affected the classroom climate dimensions from the perspective of the students and the teacher. In the study, a 10-lesson-long See the Good! -intervention was implemented to introduce students to character strengths and help them harness those strengths for everyday use. The structure of the intervention lessons is based on versatile See the Good! -material by Lotta Uusitalo and Kaisa Vuorinen. The classroom climate theory in this study is based on the five dimensions of classroom climate by Barry Fraser, Gary Anderson and Herbert Walberg (1982). Methods. The study was conducted as a mixed method intervention study, where quantitative data was obtained from the students of experimental group and control group using the MCI questionnaire and qualitative data by interviewing the teacher of the experimental group. The study contained two measurements, an initial measurement before the intervention and a final measurement after the intervention. Both measurements included the MCI questionnaires of the experimental group and control group and the teacher’s interview. 37 third grade students (experimental group N=19, control group N=18) and one teacher participated in the study. Quantitative data was collected using an anonymous electronic questionnaire and the data was analysed using the Mann-Whitney U-test of two independent samples. The reliability of the MCI questionnaire was examined using Cronbach’s alpha values. Qualitative data was collected with the teacher’s semi-structured thematic interview and analysed using data-driven content analysis. Considering the sample size of the study, the study does not aim for broadly generalizable results. Results. Experimental group’s and their teacher’s experiences on classroom climate dimensions before the intervention were somewhat similar and somewhat different. Both felt that the dimensions of satisfaction and competitiveness were present in the classroom climate and there were no strong signs of friction or difficulties. However, the teacher felt that the classroom climate includes cohesiveness but according to the students’ experience, there were not much cohesiveness in the classroom climate. The teacher found that the intervention had positively improved four of the five dimensions (cohesiveness, friction, satisfaction and difficulty). The teacher didn’t notice that the intervention had affected the dimension of competitiveness. According to the students’ experience, the intervention had a positive effect on two dimensions (cohesiveness and friction), of which the effect on cohesiveness was statistically significant. The intervention had not statistically significantly affected other dimensions. The intervention improved the dimension of cohesiveness according to both the students’ and the teacher’s experience.