An analysis on the qualities of school life and classroom engagement levels of students

Abstract

This research explored the relationship between the pre-service teachers’ quality of university life and students’ engagement with classroom activities. The sample of the study consisted of 789 students enrolling teacher education programmes in 7 different Turkish state universities in 7 different regions in Turkey. To investigate student level of engagement with classroom activities, the Student Classroom Engagement Scale (SCES) developed by Nayir (2015) was used. To explore students’ Quality of School life, scale of Quality of School life developed by Yilmaz and Çokluk-Bökeoğlu (2006) was used. Canonic correlation analysis was run through Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 21 programme by writing syntax to analyse data. It was found that there was a correlation between the quality of the school life of the students participating in the research, and their classroom engagement levels. It was found that the sub-dimensions of satisfaction with faculty, satisfaction with instructors and class atmosphere, and satisfaction with relations to student, which are available in the school life data set of the students, had a positive correlation with the sub-dimensions of rebellion engagement and ritual engagement available in the classroom engagement data set; whereas the sub-dimension of authentic engagement had a negative correlation.

Keywords: canonic correlation analysis; qualities of school life; student classroom engagement