SCHOOL CLIMATE AS A PREDICTOR OF STUDENTS’ SELF-AWARENESS: A GENDER-BASED ANALYSIS

Abstract

The research study was carried out to ascertain the relationship between school climate and students’ self-awareness at public secondary schools of district Vehari. A quantitative research approach and a correlational research design were employed. The target population comprised 19260 students studying in grades 9 & 10 from 212 high schools of district Vehari. Sampling was carried out through a simple random sampling technique and the final valid sample remained at 260 students. For data collection, the School Climate Student Questionnaire (SCSQ) has 34 items (Pashiardis, 2008), and the social-emotional Competence Questionnaire (SECQ) (CASEL, 2008 & Zhou, 2012) was adopted. Only 08 items related to self-awareness skills were used to collect data. Data was analyzed through SPSS version 25. Pearson’s correlation coefficient, independent samples t-test, linear regression, and multiple regression were applied. It was concluded that the overall level of students’ self-awareness was low. Moreover, the level of school climate was better. There was a strong and significant relationship between school climate and students' self-awareness. The R-square value (.136) shows that school climate positively impacts 13.6% of the variance in students’ self-awareness at public secondary schools. Moreover, the level of students’ self-awareness of female students was better than male students. It was suggested that school administrators should implement strategies to provide such a school environment that is supportive of students in developing self-awareness.