PSYCHO-SOCIAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT IN ELEMENTRAY CLASSROOMS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH STUDENTS’ ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT

Abstract

Teaching learning process, being complex, social, dynamic and
interactive in its nature, is prone to be affected by the psycho-social
learning environment present in the classrooms. This study was
conducted to explore the prevailing psycho-social learning environment
and its relationship with students’ academic achievement at elementary
level in District Attock. The population consisted of all the elementary
teachers of Mathematics for 7th Graders of public schools in all six sub
districts of District Attock. Three sub districts (Jund, Hassan Abdal, and
Pindi Gheb) were selected through cluster sampling technique. Two
hundred and twelve mathematics elementary teachers were included in
the sample. For observation, purposive sample was further delimited to
25% of the sample of the study. Thus, classrooms of 53 teachers were
observed. An observation sheet based on three scales of ‘What Is
Happening in the Class?’(WIHIC) questionnaire was used for data
collection, while academic achievement of 7th graders was assessed
through the marks of quarterly exams. Collected data were analyzed
through SPSS by mean score while Pearson “r” was used to find the
relationship between psychosocial environment and academic
achievement and standardized regression weights “β” was also applied
to find the effect of psychosocial environment on academic achievement.
The findings revealed that most of the elementary classrooms were
psychosocially desirable and were found to be Task oriented and
Cooperative while Involvement was also found significant at elementary
level. Positive and significant relationship between psychosocial
learning environment and academic achievement was also found.