A Longitudinal Study of Young Adolescents’ Perceptions of the Middle Grades Instructional Climate Free

While young adolescents experience a variety of emotional and physical changes during their middle school years, development in their cognitive capacities is equally monumental (Stickle, 2007). Historically, however, school-based efforts to reform the middle school have centered on structural changes, such as teaming, that support young adolescents affective development, rather than on the instructional reforms needed to address young adolescents’ increasingly complex cognitive abilities (Jackson & Davis, 2000). Therefore, at a time when young adolescents experience significant changes in their cognitive development (Rice, 1999; Stickle, 2007), they often find themselves in middle grades classrooms that do not address their changing academic needs (Eccles & Midgley, 1989). The lack of current research literature at the middle level, particularly in terms of instructional climate, suggests that studies are needed to understand young adolescents’ middle school experiences. Furthermore, the current high stakes testing context, which is associated with increases in teacher-directed traditional instructional practices, also necessitates an inquiry into the impact this may be having on students’ perceptions of the middle grades instructional climate (Houston, 2007).

In light of the aforementioned concerns, the purpose of this research is to investigate young adolescents' perceptions of the middle grades instructional climate, with particular focus on young adolescents’ initial perceptions and how they change across the middle grades years. Students’ perceptions, while not necessarily accurate interpretations of reality, do contribute to their overall middle school outcomes (Loukas & Murphy, 2007), therefore, understanding their perspectives on the instructional climate is essential. The researchers hope this investigation will provide middle school educators with valuable insight as to how students’ are experiencing the instructional climate, as well as the degree of implementation of developmentally appropriate practices at the middle level.

While young adolescents possess a unique set of learning needs during the middle grades years, there is limited research in this field, and the literature is typically theoretical and prescriptive in nature. The few research studies of instructional climates in the middle grades are relatively dated, and typically occurred in contexts that varied by grade level configuration (6-8 vs. 7-9) and philosophical underpinning (junior high vs. middle school).

Early adolescence is characterized by rapid change in a variety of domains including physical, emotional, and cognitive growth (Rice, 1999). According to Piaget’s cognitive development theory, most young adolescents are in the formal operational stage of cognitive growth (Schunk, 2000). As a result, young adolescents are beginning to think in a more logical and abstract manner, engage in problem solving, draw inferences and conclusions, and project themselves into the future (Rice, 1999). Additionally, early adolescence is also characterized by the development of a sense of idealism, and as a result, young adolescents begin to think about the future, about society as a whole, and about social injustices (Rice, 1999). Creativity flourishes during this developmental period, but due to peer and societal pressures, young adolescents typically exhibit less creative behaviors in classrooms (Rice, 1999).

An effective instructional climate for young adolescents incorporates a standards-based curriculum that is relevant, rigorous, and related to the varied interests of young adolescents (Jackson & Davis, 2000), and also acknowledges and attends to students’ diverse learning needs through developmentally appropriate instructional and management techniques (Hester, Gable, & Manning, 2003). A number of instructional strategies are deemed particularly developmentally appropriate for young adolescents including cooperative learning, service learning, clear grading standards, challenging assignments, and differentiated instructional methods (Eccles, Midgley, Wigfield, Miller-Buchanan, Reuman, & Flanagan, 1993; Jackson & Davis, 2000).

Unfortunately, the research paints a fairly bleak picture of the implementation of these practices. Typically, the literature suggests that young adolescents experience developmentally inappropriate environmental contexts that are formal, impersonal, and compartmentalized (Midgley & Edelin, 1998; Simmons & Blyth, 1987). In addition, middle school students describe having less autonomy, fewer opportunities for input, and fewer cooperative group interactions than elementary students (Feldlaufer, Midgley, & Eccles, 1988; Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1993). Research also suggests that young adolescents perceive the environment as teacher-centered with diluted peer relationships, increased focus on grades, competition and social comparison, and collaboration based on task-orientation versus achievement-orientation (Feldlaufer et al., 1988; Oldfather & McLaughlin,1993; Roeser, Eccles, & Sameroff, 2000).

Because young adolescents are becoming more knowledgeable, skillful, and competent, they desire more control over their lives (Rice, 1999). Therefore, the instructional climate at the middle level should provide young adolescents with opportunities to make choices and decisions about what they are learning, how they are learning it (Midgley & Feldlaufer, 1987) and how the classroom is managed (Eccles, Midgley, Wigfield, Miller-Buchanan, Reuman, & Flanagan, 1993). The research suggests that students and teachers perceived young adolescents as having fewer actual decision-making opportunities in middle school (Midgley & Feldlaufer, 1987). These changes may be the result of middle grades teachers who may trust students less and focus more on student control than their elementary counterparts (Midgley, Feldlaufer & Eccles; 1988).

Because young adolescents’ are in the midst of an intense period of cognitive, social, and emotional growth, they have specific needs in terms of the instructional climate. One essential element is positive student-teacher relationships due to their potentially powerful influences on students’ attitudes, motivational levels, and selfperceptions (Davis, Davis, Smith, & Capa, 2003; Galbo, 1989; Murdock, 1999; Murdock & Miller, 2003). Negative shifts in studentteacher relationships are reported across the transition to middle school and may be the manifestation of a number of issues, including differences in methods of instruction, number of students involved in lessons, duration of time spent with the teacher, and student perceptions of less caring, supportive teachers (Midgley et al. 1988; Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1993). Perceptions of unsupportive teachers may negatively impact student effort and compliance with school norms (Murdock, 1999). Conversely, positive student-teacher relationships are associated with enhanced motivation levels, positive perceptions of the classroom climate and higher grades (Davis et al., 2003).

Guiding this research project is the stage-environment fit theory, which emphasizes the importance of matching the needs of young adolescents with their learning environment (Eccles & Midgley, 1989). Given this theoretical perspective, a prediction may be made that if the instructional climates during the middle grades years do not fit with the instructional needs of young adolescents, then students’ motivation, interest, performance, and behavior will be negatively affected (Eccles et al., 1993). Typical stage-environment fit mismatches experienced by young adolescents include increases in teacher control, discipline, whole task organization, ability grouping, public grading, and grading standards and decreases in positive personal relationships, decisionmaking opportunities, teachers self-efficacy, challenging assignments, and student teacher relationships (Eccles et al., 1993). For the purposes of this study, students’ perceptions of the classroom instructional climate may indicate potential stage-environment fit mismatches.

This study was conducted at Windsor Middle School and its two elementary feeder schools, Howard and Sixth Street (pseudonyms). All schools are located in a bedroom community between a major metropolitan city and a smaller university community. Windsor Middle School adheres to several structural components of the middle school concept, including teaming, common planning time, and studentteacher advisory meetings (Jackson & Davis, 2000). The sixth grade teams were composed of 3 or 4 core teachers. In the 7 period school day, students attended content courses and connections classes. An extensive transition program, designed by the guidance counselor at Windsor Middle School, was used to facilitate the move from elementary to middle school.

Through purposive convenience sampling in the spring of 2003, fifth grade students from the two primary elementary feeder schools for Windsor Middle School were invited to participate in a transition study. Participation was voluntary, and students received a small incentive for their involvement. In all, 78 adolescents (32 males, 46 females) consented to participate, and their ethnicity was reflective of the population of Windsor County (Table 1). All participants were fifth graders at the onset of their involvement in this study, however they experienced different organizational structures during their final year of elementary school. For participants from Sixth Street, their fifth grade experience occurred in a self-contained organizational structure, while participants’ from Howard Elementary experienced fifth grade in a departmentalized structure. Despite these different experiences, the students did not perceive their overall instructional climate as significantly different prior to or immediately after the transition to middle school (Table 2) (Parker & Neuharth-Pritchett, 2006). All participants transitioned into Windsor Middle School after fifth grade.

Because the purpose of this study is to investigate students’ perceptions of the classroom instructional climate prior to and during their middle school experiences, the Modified Classroom Climate Instrument was used. Created in 1982 (Fraser) the Modified Classroom Climate Instrument contains 25 items that represent five domain of the instructional climate: personalization, participation, independence, investigation, and differentiation. Responses to each of the 25 questions are made on a 1-5 scale (almost never, seldom, sometimes, often, and very often). Typical statements representative of each subscale include the following (Fraser, 1982):

• a)

  Personalization: The teacher talks with each student.

• b)

  Participation: Students ideas and suggestions are used during class discussions.

• c)

  Independence: Students choose their partners for group work

• d)

  Investigation: Students find out the answers to questions from textbooks rather than from experiments or “real-life” activities.

• e)

  Differentiation: Different students do different work.

Internal consistencies for the Modified Classroom Climate Inventory are reported between .69 and .85. Reliability indices on the subscales from the Modified Classroom Climate measure with the current sample ranged from 0.47 to 0.64

It should be noted that while this is named as a classroom climate inventory, the subscales provide valuable information on students’ perceptions of the instructional climate in middle grades classrooms. Because the previously reviewed literature highlights the important role of student-teacher relationships, decision-making opportunities, and growing independence in developmentally appropriate middle grades classrooms (Davis, Davis, Smith, & Capa, 2003; Jackson & Davis, 2000), the five subscales of the Modified Classroom Climate Inventory are excellent indicators for measuring students’ perceptions of these attributes. Further, the instrument is appropriate for use with this sample given its simple structure and readability.

A repeated measures design allowed for the examination of differences over multiple data collection points across the same constructs beginning in May of students’ fifth grade year, and including October (sixth grade), May (sixth grade), and October (seventh grade) for the 5 subscales on the Modified Classroom Climate Inventory. This design was chosen because of the developmental appropriateness of the measure in both its readability and ease of administration. While there may be a concern about a threat to internal validity because of the repeated use of the measure, we believe that the time between assessments and the intentional change in focus on which teacher (e.g., between fifth grade and sixth) controls somewhat for this threat to validity. There is only one form of the instrument so we could not control for testing influences by use of an alternate form. In our monitoring of adolescents' behavior during the assessment no questions were raised about this measurement tool.

Data were collected from participants beginning in May of their fifth grade year using the Modified Classroom Climate Inventory. Prior to distributing the inventory, the participants were reminded that there were no wrong answers, that their honesty was important, and that their responses were confidential. As the students completed their responses to the surveys independently, the researcher monitored their progress and double-checked their scoring forms to ensure completion. The entire data collection process was completed in less than 30 minutes.

The process was repeated in October and May of their sixth and seventh grade years beginning in 2003. In May 2004, a subsequent wave of fifth graders was added to the study, and data were also collected from these participants in October and May of their fifth, sixth, and seventh grade years. Comparisons of these two groups (2003 and 2004) revealed no significant differences between the groups in terms of race (x²(4)= 2.67; p=.61) or gender (x²(1)=3.28; p. 0.07), and the year cohorts did not differ from one another on their overall perceptions of classroom instructional climate at fifth grade (Parker & Neuharth-Pritchett, 2006).As a result, the data from both cohorts were collapsed to form the current sample.

All repeated measures analyses were examined for time and interaction effects by gender. No interaction effects or main effects were found for gender. Therefore, only time effects and effect sizes are reported (Table 5). One effect size, independence, is considered to be educationally meaningful in conjunction with Cohen’s guidelines for the use of effect size (a threshold of .20 is considered meaningful). Table 3 displays the means and standard deviations for the analysis. Table 4 displays the results of repeated measures and effect size increases for the fifth to sixth grade transition. Table 5 displays the results of the repeated measures and effect size calculations for fifth grade to seventh grade time period.

On the personalization subscale, the data indicate an initial slight increase as adolescents made the transition from elementary to middle school (X_{spring fifth}=3.63, X_{fall sixth}=3.70). Toward the end of the sixth grade year this number fell to a mean rating that was below that of the elementary school rating (X_{spring sixth}=3.51). While there was no significant time effect over the three-year period, the mean ratings of the total group are on the ‘often’ side of the rating continuum indicating that the teachers engage adolescents and develop relationships with them. A similar pattern emerged in terms of the participation subscale. While an overall consistent mean rating of ‘often’ was also maintained, students did indicate a slight increase and then decrease across the transition into middle school (X_{spring fifth}=3.54, X_{fall sixth}=3.66, X_{spring sixth}=3.55, X_{fall seventh}=3.55). The “often” ratings on personalization and participation at both the elementary and middle level suggest that teachers in both settings created a classroom environment where adolescents’ voices could be heard and that there was active learning occurring in the classroom.

In the independence subscale, the seldom rating was selected among these participants in both elementary (X_{spring fifth}=2.22) and middle school, X_{fall sixth}=2.26, X_{spring sixth}=2.55, X_{fall seventh}=2.47), however a significant time effect was found from fifth to seventh grade (F=6.10, p=0, η=0.20). It should be noted that even with the significant time effect, independence ratings for young adolescents remained in the ‘seldom’ range. The data suggests that while opportunities for independence increased as students progressed through their first year of middle school, students still perceived these as not occurring with great frequency. Similarly ‘seldom’ mean scores for differentiation of activities were also reported (X_{spring fifth}=2.62, X_{fall sixth}=2 .39, X_{spring sixth}=2.44, X_{fall seventh}=2.41). No effects were found over time for the differentiation of activities in the elementary and middle school classrooms. One might hypothesize that activities at either level were not specific to the adolescents’ academic or interest areas.

Last, young adolescents in this study indicated that there were ‘sometimes’ opportunities for investigation in both the elementary school and middle school classroom (X_{spring fifth}=2.95, X_{fall sixth}=3.24, X_{spring sixth}=3.12, X_{fall seventh}=3.09). There were no overall time effects for investigation. The slight increase in the reported mean scores from fifth to sixth grade may be a reflection of a renewed emphasis on science and social studies, content areas that lend themselves to investigative activities. In this particular school district, fifth grade reading and math scores on standardized tests were used for grade promotion. As a result, science and social studies, subjects that lend themselves to investigative opportunities were pushed to the backburner of the curriculum.

Given the initial analyses of the subscales of the Modified Classroom Climate Inventory, students appear to have mixed perceptions of the instructional climate in their middle grades experience in terms of personalization, participation, independence, investigation, and differentiation. The students “often” perceived the classroom as being personalized. This may suggest that teachers across their middle school experience made an effort to develop positive personal relationships. Because positive student-teacher relationships are potentially powerful influences on motivation, academic selfconcept and achievement (Davis, Davis, Smith, & Capa, 2003; Eccles et al., 1993; Murdock, 2003), this finding is of critical importance for the participants in this study. Participation was also perceived as occurring often in both elementary and middle school settings, perhaps suggesting that students felt actively involved in their classroom environments. An active learning environment is certainly more conducive to the developmental needs of young adolescents than a passive, teacher-directed environment (Eccles et al., 1993).

On the other hand, students noted that they “sometimes” have opportunities for investigation but a sense of independence and differentiated instruction were “seldom” experienced by young adolescents in this study. Young adolescents increasingly complex cognitive abilities, their desire for creativity and decision making opportunities, and their growing awareness of social and academic comparisons necessitate the use of these instructional practices in the middle school environment (Feldlaufer et al., 1998, Oldfather, & McLaughlin, 1993; Rice, 1999. Given that these are key recommendations of instructional techniques in Turning Points 2000, it is troubling that students perceive these learning experiences as occurring so infrequently (Jackson & Davis, 2000).

Contrary to the literature (Feldlaufer et al., 1988; Oldfather & McLaughlin, 1993), there are few significant difference between students’ elementary and middle school perceptions of the classroom environment. These young adolescents seem to perceive the middle school instructional environment much like they did the elementary school classroom environment. Because much of the literature suggests negative changes in students’ perceptions of the middle school environment, these findings may be interpreted positively. On the other hand, the students’ elementary ratings in this sample were not particularly positive or reflective of developmentally appropriate instructional practices. This may be due to a number of factors. Perhaps in an effort to prepare students for the transition, fifth grade teachers altered their practices to mimic those of the middle school in the study. Since fifth and sixth grade teachers did have opportunities to communicate expectations in small group meetings as a part of the transition program, this may explain some of the consistencies across the grade levels. Also, the curriculum used by the district may have controlled, to an extent, the instructional practices implemented by teachers, thus resulting in a consistency across grade levels. Finally, district and school philosophies of instruction may further influence the consistencies seen across the grade levels in this study. While limited significant differentials between elementary and middle school instructional practices may be positive, the students’ overall mean scores of their instructional environment suggest that there is room for improving the developmentally appropriate nature of instruction at all grade levels. Ultimately, the preliminary findings support the previous research: students’ instructional climate perceptions suggest that instructional changes needed to positively influence students’ perceptions of the classroom instructional climate are not consistently used in young adolescents’ classrooms (Jackson & Davis, 2000).

The implications of this work for educators, university professors, administrators, and counselors are numerous. First and foremost, this research updates the middle school classroom instruction literature, and provides a snapshot of students’ perceptions of the instructional climate. This study informs the design of larger, more complex studies of middle school instructional practices. At the school level, trends noted in this research may have implications for staff development opportunities that focus on instructional practices, particularly in terms of how to provide students with opportunities for independent investigations and differentiated learning experiences in the classroom. Understanding how students perceive the shifts in instruction, or lack thereof, is especially important given the lasting effects these perceptions may have on young adolescents’ academic competence, motivation, and social development (Eccles et al., 1993; Loukas & Murphy, 2007).

There are a number of limitations to this work that must be considered when reviewing this research. First, the sample size of this study (78) was greatly influenced by student transience in this particular school and district. Initially, there were over 120 students in this study; however, over the course of three years, the sample size decreased to 78 because of student mobility in and out of the community. While this small sample size limits the generalizability of these findings, it may certainly serve as guiding work for the development of larger studies. We report the effect size for the reader because estimates of the effect size are not influenced by the sample size.

A second limitation involves the study design, which does not have a control group. Because of the tenuous nature of the transition and the potentially negative long term effects for students who transition poorly, it was determined in conjunction with school administrators that denying a control group access to the transition program and supporting middle school structures may have caused lasting potential harm. As a result, no control group was used in this study. The goal of the project was to understand the transition experiences of a group of young adolescents in a specific context. Second, students were asked to complete the Modified Classroom Climate Inventory as part of a larger study. This required them to answer many questions from multiple surveys with different formats on four separate occasions. As a result, the length, timing and history associated with completing the Modified Classroom Climate Inventory may have influenced these findings.

Given the literature gaps, findings of the present study, and noted limitations, future research is needed on young adolescents’ perceptions of the classroom instructional environment. Initial recommendations would include designing studies that involve larger and more diverse samples of young adolescents. Additionally, given the disconnect between implementation of instructional reforms and structural reforms recommended in Turning Points 2000 (Jackson & Davis, 2000), investigations are needed regarding the contextual factors in schools that allow for the implementation of successful reform both in terms of instructional environment and structural changes. Ultimately, designing research studies to understand the instructional climate of middle schools is the first step needed in successful implementation of educational reforms.