Perceived school climate and self-esteem : a comparison of boarding school and non-boarding school students

Abstract

This study aims at determining the relationship between facets of school climate and self-esteem among students of boarding and non-boarding schools in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. The study was conducted among 303 students from two boarding and two non-boarding schools in Banda Aceh. The researcher adopted a quantitative method of conducting the study and administered one questionnaire that contains two scales, namely the Perceived School Climate Scaledeveloped by Way et al. (2007) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory developed by Yueming Jia et al. (2009) among the participants for collecting data. The Perceived School Climate Scale consisted of 12 items on three facets of school climate such as Teacher Support, Peer Support and Autonomy, and School rule. On the other hand, the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Inventory included 7 items for participants to self-evaluate their self-esteem. The data collected from the participants were analysed by employing descriptive statistics, Pearson Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis. The results indicate that the non-boarding school students perceived that their school environments possessed the highest level of fair and consistent school rule. On the contrary, boarding school students perceived the highest level of agreement with peer support and autonomy. The results of the study also showed that there is a significant relationship between the two facets of school climate (Teacher Support and School Rule) and boarding school students’ self-esteem. On the other hand, only School Rule has a significant relationship with non-boarding school students’ self-esteem. Furthermore, it was found that the school rule was one of the three facets of school climate that predicted non-boarding school students’ self-esteem while none of the three facets could predict boarding school students’ self-esteem. In other words, irrespective of whether the students are staying in the school residences or at home, some facets of the school climate influenced their self-esteem.