A Quantitative Analysis on Students’ Attitudes Toward Learning and Classroom
Behavior as Indicators of Social-Emotional Learning Competence of Junior High
School Students
This quantitative study uses the Functional Attitude Theory and Social Learning
Theory as well as Social-Emotional Theory as the theoretical frameworks to analyze
students’ attitudes toward learning and their classroom behavior as indicators of
social-emotional learning competence of junior high school students from Kapalong
West District.
IV- Students’ attitude towards learning
According to Functional Attitude Theory (FAT), attitudes and beliefs can affect
a variety of psychological processes and how attitudes develop and change. It posits
that attitude can have a big impact when it comes to being sociable, useful or
utilitarian, associated with values, or reducing cognitive dissonance. As stated by
Snyder and Debono (1985), the personality of an individual could be used to predict
the purpose of the attitudes the person is carrying out. In order to forecast the
development of attitudes, FAT emphasizes the significance of comprehending the
underlying motivations and functions of the attitudes. Also, according to this view,
people hold certain attitudes because they are crucial to psychological health and
function (Carpenter, 2012).
Moreover, this theory would contribute to our understanding of how the attitudes
of the junior high school students’ has affected their motivation to learning more in
school and correlating it further to the said students’ social-emotional learning
competence. Thus, applying the Functional Attitude Theory to this study's analysis of
student attitudes toward learning can significantly improve our understanding of those
attitudes from a theoretical standpoint.
Similarly, this study adapts the Scale of Attitude Toward Learning (SAL) as
the questionnaire since the scale revolves around the impact of learning attitudes on
students' behaviors and how positive attitudes perspectives on any topic are
commonly proven to improve the drive of the students to learn and their enthusiasm in
the subject (Kara, 2009). The scale contains 30 Likert-type questions that assesses
affective, behavioral, and cognitive aspects of attitude towards learning and would
therefore help to quantify and assess students' attitudes toward learning.
Table 1.1. The Scale of Attitudes Toward Learning
References
Carpenter, C (2012). "Functional Attitude Theory". The SAGE Handbook of
Persuasion: Developments In Theory and Practice.
pp. 104–
119. doi:10.4135/9781452218410.n7. ISBN 9781412983136.
Kara, A. (2009). The Effect of a ‘Learning Theories’ Unit on Students’ Attitudes
Toward Learning. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 34(3).
http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2009v34n3.5
Snyder, M., & DeBono, K. G. (1985). Appeals to image and claims about quality:
Understanding the psychology of advertising. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 49, 586-597.
Questionnaire: https://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1357&context=ajte
IV- Classroom behavior
According to Bandura (1971), Social Learning Theory explains how people pick
up new behaviors through modeling, imitation, and observation. This theory states
that people can pick up new behaviors by imitating others and observing the results of
their actions. In general, the social learning theory highlights the significance of
positive behavior among students through the use of modeling, reinforcement, and
feedback (Bandura, 2001).
Moreover, this theory would contribute to our understanding of students’
classroom behavior as the theory suggests that modeling, imitation, and observation
affects how students act and behave in the classroom; which also implies that
educators may directly affect how their students behave.
On a similar note, this study uses the The Strengths and Difficulties
Questionnaire (SDQ) which is a frequently used behavioral screening instrument that
determines if children and adolescents between the ages of 2 and 17 have emotional
or behavioral issues. It was developed by Robert Goodman and his colleagues, which
was formulated to assess the youth, the parents, or the teachers (Goodman, Meltzer, &
Bailey, 1998). However, the questionnaire will be slightly altered to increase the
items' applicability to junior high school students' classroom behavior.
Table 2. Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (YR1- Youth self-report
measure)
References
Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review
of Psychology, 52(1), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.1
Goodman R, Meltzer H, Bailey V (1998) The Strengths and Difficulties
Questionnaire: A pilot study on the validity of the self-report version. European
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 7, 125-130.
Questionnaire:
https://depts.washington.edu/dbpeds/Screening%20Tools/Strengths_and_Difficul
ties_Questionnaire.pdf
DV- Social-Emotional Learning Competency
Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Competency refers to a person's capacity to
comprehending and controlling emotions, building and maintaining healthy
relationships, making ethical judgments, and planning and attaining goals. When
children and youth have high levels of SEL, they are shown to benefit academically
and in other areas of their lives (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger,
2011).
Social-Emotional Theory places an emphasis on the significance of social and
emotional variables in human development. According to the theory, social and
emotional intelligence are essential for a person to be able to interact with others,
build relationships, and succeed in academic and professional environments
(Eisenberg, Spinrad, Eggum, 2019). This theory would then largely contribute to this
study, since the study aims to analyze students’ attitudes toward learning and
classroom behavior as indicators of social-emotional learning competence of junior
high school students in Kapalong West District.
Moreover, the study utilizes The Panorama Social-Emotional Learning
Survey which is a scale that measures students’ competencies in terms of social,
emotional, and motivational skills that help them succeed at school and in life. The
scales are clustered into three categories: student competencies, student supports and
environment, and teacher skills and perspectives. The questions are applicable to
communities with students from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds as well as
all types of K–12 school settings; which also includes public and private schools. This
scale would help this study measure and quantify the dependent variable, which is the
Junior High Schools’ Social-Emotional Learning Competency (Panorama, n.d.).
Table 3. Panorama Social-Emotional Learning Survey
References
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL). (n.d.). What
is SEL? Retrieved from https://casel.org/what-is-sel/
Durlak, J. A., Weissberg, R. P., Dymnicki, A. B., Taylor, R. D., & Schellinger, K. B.
(2011). The impact of enhancing students' social and emotional learning: A
meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82(1),
405-432.
Eisenberg, N., Spinrad, T. L., & Eggum, N. D. (2019). Emotion-related
self-regulation and its relation to children's maladjustment. Annual Review of
Clinical Psychology, 15, 389-417.
“Panorama Social-Emotional Learning Survey” (n.d.) Topics and Questions for
Students, Teachers, and Staff