RELATIONSHIP OF CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT WITH ANXIETY AND ATTITUDE OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS TOWARDS THE LEARNING OF ENGLISH

Abstract

The study was conducted to investigate whether there was relationship of classroom learning environment with anxiety and attitude of secondary school students, gender differences and location-wise differences in Pakistani context. Data were collected from 720 secondary school students in 06 districts of the Punjab Province. Three questionnaires were used, one for learning environment, second for measuring English language anxiety and third for measuring students attitude towards English language. After the instruments were found to be reliable and valid, Data were analyzed statistically. Mean score of each item of the three questionnaires was calculated to find central tendency of responses. Gender differences and location-wise differences were analyzed by using t-test and ANOVA was calculated to find out mean differences on classroom learning environment, foreign language anxiety and attitude towards English among six districts. Pearson Correlation was calculated to find out relationship between learning environment and foreign language anxiety, learning environment and attitude towards English and then between foreign language anxiety and attitude scale. Analysis showed that significant differences were found between male and female students on classroom learning environment, foreign language anxiety and attitude towards English. It further concluded that female students were more favorable on classroom learning environment, less anxious than males in English class and had more positive attitude towards the learning of English. Significant differences were found between rural and urban students on all dimensions of classroom learning environment except Equity on which there was found no difference. Urban students were found to be iiimore favorable on classroom learning environment, lesson anxious than rural in English and had more positive attitude towards the learning of English than the rural students. ANOVA results concluded that there was significant difference on mean score among the districts on the three questionnaires. In order to examine the specific differences among districts, post-hoc multiple comparison test (Tukey’s HSD) was performed. Significant negative correlation was found between classroom learning environment and foreign language classroom anxiety, and significant positive correlation was found between classroom learning environment and attitude towards the learning of English. Relationship between foreign language classroom anxiety and attitude towards the learning of English was found to be significantly negative.