The “What Is Happening in This Class” Questionnaire: A Qualitative Examination in Elementary Classrooms

ABSTRACT

The classroom psychosocial climate (CPSC) is a multidimensional construct, the indicators of which are being operationalized through the subscales of CPSC measuring instruments, such as the What Is Happening in This Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire. As opposed to studies with secondary students, elementary student studies have produced inconsistent results in terms of the factorial structure of such instruments. The purpose of the present study was to thoroughly examine the construct of the elementary CPSC. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six teachers and 24 students from Greek elementary classrooms and analyzed through qualitative content analysis. The findings generally supported the presence of the CPSC indicators in this context and indicated potential differentiations in terms of content and conceptual independence for at least four of them.

KEYWORDS:

• Classroom climate
• elementary classrooms
• elementary students
• elementary teachers
• qualitative methodology

Notes

1. Greek university education departments offer bachelor’s degrees in elementary education, in 4-year study programs that include basic teaching methodology courses, courses in psychology, sociology, and history of education, specialized teaching courses for different disciplines (mathematics, language, physics, etc.), research methodology courses, and so on. In addition, a supervised teaching practicum is an integral part of the teaching training programs, and some universities also endorse a bachelor thesis either as optional or compulsory component of their programs (e.g., Democritus University of Thrace, 2014; National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 2014).

2. The main difference between qualitative and quantitative content analysis is that in quantitative content analysis, the data are allocated in predefined categories, which are not derived from the data per se, and allocation is performed automatically through algorithmic procedures. On the other hand, in qualitative content analysis, data are categorized into categories derived, at least partially, from the data, and categorization requires a thorough study of the data without involving any algorithmic procedures (Morgan, 1993).

3. Critical incidents are incidents and behaviors considered defining for a subscale indicator (Flanagan, 1954; Thorndike, 2005).