ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOSOCIAL ENVIRONMENTS IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION CLASSES AND STUDENTS' ATTITUDE TOWARD CHRISTIANITY

Abstract

Over the past thirty years, independent lines of research in the fields of classroom environment and student attitudes toward Christianity have been conducted. This research brought these two fields together by investigating the relationship between student perceptions of religion classroom environment and their attitudes toward Christianity. A Personal Form of the Catholic School Classroom Environment Questionnaire, which assesses seven classroom environment dimensions and four Attitude to Christianity scales, were administered to a sample of 1,317 student in Australian Catholic secondary school. Simple, multiple, and canonical correlation analyses revealed statistically significant relationships between dimensions of the classroom environment and the four attitude to Christianity measures. This study provided evidence that positive classroom environments enhance student's attitudes toward Christianity.