Class climate as perceived and desired by teachers in different stages of professional development

Classroom climate represents processes within the class including personal development of individuals, their characteristics, interpersonal relationships and the impact of school organization. Classroom climate has a positive influence on learning and activity in the classroom, so it is important to create it deliberately and systematically. A special responsibility in developing and promoting classroom climate rests with class teachers, since they are the ones who spend most of their time with their students. First of all, we wanted to find out what kind of classroom climate is perceived by teachers (the actual climate) and what kind of it they would want (the preferred climate), and also if there is any discrepancy between the two. We were also interested in whether there are differences in the perception of the actual and the preferred classroom climate among teachers who are at different stages of their professional development. In the minor part of our research we examined how classroom climate in the same class is assessed by the teachers and students, as well as by external observers. In the majority of the research, 100 first triennium teachers who taught at 16 elementary schools throughout Slovenia were included. The minor part of the research was carried out with third grade students, their teacher and an external observer. In order to assess the actual and the preferred classroom climate, all participants filled in a questionnaire ‘Classroom environment’. The results analysis showed that classroom teachers perceive the classroom climate as "extremely positive", wanting it to be a little better than the existing one at the same time. With the teachers we did not observe any differences between the perception of the existing or the preferred classroom climate and the stages of their professional development. The results of the minor part of the research showed that the classroom climate was perceived in a slightly different way by the teacher, the students and the external observer. It was assessed most favourably by the teacher, then by the external observer, while the students were the toughest critics of it despite their opinion of the classroom climate being relatively high