Sun-Geun Baek

The Relationship between Students' Perceptions of Classroom Environment and Their Academic Achievement in Korea.

The classroom has long been recognized as a critical milieu for students ’ educational achievement. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between students ’ perceptions of classroom environment and their academic achievement in Korea. For this study, the Classroom Environment Scale (CES), developed by Moos and Trickett (1987), was revised and translated into Korean. The Korean Classroom Environment Scale (KCES), consisting of nine subscales, was used to measure the psychosocial characteristics of the classroom environment. The data was collected from May to June 2001 from a sample of 1,012 students in 10th and 11th grades at the same school district in Seoul, Korea. The results of ANOVA analysis of the data revealed that there were statistically significant differences in classroom environments according to students ’ school and classroom organizations. Additionally, the results of Pearson ’s simple correlation coefficient analysis showed that the seven subscales in the KCES (i.e., involvement, affiliation, competition, task orientation, order and organization, rule clarity, and teacher control) had a significant correlation with students ’ academic achievement. Furthermore, the results of multiple regression analysis revealed that the multiple correlation (R) between the KCES 9 subscales and students ’ academic achievement was 0.27. Based on these results, it was claimed that classroom environment was a good predictor of students ’ academic achievement.

The Effect of Dynamic Assessment Based Instruction on Children's Learning

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that dynamic assessment based instruction increases children’s learning by using a quasi-experimental research design in Korea. In this study, dynamic assessment is defined as a measurement method of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) as well as the qualitative and quantitative diagnostic information for individual children. In addition, dynamic assessment based instruction is defined as a teaching method using the diagnostic information types in order to increase children’s learning. In this study, 59 children between the ages of 4 and 5 participated. Three types of number concept achievement tests (pre-test, parallel test, and post-test) for each age group were developed and the content validity, face validity, and split-half reliability were examined. After conducting the pre-test, the children of each age group were divided into an experimental group and a control group. Dynamic assessment based instruction regarding number concepts was undertaken only with the experimental group for 4 weeks. Both groups took a post-test after completing the 4 weeks of classes. The ANCOVA technique wa ls used for data analysis. The result of this study shows that dynamic assessment based instruction has a significant effect on children’s learning of number concepts (in the case of 4-year-old children, F = 12.34, p<0.01; 5-year-old children, F = 20.03, P<0.01). Therefore, dynamic assessment based instruction should be used widely for children’s cognitive learning.

Multilevel Analysis of the Effects of Student and Course Characteristics on Satisfaction in Undergraduate Liberal Arts Courses

The purpose of this study is to analyze the effects of student and course characteristics on student satisfaction in courses by using a two-level hierarchical linear model (HLM). Based on literature reviews, 13 research variables (1 student gender, 2 student academic year, 3 student major, 4 student reason for taking the course, 5 student level of course participation, 6 student expected grade, 7 student achieved grade, 8 faculty gender, 9 faculty age, 10 faculty status, 11 academic field of the course, 12 class size, and 13 course type) were selected and specified as fixed effects in the analysis model. Data were 57,216 ratings of 1,481 undergraduate liberal arts courses at Seoul National University in 2006. The result of unconditional model analysis revealed that student characteristics’ effects on student satisfaction in courses (within-course effects, 88.1%) were much larger than course characteristics’ effects (between-courses effects, 11.9%). The result of conditional model analysis specifying student and course level predictors revealed that those 12 research variables, with the exception of student gender, had statistically significant effects on student satisfaction in courses. The explained variance was 22.0% in student level, 65.8% in course level, and 27.2% of the total variance.