Managing the Boss

Learning Environment, Meaningfulness of Schoolwork and on-Task-Orientation among Norwegian 9th Grade Students

The main aim of this study was to explore how learning environment dimensions are related to on-task-orientation, and how these relations are mediated by students' perceptions of the meaningfulness of schoolwork. The study was conducted as a survey among a representative sample of 2006 Norwegian 9th graders. Results showed that a majority of the students reported to be on-task-oriented during school lessons, however, between 10 and 20% reported to have problems with their on-task-orientation. At the same time, slightly more than half of the students reported their schoolwork to be useful, whereas one in five students reported their schoolwork to be rather uninteresting.

On-task-orientation was also found to be related to students' perceptions of several learning environment dimensions, primarily to students' perceptions of teacher support (academic and emotional), the possibility for influencing ones' schoolwork and the meaningfulness of schoolwork. Associations of perceptions of teachers' support and student influence with on-task-orientation were partly mediated via perceptions of the meaningfulness of schoolwork. Finally, results indicate that there is likely to be considerable room for improvement, within Norwegian schools at least, in the areas of teachers' emotional support of students, students' influence on schoolwork and the meaningfulness of school subjects.

For practising school psychologists results seem to imply an increased focus on the learning environment, and particularly on the importance of the social emotional dimensions for students' motivation and on-task-orientation. In order to bring about changes in the learning environment, counselling teachers on how to create a supportive learning environment with student influence could be one important way of approaching this field.