ABSTRACT

Individual differences in motivation, social engagement, and self-regulation help explain variation in academic outcomes. But less is known about how school context relates to these psychosocial factors (PSFs) and whether it moderates the relationships between PSFs and outcomes. We defined school context as the union of school characteristics (e.g., school size, poverty concentration) and school climate (students' perceptions of relationships with school personnel and school safety). We examined these relationships in a large sample of 6th–9th graders. We also examined how school context relates to measures of student PSFs, and whether it moderates the relationships between PSFs and academic outcomes. School poverty concentration was negatively related to students' perceptions of school safety, and to a lesser extent, perceptions of relationships with school personnel. Students in lower grades had lower perceptions of school climate. Neither the locale of the school nor the concentration of racial/ethnic minority students was related to climate. Higher school safety was positively related to higher motivation, self-regulation, and social engagement. PSF scores were predictive of educational outcomes in the expected directions (e.g., positively predicted grades and standardized test scores; negatively predicted suspension from school and absences). There was little evidence of moderation by school context on outcomes.

Conclusions

This study is among the first to examine the relationship between school context variables and PSFs, and whether they interact to explain academic outcomes. There were a number of interesting relationships between PSFs and school context variables, as well as between those variables and outcomes. However, the interactions were less substantial than the main effects, supporting the importance of PSFs across school contexts. Future research can further explore the nature of these relationships by building on these findings and addressing the limitations of this study.