EXPLORING THE MODERATING EFFECT OF THE FIELD DEPENDENCE-INDEPENDENCE ON RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PUPIL’S SCHOOL SATISFACTION AND SOCIAL CLASSROOM ATMOSPHERE

The research was aimed at exploring the relationships between pupil’s school satisfaction and social classroom atmosphere, and also between school satisfaction and cognitive style field dependence-independence. The main intention of the presented study was to detect possible moderating influence of the field independence level on the relationship between school satisfaction and social classroom atmosphere. The perceived social atmosphere was assessed by the Social Classroom Atmosphere Scale (Kollárik, 1999). The field independence was assessed by the Embedded Figures Test (Oltman, Raskin, Witkin, 1962). Pupil’s school satisfaction was assessed by a school satisfaction subscale from the Life Satisfaction Scale for Children (Huebner, 1994) and emotional relation towards school was assessed by the Semantic Choice Test (Smékal, 1990). The research sample consisted of 208 pupils of older school age attending the 6th and 7th school grade (i.e., 11-12 year olds). The findings indicate that the field dependence-independence is not the moderator variable influencing relationship between social classroom atmosphere and pupil’s school satisfaction. Pupil’s school satisfaction significantly correlates with social classroom atmosphere. A significant relationship between field independence level and pupil’s school satisfaction was not proven.