School Climate and Temperament as Predictors of Cognitive Development of Preschool Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of school climate and temperament on the cognitive development of preschool children. School climate plays an important role in children’s life. School climate refers to the quality of school life. It is directly related to better mental health, better academic performance and less bullying. Teachers may be strongly involved in the growth of their students by helping them gain understanding through creative thoughts, ideas and spending time learning with them. A positive school climate helps children feel socially, emotionally and physically safe in schools. Temperament is referred as distinct patterns in behavior, mainly an aspect which is concerned with emotions very deeply. As we are dealing with preschool children understanding their temperament is a very complex task, as they yet have not become a completely developed individuals. The present study was carried out to examine the relationship between school climate, temperament and cognitive development of 50 boys and 50 girls in the age range of 4 to 6 years from Haryana, India. The result shows that school climate and temperament are positively and significantly correlated with cognitive development and result of stepwise regression revealed that social climate (sub dimension of school climate) and effortful control (sub dimension of temperament) turned out as potent predictors of cognitive development. Both contribute 29.3% in cognitive development of preschool children.