Sense of Presence and Anxiety Depending on the Daily Schedules in Junior High Schools

Abstract

In the present study, a questionnaire for easily assessing class adjustment depending on the daily schedule was developed, and characteristics of each setting were examined. Criteria for detecting such students were also developed depending on the daily schedule settings. All the students enrolled in a public junior high school participated in the survey. The number of participants was 331. The sense of presence and anxiety felt in relationships with others were inquired depending on the eight daily schedules below: school arrival/entering classrooms, morning meetings/morning studies, lessons, breaks, lunch, cleaning, end-of-day meetings, and club activities. Aiming to detect students that needed secondary or tertiary support, criteria were examined, with regard to whether a student belonged to the unsatisfied group or not as an objective variable (1: unsatisfied 0: not unsatisfied), with the scores of the sense of presence and anxiety in eight schedules as explanatory variables. Stepwise discriminant analysis was conducted to select the explanatory variable that was the most effective. The results indicated that the sense of presence in the morning meetings and breaks, as well as anxiety in lessons, were selected and significant discriminant function was obtained (Wilks’ λ = .723, p < .01). The discriminant function was below z = -0.18 × presence in morning meetings -0.32 × presence in breaks + 0.64 × anxiety in lessons + 1.10 and the positive discriminant ratio was 80.4%. Providing student guidance based on daily schedules is considered effective for teachers to understand students and identify students that need secondary support at an early stage.