Students’ school climate perceptions: do engagement and burnout matter?

This study, conducted with a person-oriented approach, aimed to assess whether students who are positively engaged in school activities and daily practices perceive their school climate differently from students who feel distant and less engaged in school. To achieve this aim, by means of a Latent Profile Analysis with the 3-step approach, we first identified student profiles on the basis of their levels of school engagement and burnout, and then verified whether the school climate perceptions differed for the various profiles. The study involved 1065 Italian middle-school students (49% females, M age = 11.77). School climate perceptions were assessed with the Multidimensional School Climate Questionnaire. Multidimensional measures were used for student engagement and school burnout. Four student profiles, labelled Cynically disengaged (5.9%), Moderately disengaged (21.6%), Peacefully engaged (46.1%) and Tenseley engaged (26.4%), were identified. The first two profiles involved low levels of engagement and high levels of cynical burnout, with the former showing more extreme scores. The other two profiles depicted engaged students, with the latter also revealing feelings of pressure and disillusion. The four profiles differed in their school climate perceptions, with the Peacefully engaged students reporting the highest scores and the Cynically disengaged students embodying the most critical perceptions. The study’s educational implications are discussed.