CHAPTER II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter presents the review of some theories about the definition of

the classroom environment, positive classroom environment, English academic,

and previous study.

2.1 Classroom Environment

Classroom environment is the place where teaching and learning take

place. A good part of the educational activity of any school or university occurs in

the classroom since they get knowledge of what they learn in the class. Hannah

(2013) described that the classroom is where the student develops what they want

their future to look like, as well as knowledge of the skills needed to reach that

goal. Student and teacher must be cooperative in class; therefore, learning and

teaching process can be achieved as desired. Classroom requires a supportive

learning environment to gain the student’s achievement and to avoid disturbing

behavior (Kausar, Kiyani, & Suleman, 2017). In addition, the classroom

environment is the place for students obtaining the knowledge, lesson and

developing skills. There are two aspects of classroom environment, (1) the

psychosocial and (2) physical classroom environment (Malik & Rizvi, 2018)

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2.1.1 Physical Classroom Environment

Kausar, Kiyani and Suleman (2017), Kekare (2015) and Njue (2017) stated

that physical environment of the classroom has many aspects include size of the

room, walls, floor, seats and so on. Aspects of the physical classroom

environment may support students’ learning environment since teaching and

learning need facilities that support while they are learning in class. Another

aspect of physical environment is physical condition. Njue (2017) and Kausar,

Kiyani and Suleman (2017) mentioned physical condition that refers to

temperature, acoustic, lighting and quality of indoor air impact the learning

environment. Quality of physical environment is also noteworthy. According to

Ahmad and Amirul (2017), the quality of classroom environment may advance

learning activities, friendship, cooperation and encourage learning, growth and

personal development of students.

2.1.2 Psychosocial Environment

According to Malik and Rizvi (2018), psychosocial concerns about

interaction between teachers-students and student-student and this interaction

creates an atmosphere in the classroom as well as learning condition, situation,

and environment. Psychosocial is a social aspect that formed by the interaction

between classmate and teacher-student in the class. As stated by Ahmad, et al.

(2015), psychosocial is a social aspect that occurs between classmate, teacher and

the environment. In addition, psychosocial is an interaction between teacher-

student and student-student that creates an atmosphere in the teaching and

learning process.
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2.2 Positive Classroom Environment

Positive classroom environment is the condition where student feel

comfortable in joining the class activities. Good atmosphere will make students

enjoy the teaching and learning process. Good learning environment also helps

effective teaching.

2.2.1 Positive Physical Classroom Environment

A physical classroom environtment that affects students’ learning

positively is called a positive physical classroom environment. There are some

ways to create the condusive physical classroom environment. The first is

managing physical space in classroom. Managing physical space is the best thing

to design teacher space in class. Guillaume (2000) stated that managing the

physical space in classroom allows teacher to develop students learning and good

teaching. Managing physical space is good to apply because it makes teacher

develop students’ skill and makes good teaching and learning since the teacher

can develop the students’ skill in learning and the material.

The second is temperature in classroom. Earthman (2004) proposed that a

good temperature for the classroom is 68 and 700 F and humidity 50% with air

movement to clear up the stink and fuggy air. Classroom temperature is a vital

aspect that affected to classroom learning environment. Kausar, Kiyani and

Suleman (2017) asserted that classroom with high or low-temperature impacts on

learners’ achievement and attentiveness. Temperature makes students feel

comfortable in class since temperature excessively hot that makes students

uncomfortable so it is possible that students will lose their focus on learning.

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Light is the other aspect in physical classroom environment that support in

students learning. Light aspect has good impact in teaching and learning process.

Edwards and Torcellini (2002) claimed that the presence of daylighting gives the

positive result of student performance than light from windows. The light gives

positive effect in learning environment so as students’ performance. In the study

of Group (1999) said that the classroom who has amount of light as daylight can

increase the learning student 20% to 26% than less amount of daylight. The light

as daylight is better for lighting in class, the light will help students learning in the

class while the class is quite dark or helps to see in class activities.

Color is also affecting the students feeling when learning in the class.

Fisher (2001) asserted that besides being able to make positive emotion, colors

also make student more relaxed. The color in classroom can affect the good

feeling and relaxed that support the students while learning in the class.

The last is acoustic. Classroom that has external noise allows the student to

get a low achievement (Sapna, Sianna A., Victoria C., & Andrew N., 2014).

External noise impresses the teaching and learning process, loud noise from

outside of the class can impact the hearing of students since the teacher’s voice

will be disturbed and inflict students cannot hear teacher’s voice clearly.

Schneider (2002) said that noise level impact in many aspects of students as well

as interaction, learning, blood pressure and thinking of the students and learning

process. External noise may impact on student outcomes since the noise external

may disturb in many aspects of students in the learning process.

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2.2.2 Positive Psychosocial Classroom Environment

Positive psychosocial is a good atmosphere to make the interaction and

relationship between member in classroom can impact good learning achievement

to students. Hughes and Qi (2011) expressed that good relationship between

teacher and student is important especially to long-term adjustment. Relationship

between teacher-students is an important element in the classroom since a good

relationship between a teacher with students can impact the closeness between

teacher and students.

Task orientation is the arrangement of the tasks and activities (Bossert,

1979 as cited in Gadd & Parr, 2016). Task orientation is needed in teaching

because the teacher has to deliver the lesson according to lesson plan. Task

orientation will help the teacher to deliver the lesson clearly to the students and

the students can obtain the information well. So, the information received by

students can be processed well.

According to Astin (2014), Students involvement is the student active

participation in learning process. The students who are active learning in the class

they obtain more information and experiences. Abdulloh, Bakar and Mahbob

(2012) said that students participation in classroom also affect their learning

outcomes. The students who are active in classroom will get more knowledge and

good score in learning.

Students cohesiveness are the students working together to gain the aim.

Students cohesiveness will help while they are learning. Slavin (1995) claimed

that cohesion has a strong effect on students learning since the students will help
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other students to learn because they want other students gain success together.

Students cohesion may give good outcomes in learning and social relationship

among students.

Reinforcement is a way to make good situation in order to encourage

students in joining teaching and learning process. According to Rumfola (2017),

the students are like to learn a lot when they feel comfortable in class and could be

successful in learning. Kelly and Pohl (2018) said that using positive and negative

reinforcement, it may reduce disruption in the classroom and increase students’

attention. Students’ feeling can be influenced by negative reinforcement, causing

the students lose their focus and concentration in learning.

The last is a non-threatening classroom. McDonald and Hershman (2010)

claimed that a non-threatening classroom is students feel comfortable in learning

activities and member in the classroom. A non-threatening environment is

students feel pleasant with a teacher and other students when joining the class.

Students that have a good feeling when joining in class will receive the

information or material delivered by the teacher as well.

2.3 English Achievement

According to Hadriana, Ismail and Mahdum (2013) accomplishment is a

definitive of achievement of meeting the objective. So, English achievement can

be defined as the ability of the students to acquire English skills and components.

Obtaining good English achievement, students have to master the skills in

English. There are four English skills (speaking, listening, writing, and reading)

that need to be acquired by the students.

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The first is speaking skills. The students have to speak fluent and accurate

in expressing their idea without any gap. As claimed by Jong et al. (2010), in

general approach, subjective-subjective and subjective-objective, of speaking

performance is rated by fluency, lexical and grammatical accuracy.

The second is listening. According to Gilakjani and Ahmadi (2011), who

said that mastering listening skill, the students may decipher the messages, then

processing the meaning by several strategies and respond to another speaker.

Listening is a process to get message from others by hearing.

The next is mastering writing skill. According to Nalliveettil and

Mahasneh (2017), the students have to know the spelling, word structure, sentence

structure and high-order skills to write. The aspects are needed for students to

write coherently and neatly.

The last skill is reading. Mastering reading skill, there are several aspects

to understand as asserted by Varita (2017), mastering reading is rated by the

understanding of the main idea, inferences, details, and vocabulary. These aspects

are needed to ease students gain messages well.

2.4 The Role of Classroom Environment in English Achievement

Classroom environment has a role in students’ achievement. According to

Akomolafe and Adesua (2015), beside the experienced teachers and the location

of the school, the physical condition of the classroom influences students learning

process. Another researcher, Kolo Wan Jaafar and Ahmad (2017) stated that

students’ academic performance is incfluenced by interaction in classroom. Both

aspects of classroom environment are affecting in students’ learning outcomes

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because physical and psychosocial facilitate the students while learning in the

class.

2.5 Previous Studies

The first study is conducted by Kausar, Kiyani and Suleman (2017) who

examined the research entitled “Effect of Classroom Environment on the

Academic Achievement of Secondary School Students in the Subject of Pakistan

Studies at Secondary Level in Rawalpindi District, Pakistan”. The researcher

carried out the research in Pakistan and used an experimental research design. The

purpose of the study was to examine the effect of classroom environment on the

academic achievement of secondary school students in the subject of Pakistan.

The participant was 10th Grade students. The finding was the physical facilities

could affect the students’ learning environment and improve the students’ learning

performance.

The next previous study was carried out by Kekare (2015) entitled

“Classroom physical environment and academic achievement of student”. The

design of the study was an experimental design. The subject was at fourth of

various colleges of Aurangabad. The research problem of this of the study was “is

there any relationship between classroom physical environment and academic

achievement?” The researcher used instruments in his study was two question

papers for pre-test and post-test. The result found that the experimental group

which had various physical facilities performed better than the less facilities as the

control group.
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Puteh et al. (2015) also carried out a similar study about the relationship

between the physical environment and the teaching-learning process. She

conducted research in Malaysia. The study used correlation research design to

examine the relationship between the physical aspects of the classroom and the

teaching and learning comfort level. The participant was secondary school of

Malacca. It is found that a good physical environment has a relationship with

teaching and learning comfort level.

The last previous study was Afriani (2017) who had done the research

entitled “The Correlation between Classroom Environment and Academic

Achievement of English Education Study Program of UIN Raden Fatah

Palembang”. She conducted research in Palembang, the correlation research

design was used in her study. The purpose of this study was to examine the

relationship between classroom environment and academic achievement. And the

participant of her study was 366 English students from the total of the second,

fourth and sixth semester. The result showed that there is significant correlation

between classroom environment and academic achievement.

The three previous studies, Kausar et al. (2017), Kekare (2015) and Puteh

et al. (2015), investigated the physical aspects of the classroom in Pakistan, India

and Malaysia. The subject was secondary school and elementary school. And the

last previous study investigated the psychosocial aspect. While, in the current

study investigated the physical and psychosocial aspects, and university students

was chosen as the subject.