What’s Happening In This School: Spanish validation of a school climate questionnaire and its relationship with academic performance and learned helplessness

Negative perceptions of secondary school students regarding school climate, that is, the quality of life at their school and the experiences taking place there, may lead to academic failure and demotivation. Given the high rates of early school dropout in Spanish adolescents, a valid and reliable questionnaire is needed to determine student perceptions regarding the multidimensionality of the school climate and to better study the relationship of these multiple dimensions with academic performance and motivational variables. This study has two objectives: to translate and validate the What’s Happening In This School (WHITS) questionnaire for use by Spanish adolescents, and to examine the correlations between the WHITS school climate dimensions and academic performance, learned helplessness, and mastery orientation. A total of 1,624 students aged 12–18 (M = 14.9; SD = 1.81) from 12 Spanish schools responded to the WHITS, the Learned Helplessness Questionnaire, and a question about the results of their most recent evaluation report. Confirmatory factor analyses found that the WHITS-Spain replicates the original six-factor structure, but with 30 of the 48 items. Furthermore, the WHITS-Spain demonstrates adequate reliability and convergent and discriminant internal validity. Correlation coefficients reveal a positive and significant association of all school climate dimensions with academic performance and mastery orientation, and a negative and significant association with learned helplessness. It may be concluded that education researchers and professionals can use the WHITS-Spain to determine the quality of the school climate dimensions and address them in their entirety, thereby strengthening the mastery orientation of students.