How Students Change Themselves and How the Teacher Supports Them during the Practice Process towards Sports Festival and Music Festival in a Junior High School; Focusing on students’ Interaction, Class Atmosphere, and their Other-Esteem.

Abstract

This study investigated how student relationships, students’ perceptions of class atmosphere, and their self-esteem changed with the progression of preparatory practices towards Sports Festival and Music Festival in a junior high school. Student relationships were classified into three categories: (1) improvement of performance, (2) reflection and self-examination, and (3) accepting and modeling others. The class atmosphere was classified into two categories: (1) positive and (2) negative. It was found that students regarded their class as positive when scores for accepting and modeling others were greater than those for reflection and self-examination. They regarded their class as negative when scores were greater for reflection and self-examination than for accepting and modeling. Results also showed that the homeroom teacher closely monitored the students and gave them informative feedback about their practices, but strongly intervened only when the students felt very negative about their preparatory practices. It was also found out that the students’ scores of self-esteem, which were investigated several times by a questionnaire, increased between the beginning and the end of the year.