A Survey Of Non-English Major Students' Satisfaction Of Classroom Environment

As an essential element of higher education,classroom environment is a target in the education reform of our country.The quality of teaching and learning,to some extent,can be attributed to classroom environment.So whether students are satisfied with classroom environment or not is of crucial importance.However,education quality is generally assessed by the government institutions,the authority of the university,and employers of the potential workplaces etc.Students,who are the beneficiaries of classroom atmosphere,have no right to comment on it.In other words,their feelings towards classroom atmosphere are not taken into account.As a compulsory course,College English is very important for non-English major students.And the Theory of Customer Satisfaction provides an effective approach to the improvement of teaching quality.So this research is conducted into students' satisfaction of college English classroom environment,which is beneficial for our teaching reform,teaching quality,and the improvement of college English classroom environment as well.Under the framework of customer satisfaction theory,the present study has chosen 488 non-English major freshmen and sophomores,from the X University,as the respondents of the questionnaire survey and interview survey.The research aims at improving university classroom environment and English teaching quality so as to enhance the students' satisfaction.The findings are as follows:Firstly,in this university,the students' satisfaction of English classroom environment is relatively high on the whole,with the highest being on the dimension of English courses and the lowest on the dimension of physical environment.The female students' satisfaction is higher than that of the male students;and the freshmenare more satisfied with the English classroom environment than the sophomores.There exist significant differences between the students of liberal arts and the students of science.And the students of liberal arts are more satisfied with their classroom environment than the students of science.Secondly,among the five dimensions that affect the students' satisfaction of English classroom environment,the highest of students' satisfaction is teachers' teaching,and the lowest goes to multimedia devices.Thirdly,from the perspective of demographic variables,there exist significant differences,between students of different genders,different grades,and different majors.For instance,students of different genders show different satisfactions of the physical environment,and male students' satisfaction of the physical environment is obviously higher than that of the female students.Concerning such four dimensions as teachers,the English course,classroom interaction,and the physical environment,freshmen' satisfaction is higher than that of the sophomores.Besides,students of different majors show different degrees of satisfaction.Students who major in science are more satisfied than the students of liberal arts in terms of teachers,the English course,and the physical environment.Fourthly,among the five factors that affect students' satisfaction in English classroom environment,teachers play an important role in English classroom environment satisfaction.The physical environment dimension is the third among the five factors,while the physical environment is the lowest among the students.Therefore,the satisfaction of the physical environment dimension needs to be improved urgently.To sum up,based on the above findings,this thesis intends to put forward some insightful advice in order to improve the university students' satisfaction of the English classroom environment,to enhance the quality of higher education,and to cultivate top level talents.