Investigating the relationship between hidden curriculum and students' academic engagement and communication skills

The present research was conducted with the aim of investigating the relationship between hidden curriculum and students' academic engagement and communication skills. This research is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-correlation in terms of data collection method. The sample of the study includes 230 female students of 2nd grade high school, selected from a population of 550 students, at the city of Iven-e Gharb and was chosen by stratified random sampling according to Morgan table. The data collection tools are the researcher's questionnaire made by Pashazadeh's hidden curriculum, Jarbak's communication skills questionnaire, Pintrich's and De Groot's academic self-regulation learning strategies questionnaires, along with Dupyright's and Marin's questionnaire to measure the level of academic engagement. The findings of the focal correlation test indicate the confirmation of a significant relationship between the hidden curriculum and students' academic engagement and no significant relationship with their communication skills. Also, in examining the contribution of each hidden curriculum component in predicting academic engagement and communication skills, based on the results of step-by-step regression analysis, interaction (student-teacher) is the only predictive component of the hidden curriculum. It was related with 10% of explanatory power to students' academic engagement and in the same way, the components of interaction and organizational structure of the hidden curriculum, equally with 4% of explanatory power (8% in total) with knowledge communication skills.