effectiveness of the hidden curriculum on affective attitudes of high school students toward learning

Background: the effectiveness of the hidden curriculum is stronger than the explicit curriculumfrom the perspectives of curriculum experts and medical education specialists. these effects areespecially strong in transmitting values, norms, and medical professionalism. so, the importanceof the hidden curriculum and its impact on educating medical students is undeniable. the presentstudy aimed to explore the effect of the hidden curriculum components on affective attitudes ofstudents toward learning, and to create a better learning and educational setting.methods: the research was a mixed-method using a cross-sectional survey in the quantitativesection. a case study (phenomenological analysis of lived experience type) and the interviewswere used in the qualitative part. the study population consisted of 277 male high school studentsin district 1 of bandar abbas port, iran, in the 2019-2020 academic year. they were selectedthrough the cluster sampling method and randomly assigned to the experimental research.results: the results of multiple regression analysis showed a correlation (0.627) betweenthe components of the hidden curriculum with affective attitudes of learning (p<0.95). thequantitative findings showed the mean scores of most components in exceptional talents(sampad) high school students were significantly higher than the mean scores in public andnon-public high schools students (p<0.05). moreover, the results of the path analysis showedthat the hidden curriculum has a positive and significant relationship with the three componentsof affective attitudes of students toward learning..conclusion: generally, the hidden curriculum plays a vital role through the implicit transferof values, attitudes, and skills to students, especially on affective attitudes, so that these issuesshould receive more attention by the educators in every educational setting.