Abstract To examine the relationship between students’ perceptions and their non-cognitive outcomes, this research uses secondary analysis of PISA data from 14,167 students in the United Arab Emirates. Seven factors of learning environment were identified after reviewing the literature. The findings reveal that six factors of the learning environments had a statistically significant association with epistemological beliefs. It was also found that three aspects of learning environments had a statistically significant association with self-efficacy. The results indicate that the three aspects of learning environments had a statistically significant association with anxiety. There was no association found between anxiety and any other teacher factors. The findings also show a positive and statistically significant relationship between students’ epistemological beliefs and self-efficacy, and a negative significant relationship between self-efficacy and anxiety. The research thus confirmed previous research by establishing a significant association between the nature of the learning environment and students’ cognitive outcomes.