Reflections on Readings (Science Learning Environments: Assessment, Effects and Determinants

Phew… had a packed weekend with my two little “precious” taking up all of me (my time and energy)… finally got some time to do some reading on the journals, conference papers and book chapters that was disseminated during the course… The previous week had been like a mini crash course on learning environment (what it is and how to assess classroom learning environments using different available validated instruments). The readings serve as a good consolidation of what have been covered so far. Will try to document my key learning points so far…

Developments of Learning Environment Research:

• Lewin’s field theory recognized that both the environment and its interaction with personal characteristics of the individual are potent determinants of human behaviour. B = f(P, E)
• Murray’s need-press model allows the analogous representation of person and environment in common terms. Personal needs refer to motivational personality characteristics representing tendencies to move in the direction of certain goals, while environmental press provides an external situational counterpart which supports or frustrates the expression of internalized personality needs. Some key terms used: Alpha press (the environment as observed by an external observer), Beta press (the environment as perceived by milieu inhabitants). Stern, Stein and Bloom also distinguish between the idiosyncratic view that each person has of the environment (private beta press) and the shared view that members of a group hold about the environment (consensual beta press).
• Herbert Walberg developed the widely-used Learning Environment Inventory (LEI) as part of the research and evaluation activities of Harvard Project Physics (Walberg & Anderson 1968).
• Rudolf Moos began developing the first of his social climate scales, including those for use in psychiatric hospitals and correctional institutions, which ultimately resulted in the development of the Classroom Environment Scale (CES) (Moos 1979; Moos & Trickett 1987). Moo suggested a scheme for classifying human environments into three basic types of dimensions: Relationship Dimensions (which identify the nature and intensity of personal relationships within the environment and assess the extent to which people are involved in the environment and support and help each other), Personal Development Dimensions (which assess basic directions along which personal growth and self enhancement tend to occur) and System Maintenance and system change Dimensions (which involve the extent to which the environment is orderly, clear in expectations, maintains control and is responsive to change).
  

These pioneering works on perceptions of classroom environment developed into major research programs and spawned a lot of other researches.

Instruments for Assessing Classroom Environment

• Learning Environment Inventory (LEI): developed and validated in conjunction with the Harvard Project Physics (Fraser, Anderson and Walerg 1982). Final version contains 105 statements (seven per scale) descriptive of typical school classes. Four response alternatives were given
• Classroom Environment Scale (CES): developed by Rudolf Moos; contains nine scales with 10 items of True-False response format in each scale. Published materials include a test manual, a questionnaire, and answer sheet and a transparent hand scoring key.
• Individualised Classroom Environment Questionaire (ICEQ): assesses dimensions which distinguish individualized classrooms from conventional ones. (Fraser 1990). Contains 50 items altogether, with an equal number of items belonging to each of the five scales. Five-point scale response alternatives.
• My Class Inventory (MCI): A simplified LEI for use among children aged 8 – 12 years old. Originally developed for use at primary school level but has also been used with students in junior high school. Contains only five of the LEI’s original 15 scales and item wording has been simplified to enhance readability. Response format has also been reduced to a two-point (Yes-No) format. 38 items. Goh, Young and Fraser (1995) successfully used a three point response format with a modified version of MCI which includes a Task Orientation scale.
• College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI): developed for use in higher education classroom; for use in small classes. Seven seven-item scales. Four response alternatives.
• Questionaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI): focuses on nature and quality of interpersonal relationships between teachers and students. Draws upon a theoretical model of proximity (cooperation-opposition) and influence (dominance-submission). Assess student perceptions of eight behaviour aspects. Five-point response scale.
• Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI): specifically suited to assess the environment of science laboratory classes at senior high school or higher education levels. Five scales each with seven items. Five response alternatives.
• Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES): assess the degree to which a particular classroom's environment is consistent with a constructivist epistemology, and to assist teachers to reflect on their epistemological assumptions and reshape their teaching practice. According to the constructivist view, meaningful learning is a cognitive process in which individuals make sense of the world in relation to the knowledge which they already have constructed. This sense-making involves active negotiation and consensus building.
• What is Happening In This Class Questionaire (WIHIC): combines modified versions of the most salient scales from a wide range of existing questionaires with additional scales that accomodate contemporary educational concerns (e.g., equity and constructivism). Has separate Class Form and Personal Form. Final version of WIHIC contains seven eight-item scales.
• Scales and items in existing questionaires can be drawn upon to develop modified instruments to better suit particular research purposes and research contexts.

Short forms of the ICEQ, MCI adn CES were developed as some researchers and teachers reported that they would like instruments to take less time to administer and score. Total number of items in each of the above instrument was reduced to approximately 25 to provide greater economy in testing and scoring time. Short forms were also designed to be amenable to easy hand scoring. Short forms are also likely to have adequate reliability fo the many applications which involve averaging the perceptions of students within a class to obtain class means.

Class Forms elicit an individual students' perceptions of the class as a whole, while Personal Forms elicit students' perception of his own role within the classroom. The distinction between personal and classforms is consistent with Stern, Stein and Bloom's (1956) terms of 'private' beta press (idiosyncratic view that each person has of the environment), and 'consensual' beta press (the shared view that members of a group hold of the environment).

Typical validation data for Validation of Scales

• Each scale's internal consistency reliability (alpha coefficient)
• Discriminant validity (using the mean correlation of a scale with the other scales in the same instrument as a convenient index)
• The ability of a scale to differentiate between the perceptions of students in different classrooms (significance level and eta2 statistic from ANOVAs)

Some important findings involving Educational Learning Environment Research:

• Student perceptions account for appreciable amounts of variance in learning outcomes, often beyond that attributable to background student characteristics.
• Better achievement on a variety of outcome measures was found consistently in classes perceived as having greater Cohesiveness, Satisfaction and Goal Direction and less Disorganisation and Friction.
• Learning is a multiplicative, diminishing-returns function of student age, ability and motivation; of quality and quantity of instruction; and of psychosocial environments of the home, the classroom, the peer group and the mass media. Classroom and school environment was found to be a strong predictor of both achievement and attitudes even when a comprehensive set of other factors was held constant.
• Classroom environment variables differentiated revealingly between curricula, even when various outcome measures showed negligible differences.
• Differences were found between students and teachers' perceptions of the same actual classroom environment. Differences were also found between the actual environment and that preferred by students or teachers. Students preferred a more positive classroom environment than was actually present. Teachers perceived a more positive classroom environment than did their students in the same classrooms.
• Weak associations were found between classroom environment and school environment. Classrooms are somewhat insulated from the school as a whole.
• Girls were found to prefer cooperation more than boys, but boys preferred both competition and individualisation more than girls. Boys preferred friction, competitiveness and differentiation more than girls, whereas girls preferred teacher structure, personalisation and participation more than boys. Females generally hold perceptions of their classroom environments that are somewhat more favourable than the perceptions of males in the same class.
• Using a person-environment interaction framework, it is noted that student outcomes depend, not only on the nature of the actual classroom environment, but also on the match between students' preferences and the actual environment (person-environment fit)

Sorry folks for this extremely lengthy post... found the reading to be very comprehensive and useful... treating this platform as a way of keeping my own notes on this module as well... Hope you gained some learning points from here as well... :)