You are here

Using student and teacher perceptions to assess classroom environment

Jeffrey Dorman
Abstract: 

Not everyone sees a classroom in the same light, as shown in this study of over 2,000 secondary students and their teachers. The questionnaire used is easy to administer and provides important feedback on how to improve a classroom environment.

Journal issue: 

Image

In set 2, 1995, the importance of considering school and classroom experiences from the perspective of students was demonstrated vividly by various articles that reported research and discussed findings. Separate articles by Wood and Cullingford provided powerful qualitative data which suggest that students possess well developed views about the desirable characteristics of classrooms and associated teacher behaviour.

Although students sometimes focus on one or two dramatic events, it seems clear that students are able to make summary judgments about their classrooms based on an aggregation of the multitude of complex, interrelated events that occur in classrooms. Without discounting the importance of such dramatic events, it is probable that student learning is governed more by the long-term atmosphere in a classroom rather than several isolated events. This view was taken by early learning environment researchers who believed that students seem quite able to perceive and weigh stimuli and to render predictively valid judgments of the cohesiveness, democracy, goal direction, friction, and other psychological characteristics of the social environment of their classes. Moreover, such judgments may mediate the multiplicity of molecular events of instruction and other classroom activities and properties.

Accordingly, the dominant approach to classroom environment research has been to use the summary judgments of teachers and students as measures of the environment. That is, the environment is defined in terms of the perceptions of teachers and students gained over a considerable period of time in the classroom. This approach contrasts with the use of detached observers to study classrooms which was fashionable in the 1960s and early 1970s and which focused on the coding of explicit teacher and student behaviours in a relatively short period of time.

Several advantages of defining the educational setting in terms of the inhabitants’ perceptions have been suggested. First, students and teachers are at a good vantage point for making valid judgments about classrooms and schools. They are immersed in the atmosphere for extended periods of time and this exposure allows students and teachers to form opinions based on long-term experience. A second advantage of using student and teacher perceptions over the notes, codings, and perceptions of observers is that students and teachers act on the basis of their perceptions. Accordingly, the assessment of these perceptions as determinants of behaviour is preferred to the reporting of an observer’s assessment of classroom or school reality. Third, perceptions of classroom environment have been found to account for considerably more variance in student learning outcomes than have directly observed variables. Studies of classroom interaction have shown that students’ perceptions of their own influences on the class, but not observer estimates of the class, predicted academic gains.

The use of student perceptual data has its roots in Kurt Lewin’s field theory which viewed behaviour as the result of person-environment interaction. Later, a need-press theory in which internal psychological needs are satisfied or frustrated by the press of the environment was developed. The application of these ideas in classroom environment research led to the environment being defined in terms of the inhabitants’ perceptions of the psychological meaning of school and classroom events rather than the events themselves.

The field of learning environment research has progressed rapidly during the past 25 years with significant advances in the conceptualisation, measurement, and investigation of psychosocial dimensions of the classroom learning environment in primary, secondary, and tertiary educational settings. Australian researchers have been in the vanguard of this research with many studies conducted in Australian schools. Consistent national and international evidence suggests that student perceptions of the classroom environment account for appreciable amount of variance in learning outcomes beyond that attributable to student characteristics. That is, in addition to their intrinsic value, positive classroom environments are linked with better cognitive and affective outcomes of students. Apart from the impetus of researchers in fostering this research, it seems clear that teachers in a variety of educational settings acknowledge the importance of the learning environment in facilitating quality learning.

THE PRESENT STUDY

This article illustrates the use of student and teacher perceptual data in classroom environment research by referring to a study conducted in Queensland Catholic and government secondary schools. Three research questions guided the study:

Image Do students and teachers have different perceptions of classroom environment?

Image Do Year 9 and Year 12 students have different perceptions of the environment in their classrooms?

Image Do girls and boys have different perceptions of environment in coeducational classrooms?

The student sample consisted of 2211 students drawn from 20 Catholic and 12 government secondary schools. A total of 104 religion and science classes (in Years 9 and 12) were surveyed. In addition, the teachers of these 104 classes responded to a teacher’s version of the classroom environment questionnaire described below.

The instrument developed for this study was a 66-item instrument which assesses seven distinct dimensions of classroom environment, namely, student affiliation, interactions, cooperation, task orientation, order and organisation, individualisation, and teacher control. Each item is scored using a five-point Likert response format (strongly agree, agree, unsure, disagree, strongly disagree). Table 1 shows descriptive information for the instrument. Further details on its development and validation are provided elsewhere. The instrument’s scales have good reliability and discriminate between classes. That is, the scales are responsive to the different environments encountered in different classrooms.

As the design of this study required class teachers to respond to the classroom environment questionnaire, a teacher’s version of the instrument was developed. This version has slightly different wording on 18 items to accommodate the teacher rather than student as respondent. For example, the item “The teacher goes out of his/her way to help students” is reworded “I go out of my way to help students” on the teacher’s version. The overall structure of the teacher instrument is identical to the questionnaire administered to students.

RESULTS

Individual responses for each item on the questionnaire were used to calculate student scores for each of the seven scales. These scores were used to form 104 class means for each of the seven scales. Teacher data were used to calculate scale scores.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN STUDENT AND TEACHER PERCEPTIONS

In this study, classroom environment data were collected from students in 104 classes and the teachers of these particular classes. The 104 student class means for each of the seven classroom environment scales were matched with the individual scores of the 104 teachers on the same scale. Tests of statistical significance employing repeated measures analysis of variance (Wilks’ test) and univariate F tests (one for each scale) revealed statistically significant differences between teacher and student scores for all seven scales (p<.001). Two noteworthy features of the results shown in Table 2 are the consistent pattern of higher teacher scores compared with student scores and the sizeable differences between scale scores.

That is, for all seven classroom environment scales, teachers perceived their classrooms to have higher levels of the particular dimension that did their students. It is interesting to note that this result held for various subgroups of the study (Catholic coeducational, Catholic single-sex and government schools; Year 9 and Year 12 classes; religion and science classes). Based on the sample of 104 teachers and their classes in the present study, teacher scores were higher than student class mean scores by as much as 19.3 percent (order and organisation). These findings replicate previous research conducted in Australia and Israel which found that teachers held more positive perceptions of the classroom environment than students.

From a research perspective, these results reaffirm the importance of using student perceptions rather than relying solely on teachers’ perceptions of the classroom environment. The absolute differences between teacher and student perceptions challenge some traditional research approaches. For example, the vast majority of previous research studies have used teacher perceptual data for the assessment of school-level environment. This approach could overestimate some environment dimensions and a desirable direction for school-level environment research would be to collect data from students. For example, Year 12 students are probably far more aware of staff politics, the exercising of power and authority, and other important factors of the general school environment than what researchers might think.

Image

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN YEAR 9 AND YEAR 12 CLASSES PERCEPTIONS

The multivariate analysis of variance investigating the effect of year level on classroom environment was found to be significant (p<.001). Univariate F tests investigating the effect of year level on classroom environment were significant (p<.05) for six of the seven scales: student affiliation, cooperation, task orientation, order and organisation, individualisation, and teacher control. Table 2 shows that, compared to Year 9 students, Year 12 students perceived their classrooms to have greater student affiliation, interactions, co-operation, order and organisation, and individualisation, but less task orientation and teacher control. Separate analyses indicated that this pattern of differences between Year 9 and Year 12 students existed for both Catholic schools and government schools.

These results are generally consistent with previous studies of the effect of year level on classroom environment. These studies showed that, as year level increased, co-operation (compared with competitiveness) and order and organisation (compared with disorganisation) increased but task orientation and teacher control (compared with democracy and formality) decreased. For example, an American study showed that, relative to high school students, junior high school students perceived their classes as having less satisfaction and democracy but more disorganisation, formality, friction, cliqueness, and favouritism. The present study’s results support these findings. Previous research into year level differences in teacher-student interactions has not been reported.

One criticism of this comparison of environments in Year 9 and Year 12 classes is that the empirical results overestimate the differences between Year 9 and Year 12 because in Queensland, Year 9 is compulsory and Year 12 is post-compulsory. That is, students who might record negative perceptions of the environment drop out of school before Year 12. This criticism is weakened because the Year 12 retention rate in Queensland is very high. Queensland has the highest Australian school retention rate. For Catholic schools, in excess of 90 percent of students complete Year 12. Nevertheless, the possibility that the absence of the 10 percent of students who drop out of school before Year 12 could influence these results is noted.

The different perceptions that students hold at different stages of secondary schools bring into focus the issue of providing learning environments that meet the needs of adolescents at particular stages of maturity. Establishing senior colleges for the post compulsory years of education (Years 11 and 12) is one approach that provides quite different social structures for older students. Senior colleges usually have:

Image a separate campus from junior secondary schools so that different expectations of students can be established,

Image a widened curriculum choice,

Image an open campus model in which students come and go as they please, and

Image staff who are sympathetic to a less traditional teaching role.

Several government-sponsored senior colleges exist in Queensland, and research in the late 1980s showed their distinctive contribution to secondary education, particularly in the area of affective support for students. The recently completed review of school curriculum has recommended their retention because they offer a flexible approach that supports the convergence of general and vocational education.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN BOY AND GIRL PERCEPTIONS

Data collection sites in this study included 64 coeducational classrooms (40 Catholic, 24 government). Accordingly, it was possible to investigate differences between boys’ and girls’ perceptions of the same class. Previous studies suggest that girls perceive classrooms more positively than boys. To explore this question, class means for boys and girls for each of the 64 coeducational classes were calculated for the seven classroom environment scales. Repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance and subsequent univariate F tests revealed significant differences between gender means for five of the seven scales: interactions, co-operation, task orientation, individualisation, and teacher control (p<.05) (see Table 2).

Of interest is the consistent pattern in the direction of the differences between girls’ and boys’ perceptions of the same classroom. Relative to boys, girls perceived the classroom to have higher levels of student affiliation, interactions, co-operation, task orientation, order and organisation, and teacher control, but lower levels of individualisation. Although the differences in the means scores for all scales generally were small, there is a need to recognise that boys and girls were recording their perceptions of the same class. Past research has revealed small differences between the way in which boys and girls perceive the same classroom environment. In Singapore, a study revealed that female students held more favourable perceptions of chemistry classes than did male students. Similar results were found in Australian and American studies.

Image

Image

A major methodological issue underlying these results is the frame of reference problem which suggests that girls and boys have different standards in assessing learning environments. These standards emanate from, and are embedded in, the cultural characteristics of the school, its classrooms, and their interrelationships with culture outside the school. Moreover, the frame of reference issue suggests that cultural norms and values influence the perceptions of females and males differently. Some of the issues bound up in the gender frame of reference problem include power, dominance, subservience, patriarchy, sex-stereotyping, and how people view their future role in society. It has been claimed that psychological studies reveal females to be more influenced by the surrounding field or context than males. Perhaps there are plausible psychological and sociological explanations for the existence of a frame of reference issue. Another important consideration is the gender composition (that is, boy to girl ratio) of classes, an issue which should be part of future environment research in coeducational classrooms.

CONCLUSION

By reporting research conducted with a sample of Queensland secondary schools, this article has demonstrated the usefulness of student perceptual data in learning environment research. As part of the present study, an instrument to assess students’ and teachers’ perceptions of classroom environment was developed and validated. Overall, the results showed that:

Image teachers perceive their classrooms more positively than their students,

ImageYear 12 students generally perceive their classes to be more positive than do Year 9 students, and

Image girls generally perceive coeducational classrooms more positively than boys.

Although the research described above involved a large sample of classes with over 2200 students, it is possible to conduct similar research with much smaller samples. For example, a teacher might use a questionnaire with one class to compare his/her perceptions of that class with the perceptions of the students. In this case, data analysis is limited to comparing mean student score with teacher score for each scale. The identification of low student scores on particular scales would provide important information for any teacher interested in improving the classroom environment. Various literature reviews suggest that the field of classroom environment research has developed rapidly over the past 25 years. Instruments developed during this time have assessed student perceptions of their classrooms. Additionally, these instruments are easy to administer and score by hand or computer. They have the potential to provide important feedback to teachers. Accordingly, they should be considered important tools of teacher professional development and self-evaluation.

NOTES

JEFFREY DORMAN is a lecturer at the Australian Catholic University (McAuley Campus) in Brisbane, P O Box 247, Everton Park QLD 4053. E-mail: j.dorman@mcauley.acu.edu.au

The research on which this article is based is more fully described in:

Dorman, J. P. (1994). A study of school and classroom environments in Queensland Catholic secondary schools. Unpublished Ph D thesis, Curtin University of Technology, Perth.

Dorman, J. P. (1996). School environment questionnaire: An instrument developed for Australian Catholic secondary schools. Journal of Christian Education, 39(1), 31–44.

For a review of literature on the study of learning environments see:

Fraser, B. J. (1994). Research on classroom and school climate. In D. Gabel (Ed.), Handbook of research on science teaching and learning. New York: Macmillan.

Fraser, B. J., & Wubbels, Th. (1995). Classroom learning environments. In B. J. Fraser & H. J. Walberg (Eds.), Improving science education: International perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Previously published articles on student views of desirable classrooms and teacher behaviour include:

Cullingford, C. (1995). Children’s response to teachers. set: Research Information for Teachers, 2, (article 10).

Wood, B. (1995). Suggestions from children on how to help us behave. set: Research Information for Teachers, 2, (article 1).

Information on the use of perceptual measures over observational measures is found in:

Anderson, L. W., Ryan, D. W., & Shapiro, B. J. (Eds.). (1989). The IEA classroom environment study. New York: Pergamon.

Fiedler, M. L. (1975). Bidirectionality of influence in classroom interaction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 67, 735–744.

Walberg, H. J. (1976). Psychology of learning environments: Behavioral, structural, or perceptual? Review of Research in Education, 4, 142–178.

An early publication that provides a basis for environment research is:

Murray, H. A. (1938). Explorations in personality. New York: Oxford University Press.

Validation data for the instrument used in this study is found in:

Dorman, J. P., Fraser, B. J., & McRobbie, J. P. (1995). Associations between school-level environment and science classroom environment in secondary schools. Research in Science Education, 25, 333–351.

Studies that link classroom environment and student outcomes:

McRobbie, C. J., & Fraser, B. J. (1993). Associations between student outcomes and psychosocial science environments. Journal of Educational Research, 87, 78–85.

Henderson, D., Fisher, D. L., & Fraser, B. J. (1995, April). Associations between learning environments and student outcomes in biology. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco, CA.

Koeller, O., & Bolte, C. (1994, March). Learning

climate, satisfaction, and grades in chemistry in German schools. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, Anaheim, CA.

Research involving student and teacher perceptions of classrooms:

Fisher, D. L., & Fraser, B. J. (1983). A comparison of actual and preferred classroom environment as perceived by science teachers and students. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 20, 55–61.

Raviv, A., Raviv, A., & Reisel, E. (1990). Teacher and students: Two different perspectives?! Measuring social climate in the classroom. American Educational Research Journal, 27, 141– 157.

Research involving perceptions of different year levels:

Randhawa, B. S., & Michayluk, J. O. (1975). Learning environment in rural and urban classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 12, 265–285.

Welch, W. W. (1979). Curricular and longitudinal effects on learning environments. In H. J. Walberg (Ed.), Educational environments and effects: Evaluation, policy and productivity. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan.

The Queensland school curriculum review referred to in this article is the Wiltshire Report:

Wiltshire, K., McMeniman, M., & Tolhurst, T. (1994). Shaping the future: Review of the Queensland School Curriculum (Vols. 1–3). Brisbane: Department of Education.

Research involving gender differences in perceptions of classroom environment:

Fraser, B. J., Giddings, G. J., & McRobbie, C. J. (1995). Evolution and validation of a personal form of an instrument for assessing science laboratory classroom environment. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 32, 399–422.

Lawrenz, F. P. (1987). Gender effects for student perceptions of the classroom psychosocial environment. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 24, 689–697.

One publication that discusses gender composition and frame of reference issues is:

Terwel, J., Brekelmans, M., Wubbels, Th., & Van Den Eeden, P. (1994). Gender differences in perceptions of the learning environment in physics and mathematics education. In D. L. Fisher (Ed.), The study of learning environments (Vol. 8). Perth: Curtin University of Technology.

Papers that discuss gender issues include:

Dorman, J. P. & Arthur, J. (1995, April). Differences between girl and boy perceptions of the environment in coeducational classrooms. Paper presented at the Conference of The Ministerial Advisory Committee on Gender Equity, Brisbane.

Parker, L. H., Rennie, L. J., & Harding, J. (1995). Gender equity. In B. J. Fraser & H. J. Walberg (Eds.), Improving science education: International perspectives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sarah, E., Scott, M., & Spender, D. (1980). The education of feminists: The case for single-sex schools. In D. Spender & E. Sarah (Eds.), Learning to lose: Sexism in education. London: The Women’s Press.