In this article, I report a two-year study of working closely with science teachers and examining perceptions of Year 9 (12-13 year olds) students in 13 New Zealand secondary schools. The Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES) was used. The questionnaire was administered to 327 students in the first year and 362 students in the second…

We investigated the impact of RULER--an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning--on school climate. Students and teachers from 37 Mexican high schools completed measures of school climate and school satisfaction before, one year into, and two years into RULER implementation. There were significant improvements in multiple…

In this research, we developed and validate an instrument for assessing high-school students' perceptions of socio-scientific issues (SSI)-based learning in biology. The development of the instrument was carried out using the following four steps: item formulation, content validation, construct validation and reliability calculation. According to…

The study examined the factor structure, reliability and validity of a Chinese version of the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (C-CLES), an instrument for assessing students' perceptions of the extent of constructivist approaches prevalent in classrooms. A convenience sample of 967 students in Secondary Three (Grade 9) in Hong Kong…

Because there has been very little past research into gifted students' science learning environments, especially in Singapore, we selected from four established questionnaires six learning environment scales that are consistent with Van Tassel-Baska and Stambaugh's guidelines for gifted education. These scales were modified slightly to enhance…

In this study, we measured students' perceptions of mathematics classroom learning environment and investigated their associations with students' achievement. The Mathematics-Related Constructivist-Oriented Classroom Learning Environment Survey (MCOLES) was developed with seven dimensions and 56 items, using theories surrounding classroom learning…

The study of learning environments involves describing educational contexts and identifying empirical relationships among subject matter (curriculum), teaching practices and other environmental variables. In recent years, this has become a growing field of academic inquiry within elementary, secondary and post-secondary research. Investigations of…

This mixed-methods cross-national study investigated the effectiveness of reality pedagogy (an approach in which teachers become part of students' activities, practices and rituals) in terms of changes in student perceptions of their learning environment and attitudes towards science. A questionnaire was administered to 142 students in grades 8-10…

We investigated and compared the learning environment perceptions of students, teachers and guides who participated in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)-based outreach activities in secondary education. In outreach activities, schools and teachers work together with companies and other external institutions in learning…

We investigated (1) whether the learning environment perceptions of students in classes frequently exposed to multimedia differed from those of students in classes that were not, (2) whether exposure to multimedia was differentially effective for males and females and (3) relationships between students' perceptions of the learning environment and…

This article reports research into associations between students' perceptions of the school climate and self-reports of ethnic and moral identity in high schools in Western Australia. An instrument was developed to assess students' perceptions of their school climate (as a means of monitoring and guiding schools as they are challenged to become…

The purpose of this study was to survey a sample of high school students in Hawaii and Singapore about what they perceive to be helpful aspects of classroom environments in their learning of science and humanities subjects. The What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire was administered in the fall of 2003 to 73 high school students in…

This article reports a study involving: (1) developing and validating a learning environment instrument, (2) investigating whether reflection on feedback generated using the instrument led to improvements in the learning environment and (3) examining how teachers used the feedback. For the new learning environment instrument, validity was…

This project sought to evaluate regional students' perceptions of their readiness to learn, assessment processes, engagement, extent to which their learning is personalised and to relate these to academic efficacy, academic achievement, and student well-being. It also examined teachers' perceptions of students' readiness to learn, the assessment…

This study used data from the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning project, which involved data on the academic performance of more than 90,000 New Zealand students in six subjects (i.e. reading, writing and mathematics in two languages). Two sub-samples of this dataset were included for detailed re-analysis to test the general applicability…