Learning Environments Research : Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Learning Environments Research : Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow - Barry J. Fraser

Uses Of Classroom Environmental Instruments

(a) Association between students' cognitive and affective learning outcomes and their
perceptions of psychosocial characteristics of their classrooms.
(b) Source of process criteria in the evaluation of educational innovations (compare innovative
classes with control group using the items for psychosocial perceptions of their learning
environments
(c) Differences between student and teacher perceptions in the same actual classroom envt
(d) Differences between student preferred and actual perceptions of the classroom envt
(e) Scales in instruments used as criterion variables in research aimed at identifying how the
classroom envt varies with factors such as teacher personality, class size, grade level,
subject matter, nature of the school level envt and type of school.
(f) Qualitative instruments (observations, interviews, student diaries, open-ended questions in
questionnaires, etc) can replicate findings of quantititive questionnaires and clarifying replies
to the questionnaires
matter, nature of the school level envt and type of school.
(g) Enable cross-national studies which can highlight differences between practices in different
countries which can be questioned or used as a learning point for improvement
(h) Feedback from perception studies can be used to guide improvements in the classroom
environments