Reflection 2 on article: Science Learning Environments: Assessment, Effects and Determinants by Barry Fraser

This article describes mainly the:-

• history of studying learning environments,
• approaches to studying educational environments,
• instruments for assessing classroom environments,
• important developments with learning environment instruments,
• associations between student outcomes and environment,
• recent trends and desirable future directions.

Approaches - The use of students' and teachers' perceptions as contrasted with external observer's direct observation and systematic coding of classroom communication and events (Brophy & Good, 1986). Murray (1938) introduced the term alpha press to describe the environment as assessed by a detached observer and the term beta press to describe the environment as perceived by people in the environment. Other approaches include naturalistic inquiry, ethnography, case study or interpretative research. Students are perceived as having the ability to make judgements about classrooms because they have encountered many different learning environments and have enough time in class to form accurate impressions. When teachers are inconsistent in their day-to-day behaviour, they usually project a consistent image of the long standing attributes of classroom environment.

History - Herbert Walberg and Rudolf Moos developed two different instruments. Walberg developed the Learning Environment Inventory (LEI) as part of the research and evaluative activities of Harvard Project Physics. Moos started developing the first of his social climate scales, and resulted in the development of the Classroom Environment Scale (CES). Earlier works included the ideas from Kurt Lewin (1936) work on field theory where he found that behaviour is considered to be a function of both the person and the environment. Murray (1938) followed Lewin's approach by proposing a needs-press model which allows the representation of person and the environment. The main components are personal needs and environmental press.

Instruments for assessing classroom environment - LEI, CES, ICEQ, MCI, CUCEI, QTI, SLEI, CLES and WIHIC.

The instrument's scales are categorised according to Moos's (1974) scheme for classifying human environments. Three basic types are 'Relationship Dimensions', 'Personal Development Dimensions', 'System Maintenance and System Change Dimensions'

Relationship Dimensions identify the nature and intensity of personal relationships within the environment and assess the extent to which people are involved in the environment and the support and help in each other.

Personal Development Dimensions assess basic directions along which personal growth and self-enhancement tend to occur.

System Maintenance and System Change Dimensions assess whether the environment is orderly, clear in expectations, maintains control and is responsive to change.

Reflection: From the reading, it is clear that researchers have played an important role in either starting the research and modifying the research ideas and adding value to the scales or items to the surveys. From Moos's scheme, I can now see the relevance of each dimension and how each instrument fits into the dimensions of things. With this clarify, in the future, if there is any issue or problem which needs to be investigated, the validated instrument can be carefully selected based on this broad guideline using Moos's scheme.