Learners’ views Communality and differences between attitude and perceptions of the learning environment.

There is a history of measuring student attitudes going back to the work by Dainton (1968). Here attitudes looked at motivation towards science lessons and there was concern that some children were not enjoying science activities in the classroom. Gardner (1975) also made the distinction between “attitude towards science” and

“scientific attitude”. As mentioned earlier the research by Walberg and Anderson (1968) was also seen by many as a first learning environment study showing that equity of the class members and the relationships between them were significant predictors of learning success. By 1986, there were a growing number of learning environment instruments measuring student attitudes in science lessons. Researchers were well aware of the relationships between classroom environment and attitude, efficacy and outcome.

However, what are the differences between attitude and perception? Shrigley (1983) maintains that attitude is central to human activity describing it as what students bring to a situation. These feelings could be preconceived or even assumptions that could be learned as part of culture. Shrigley (1988) suggested that feelings are central to attitudes towards science or toward a particular scientific concept or phenomenon. Key elements describing the attitude concept include the involvement of cognition, that attitudes predict behaviour, social influences of others affect attitudes and attitudes are evaluative (Shrigley, 1983, p.438). However, according to Saks and Johns (1997) the concept of perception is the human process of interpreting a situation. In order to represent and understand the learning environment student perception is shaped by learning, memory and expectation. Perception is described as the ability to understand and when students encounter experiences they can use informational cues to help them perceive the situation. These are often influenced by senses and memory of smells, images, sounds etc. The dependence on experience, motivational state and emotional state are factors that contribute to both attitude and perception and hence there is common ground between both terms.

The CLES is a quantitative questionnaire designed to measure the constructivist view of the classroom (Taylor, Dawson, & Fraser, 1995; Taylor, Fraser, & Fisher, 1997). It investigates how a classroom’s environment fits with the epistemology of constructivism. The instrument uses five scales that measure students’ perceptions of the extent to which certain psychosocial factors (Personal Relevance, Uncertainty of Science, Shared Control, Critical Voice and Student Negotiation) are evident. It is somewhat different from other learning environment instruments such as the Test of

Science Related Attitudes (TOSRA). The TOSRA is a questionnaire that has elicited

experiments. Whereas the CLES questionnaire maintains a greater focus on constructivist practices in the classroom. For example in the CLES there are two scales describing the nature of relevance in science activities titled Personal Relevance and the process of co-construction of learning titled Shared Control. Both these particular scales have dimensions of the concepts perception and attitude described earlier. Both terms have a common ground in many of the items that are associated with these scales.

2.8 CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter has described how the New Zealand science curriculum has undergone major changes over the last century. Currently, schools and teachers are also in the midst of change with respect to how science is taught rather than just the focus on science content.

Collaborative learning has been shown in the literature to have been well documented over the years. There have been significant contributions from researchers in revealing effective teacher practices with regard to collaborative learning environments and how these relate to the learning theories that exist.

Learning environment research has a long history including many different quantitative instruments and qualitative methods to determine student perceptions and their attitudes to their learning. The scales of the CLES are well tested around the world to further explore student perceptions of their science learning.

CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

3.1

INTRODUCTION

This research method used a quantitative instrument, the Constructivist Learning

Environment Survey (CLES) and a comprehensive range of qualitative voice to

address the research questions of the study. This chapter explains the methodology in how both the quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Section 3.2 describes the nature of the teacher professional development programme that was conducted through the study and the rationale to the questions and objectives is presented in section 3.3.

There was an action research approach to the overall program design and the nature of this was initially to gain further understanding of students’ perceptions of their immediate learning environment in science lessons and secondly to invite discussion and reflection with teachers from the data gathered. Professional development in the form of one-day workshops with the teachers of the classes was carried out. Data gathered in this study guided the professional development programme. There was also online communication usually via emails and some postage of material throughout the three-year project for the teachers.

The CLES scales examined the immediate learning environment in a quantitative manner but they also helped shape the qualitative aspect of the project, particularly the choice of learning themes at the professional development workshops. Furthermore, the scales of the CLES helped keep the research manageable and valid. They clearly defined the CLES and in addition formed a structure for the student interview questions. The students’ drawings added another rich qualitative insight into the lives of students at each school. Further description of the selection of the

quantitative instrument and the purpose of the qualitative data are looked at in Sections 3.4 and 3.5, respectively.

Overall, the research was primarily concerned with student views of learning in their science lessons which included the following data collection:

 the CLES- measuring actual, preferred and post actual student forms;

 audio-taped recordings of semi-structured interviews (These interviews had set questions designed to link with the CLES scales but they also had a degree of opportunity for students to discuss other ideas if they so wished) for groups of students that explored student perceptions and attitudes to science learning;  recordings of interviews with teachers related to teaching and learning;

 learning drawings produced by students exploring learners’ views of science lessons; and

Sections 3.6 and 3.7 describe the school selection and demographics respectively. All the secondary schools in the Bay of Plenty and the Waikato regions of the central North Island of New Zealand were contacted and invited to take part in the study titled

Please Let Us Take Off (PLUTO). The project was advertised as a three-year

professional development package with the research aligned with the professional learning.

Table 3.1

The PLUTO Project Numbers of Schools and Teachers

Year Number of schools Number of teachers

_____________________________________________________________________

2009 13 13

2010 12 16

2011 8 12

_____________________________________________________________________

Throughout the three year study there was a core group of teachers and associated schools that remained committed to the project; this group consistently attended the

workshops and participated in the research. The teachers who had left the project due to personal reasons or changes to their classes, still remained in active contact via online communication. In the years 2009 and 2010, all the classes were surveyed with the CLES using the actual and preferred forms early in the school year and again later in the same year using the (post) actual form. All students of the classes were given a voluntary opportunity to be part of the research. Further description of the ethical considerations is given in Section 3.9. The data sorting and analysis are described in Section 3.10.

Fraser and Fisher (1986) proposed a straight forward strategy for changing the classroom environment, by which teachers can use information attained from the quantitative instruments such as the CLES to guide attempts to improve their classroom environment. This tactical approach seemed suited to the type of situation and context of secondary school science learning and teaching in this project. Other researchers have used this strategy with a variety of instruments (Fisher & Fraser, 1991; Fraser, Docker, & Fisher, 1988). The steps for changing the classroom environment in summary are as follows (Fraser & Fisher, 1986):

1. Assess student - actual and student - preferred perceptions of the classroom environment.

2. Draw profiles of student – actual and student preferred perceptions. 3. Reflect upon the profiles. Contemplate intervention strategies. 4. Intervene to change the classroom environment.

5. Reassess student – actual perceptions.

These steps were used to plan the professional learning sessions with the teachers in the project and maintain a consistent process to the methodology.