P.J. den Brok

Californian Science Students' Perceptions of Their Classroom Learning Environments.

This study utilised the What Is Happening In this Class (WIHIC) questionnaire to examine factors that influence Californian students perceptions of their learning environment. Data were collected from 665 USA middle school science students in 11 Californian schools. Several background variables, such as gender, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and class size, were included in the study. A hierarchical analysis of variance was conducted. Results from this study indicate that some scales of the WIHIC are more inclined to measure personal or idiosyncratic features of student perceptions and other class features. A variable that consistently affected students perceptions was student gender. Generally speaking, girls perceived their learning environment more positively than did boys.

Teachers Creating Context-Based Learning Environments in Science

Context-based science education has led to the transformation of science education in countries all over the world, with changes also visible in learning environments and how these are being shaped. These changes involve authentic problems on research and design, new types of interactions within communities of practice, new content areas and also new challenges for teachers in teaching, motivating, scaffolding and assessing their students, among other things.