Australian Research on Classroom Environment: State of the Art

Abstract

International work involving the measurement and investigation of perceptions of psychosocial characteristics of school classrooms has firmly established classroom learning environment as a thriving field of study. Furthermore Australian educational researchers have made sizable and distinctive contributions to this research effort. This paper provides an overview of overseas work on the development and use of classroom environment instruments, reports normative and validation data from the use of new or modified scales among large Australian samples, and reviews the Australian research in the area. In particular, Australian research has involved predictive validity studies of outcome-environment relationships, use of environment perceptions as criterion variables, investigation of differences between student and teacher perceptions of actual and preferred environment, person-environment fit studies of relationships between student learning and actual-preferred congruence, and practical attempts to facilitate environmental change. Taken together, Australian studies provide much evidence which supports the validity of various classroom environment instruments, which attests to their usefulness as sources of both predictor and criterion variables for a variety of educational research purposes, and which suggests promising new directions for future research.