Exploring Perceptions of Secondary Science Teachers and Their Students on Learning Environments

Exploring Perceptions of Secondary Science Teachers and Their Students on Learning Environments

The purpose of this study was to investigate how science teachers perceived their learning environment compared to their students in Korea. This study involved 354 students in 9th and 10th grades and their 8 science teachers, and investigated their perceptions of constructivist learning environment. The perceptions of learning environment was measured by employing the instrument of Constructivist Learning Environment Survey(CLES). The main focus of the CLES was to evaluate to what extent the classroom was prepared for student centered learning in six domains; personal relevance, critical voice, shared control, student negotiation, scientific uncertainty, and attitude. This research found that both secondary science teachers and their students evaluated their science classes as lowest in the domain of shared control. That is, both teachers and students seemed to view students’ sharing control of the learning environment with the teacher as seldom found in their classrooms. In addition, both teachers and students showed a similar pattern in the scores in the domains of the CLES, while the scores in each domain of CLES were different from each other. It also lead to discussions on sociocultural constraints to limit students’ sharing control in their learning in science classrooms.