The Classrooms of Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Title: Learning Environments Research: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

Author: Barry J. Fraser

Reflections:
(Yesterday)
From the paper, I can see that research on Learning Environment has expanded, diversified and internationalized during the past few decades. Instruments are developed in the West and have been adapted in several Asian Countries. Singapore is one of them. The instruments are cross-validated for use in countries outside the West.

Here are the instruments that are mentioned for field studies in the Learning Environments. It would not be elaborated much here. You can refer them in some of the blogs under Classroom Learning Environment Learning Group. My fellow coursemates have more detailed explanation.
- Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI)
- Science Laboratory ENvironment Inventory (SLEI)
- Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES)
- What Is Happening In This Class? (WIHIC)
- Learning Environment Inventory (LEI)
- Classroom Environment Scale (CES)
- My Class Inventory (MCI)

(Today)
The instruments are translated in Chinese, Bahasa Melayu, Korean, Bahasa Indonesia for research in different Asian countries. The researches mainly focused on addociations between student outcomes and environemnt, evaluation of educational innovations, differences between students' and teachers' perceptions of the same classrooms, determinants of classroom environment, and cross-national studies.

Researchers are interested to find out the associations between students' cognitive and affective learning outcomes and their perceptions of psychosocial charactertistic of their classrooms.

(Tomorrow)
Can instruments be modified to suit our local context and the environment that the research is carried out? The answer is yes. Items in the intruments can be modified/removed but has to strictly follow the Scales classified according to Moos's Scheme - Relationship dimensions - Personal development dimensions - System maintenance and change dimensions.

The findings are very useful for educators like me hoping to improve student outcomes through the creation of the types of classroom environments. And it also convinces me that having a conducive environment is very important for learning and teaching.