Classroom Psychosocial Environment
Copyright © 2001
NISMED.
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The
Development and Validation of a Classroom Environment Scale for
Filipinos
|
Thelma
C. Rivera |
Mildred
F. Ganaden |
AbstractIntroductionDescription
of the LESValidation
of the LES
Field
Testing of the LESReliability
of the LESThe
Factor Analysis
SummaryReferencesAppendices
Construction
of the LES
Initially, the LES did not include the chemistry laboratory classroom
setting and contained only 78 items, with six items assessing each of
the 13 scales, excluding Satisfaction, Integration,
and Discipline. Each item was
responded to on a 4-point scale with the alternatives: Almost Never, Seldom, Sometimes,
Often, and Very Often. The
most favorable response of Very
Often was given a value of 4
while the most unfavorable response of Almost
Never, a value of 1.
To develop and refine the instrument, and adapt it for Filipinos, the following steps were undertaken. First, literature on conceptual and empirical inquiry in both educational and organizational psychology (Anderson, 1970; Gage, 1973; Katz & Kahn, 1978; Kaufmann, 1965) were reviewed. The review aided the researcher in identifying aspects of the psychosocial environment of the classroom that were considered salient for both students and teachers. A reference on the psychology of the interview (Kahn & Cannell, 1957) was also reviewed. It aided the researcher in formulating the interview questions and in properly conducting the interviews with students and teachers. Second, observations of chemistry classes in 10 secondary schools in Quezon City which included two private nonsectarian, three private sectarian (two all-female and one all-male schools), two special and three public schools, and interviews with 34 chemistry teachers and 170 students (five randomly selected students per class) were conducted from January to March 1996.
Class visits were unannounced in most cases. Before the class observations, the principals, science coordinators and chemistry teachers were assured by the researcher that she only wanted to observe the ordinary things that happen in a classroom on an ordinary day and that the responses to the interview questions would be kept strictly confidential. They were also told that these class observations and interviews would be of great help in refining the Filipino LES.
The interview schedules for students and teachers (see Appendices
B-1 and B-2) consist of three and five open-ended questions for
students and teachers, respectively. The interview questions attempted
to capture the psychosocial environment of the high school chemistry
classroom by asking students and teachers to report their perceptions on
things they like and/or don't like, which of these things are important
to them in their actual chemistry class, and how their chemistry class
differs from their other classes. The environment of the chemistry class
is thus defined by the shared perceptions of the classroom participants.
The teachers were also asked what kind of classroom environment they
were trying to create in their class, and what teaching style they were
practicing in the class, and why.
For all the interview questions, simple English understandable to both respondent and interviewer were used. Good English was not necessary for their responses. They were instructed to answer in Tagalog or Taglish (a mix of Tagalog and English) as they wished to facilitate and maximize communication. It took about 15 to 20 minutes for students and teachers to think and write their responses. This method was quite effective and efficient since it eliminated the tendency for group discussions and enabled the researcher to record the responses as much as possible.
Five randomly selected students per class were interviewed one at a time. The interviews were held either inside or outside the classroom. These were done 20 minutes before the end of the class period. Earlier, the researcher observed the classes. The teachers tried to shorten their lectures by 20 minutes to give time for the interviews.
The researcher observed a variety of learning environments among schools and among classes within a school. These observations were practically all expressed in the interview responses of students and teachers. The responses were categorized. It was also noted that some perceptions of the students and their teachers on their classroom environments were identical while some differed.
The refined LES which now included the laboratory setting and three more
scales (Satisfaction, Integration and Discipline)
in addition to the initial 13 scales, consisted of 178 items assessing
16 scales all together. It also used a new response mode since the
initial one with the responses Almost
Never to Very Often was
found to be inappropriate for some items, for example, "Students in
this class do not know each other very well," or "A lot of
friendships have been formed in this class." Each item was now
responded to on a 3-point scale with the alternatives True,
True Sometimes, Not True,
and Not Applicable.
AbstractIntroductionDescription
of the LESValidation
of the LES
Field
Testing of the LESReliability
of the LESThe
Factor Analysis
SummaryReferencesAppendices