Primary and Secondary School Students' Perceptions of Science Classroom Environments and Their Relationships with Science-Related Attitudes

초.중.고 학생들의 과학 수업 환경 인식 및 태도와의 관계성 조사

Science-related attitudes, perceptions of science classroom environments, and their relationships were investigated for a sample of 535 primary and secondary school students. Two scales of the Test of Science-Related Attitudes and five scales of the Classroom Environment Scale(CES) were administered. Students' perceptions of preferred science classroom environments were also investigated using the same scales of the CES and compared with those of actual classroom environments. The results indicated the primary school students had the most positive attitudes on Enjoyment of Science Lesson and Career Interest in Science. They also had the highest scores on perceptions of actual classroom environments, while the high school students had the lowest scores. Regarding the relationships between science-related attitudes and perceptions of classroom environments, multiple correlations for the five scales of the CES were found to be significant(p<01). The scores of four scales-Involvement, Teacher Support, Order and Organization, Rule Clarity-are significantly correlated with the scores of Enjoyment of Science Lesson. Students' perceptions of preferred classroom environments on the four scales of the CES are significantly higher than those in actual environments. However, students' perceptions of actual environments on Task Orientation are similar to those of preferred environments, and are not significantly correlated with Enjoyment of Science Lesson. Educational implications are discussed.