The research reported in this article makes two distinctive contributions to the field of classroom environment research. First, because existing instruments are unsuitable for science laboratory classes, the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI) was developed and validated. Second, a new Personal form of the SLEI (involving a student's perceptions of his or her own role within the class) was developed and validated in conjunction with the conventional Class form (involving a student's perceptions of the class as a whole), and its usefulness was investigated. The instrument was cross‐nationally fieldtested with 5,447 students in 269 senior high school and university classes in six countries, and cross‐validated with 1,594 senior high school students in 92 classes in Australia. Each SLEI scale exhibited satisfactory internal consistency reliability, discriminant validity, and factorial validity, and differentiated between the perceptions of students in different classes. A variety of applications with the new instrument furnished evidence about its usefulness and revealed that science laboratory classes are dominated by closed‐ended activities; mean scores obtained on the Class form were consistently somewhat more favorable than on the corresponding Personal form; females generally held more favorable perceptions than males, but these differences were somewhat larger for the Personal form than the Class form; associations existed between attitudinal outcomes and laboratory environment dimensions; and the Class and Personal forms of the SLEI each accounted for unique variance in student outcomes which was independent of that accounted for by the other form.

This study was designed to find out why students may fail to learn from teacher demonstrations. In the context of an interpretive study in an Australian senior-year physics course, data were collected to understand the constraints that mediated learning about rotational motion. Over a period of 6 weeks, we gathered observational data, videotapes of classroom transactions, interviews with students and the teacher, and students' notebooks. Our analysis revealed six dimensions that may have prevented students from learning what the teacher had intended. These dimensions included (a) students' lack of a theoretical framework to separate signals-the phenomena-from noise, (b) interference of discourses learned in other contexts of the physics course, (c) interference from other demonstrations and images that had some surface resemblance, (d) students' problems in piecing together coherent representational frameworks from the information given, (e) low salience of knowledge related to demonstrations on tests, and (f) lack of opportunities for students to test their descriptions and explanations. A set of recommendations is presented designed to facilitate teachers in changing their perspective on demonstrations and their associated practices for improving student learning. The recommendations are embedded in a framework that allows teacher reflection and action research.

The common sense aspects of traditional practices promise to be a conservative force with respect to the efforts of policymakers to improve the quality of science learning in schools. This study of the teaching of grade 11 chemistry indicates how an experienced teacher made sense of his teaching roles in terms of four cultural myths related to the transmission of knowledge, being efficient, maintaining the rigor of the curriculum, and preparing students to be successful on examinations. These cultural myths were supported in this study by the teacher and students and provided a strong rationale for maintaining the types of classroom practices that reformers are wanting to change. If teachers can be brought to a level of consciousness about myths such as these there is a chance that their viability can be addressed directly and alternative myths can be generated to propel reform in the direction advocated in the myriad reports that presently exhort changes in policy and classroom practice. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Past research on classroom environment was extended to science laboratory class settings in an investigation of associations between student outcomes and classroom environment, The sample consisted of 1,594 senior high school chemistry students in ! X2 classes. The Science Laboratory Environment Inventory was used to assess student cohesiveness, openendedness, integration, rule clarity, and material environments in the laboratory dass, and student outcomes encompassed two inquiry skill and four attitude measures. Simple, multiple, and canonical analyses were conducted separately for two units of analysis (student scores and class means) and separately with and without control for general ability. Past research was replicated in that the nature of the science laboratory classroom environment accounted for appreciable proportions of the variance in both cognitive and affective outcomes beyond that attributable to general ability.he strongest tradition during the previous quarter of T a century of classroom environment research has involved investigation of the predictability of students' cognitive and affective learning outcomes from their perceptions of classroom environment (Fraser, 1989; Fraser, in press;Fraser & Walberg, 1991). Past research provides convincing and consistent support for the predictive validity of student perceptions in accounting for appreciable amounts of variance in learning outcomes, beyond that attributable to student characteristics such as general ability. This pattern has been replicated in numerous countries and for a variety of outcomes and classroom environment instruments.The present study of associations between students' outcomes and their perceptions of classroom psychosocial environment was distinctive in several ways. First, we used the Science Laboratory Environment Inventory (SLEI) in the first study of outcome-environment relationships specifically in laboratory classroom settings. Second, to permit comparison with results from method- BARRY J. FRASER Curtin University of Technologyologically diverse past studies, we analyzed our data in several different ways (i.e., simple, multiple, and canonical correlation analyses). Third, we compared the magnitudes of environment-outcome relationships for two units of analysis, namely, the individual student's score and the class mean score. Fourth, we performed all analyses separately with and without control for student general ability.

The common sense aspects of traditional practices promise to be a conservative force with respect to the efforts of policymakers to improve the quality of science learning in schools. This study of the teaching of grade 11 chemistry indicates how an experienced teacher made sense of his teaching roles in terms of four cultural myths related to the transmission of knowledge, being efficient, maintaining the rigor of the curriculum, and preparing students to be successful on examinations. These cultural myths were supported in this study by the teacher and students and provided a strong rationale for maintaining the types of classroom practices that reformers are wanting to change. If teachers can be brought to a level of consciousness about myths such as these there is a chance that their viability can be addressed directly and alternative myths can be generated to propel reform in the direction advocated in the myriad reports that presently exhort changes in policy and classroom practice. 0 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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