Chapter 5: Students' Perceptions of the Science Laboratory Learning Environment

Over the past 30 years, considerable progress has been made internationally in terms of conceptualization, measurement, and investigation of perceptions of the learning environment in science classrooms (Aldridge, Fraser, & Huang, 1999; Fraser, 1994; Goh & Fraser, 1998). Past research has mainly focused on the investigation of the association between students' cognitive and affective learning outcomes and their perceptions of psychosocial characteristics of their classrooms. Briefly, these studies suggest that a strong link exists between student outcomes and their perceptions of the learning environment (Fraser, 1994). These studies also noted that there are gender, subject, gradelevel, school type, school location, and ethnic-related differences in classroom learning environments (Fraser, 1998; Fraser, 2003; Waldrip & Fisher, 2000).