A constructivist perspective on monitoring classroom learning environments under transformation

Abstract

The original Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES) was designed to enable teacher-researchers to monitor their development of innovative constructivist approaches to teaching school science. However, our research revealed major socio-cultural constraints to the development of constructivist learning environments. By incorporating a critical theory perspective on the socio-cultural framing of the classroom learning environment, we hoped that the revised CLES would empower teachers to address these constraints. This paper presents the results of two studies ‹ an action research study and a large-scale survey ‹ that examined the viability of the new CLES scales for use in school science classrooms. The results provide unique insights into a classroom environment under epistemological transformation, and raise important issues about the use of learning environment surveys to stimulate and monitor the process of constructivist reform in school science. On the basis of these studies, we prodocued a refined form of the Student Perceived version of the new CLES.