Do learning environments differ across subjects and nations: Case studies in Hawaii and Singapore using the WIHIC questionnaire

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to survey a sample of high school students in Hawaii and Singapore about what they perceive to be helpful aspects of classroom environments in their learning of science and humanities subjects. The What Is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire was administered in the fall of 2003 to 73 high school students in Hawaii and 70 high school students in Singapore. These students were asked to respond to statements that focused on their actual and preferred environments in science and humanities classes for the three dimensions of learning environments of student cohesiveness, student involvement, and task orientation in the actual and preferred classroom. Principal component analyses were conducted separately for the data collected in the science and the humanities classes to make sure that the questions represented the anticipated factors in each of these two subject areas. A three-way multivariate analysis of variance was also conducted for all three dimensions of learning environments for differences in scores on items in the WIHIC questionnaire for the actual classroom subtracted from scores for the preferred learning environment. Results of this test revealed that the primary difference between students in high schools in Hawaii and Singapore was that students in the high schools in Hawaii wanted more student cohesiveness and involvement than the students in high schools in Singapore regardless of the subject. Another interesting finding was in the dimension of task orientation, for which the interaction between student nationality and subject was statistically significant.