Students’ perceptions of their first experiences of secondary-school science in New Zealand

Abstract

In this article, I report a two-year study of working closely with science teachers and examining perceptions of Year 9 (12–13 year olds) students in 13 New Zealand secondary schools. The Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES) was used. The questionnaire was administered to 327 students in the first year and 362 students in the second year to find out their perceptions of their preferred learning environments in order to compare this with their perceptions of the actual situation. The data were used to plan improvements in learning environments through a teacher professional learning process by redesigning programmes and encouraging changes in students’ classroom behaviours. Co-constructive learning strategies and reshaping of lessons to include current topics were used as tools to encourage students’ expression of opinions, personal relevance and shared control in their learning. After each subsequent year-long intervention, the CLES was re-administered to reveal that there had indeed been an improvement. The research is distinctive because it is a learning environment study in New Zealand schools examining students’ psychosocial perceptions related to their first-year experiences of science at the secondary level.