Investigation of tertiary classroom learning environment in Singapore

Over the last three decades, researchers in many countries have shown increasing interest in the conceptualization, assessment and investigation of student perceptions of psychosocial dimensions of their classroom environment. A considerable amount of work on the assessment and investigation of classroom environment in schools were conducted in Singapore over the last few years. These include studies on the associations between students’ perception of interpersonal teacher behaviour and learning outcomes in primary mathematics classrooms (Goh & Fraser, 1996) and environment-attitude associations in secondary science classrooms (Wong & Fraser, 1996). However, no studies were made to examine the tertiary learning environment.

This paper reports the first study to focus on the learning environment in the only teacher-training institution in Singapore. The College and University Classroom Environment Inventory, the CUCEI, was used to measure the perceptions of graduate teacher trainees’ learning environment and also to examine the associations between attitude and environment. The sample comprised two groups of graduate teacher trainees (primary and secondary teachers) enrolled on the one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Education Programme at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. The findings provided evidence of the reliability of the instrument and a significant attitude-environment relationship as well as gender-related differences among teacher trainees.