Associations between students' perceptions of classroom environment and academic efficacy in Australian and British secondary schools

Abstract

Research was conducted on associations between classroom psychosocial environment and academic efficacy. A sample of 2651 mathematics students from Australian and British secondary schools responded to an instrument that assessed ten dimensions of mathematics classroom environment (student cohesiveness, teacher support, investigation, task orientation, cooperation, equity, involvement, personal relevance, shared control, student negotiation). These scales were from two recently developed instruments: What Is Happening In This Classroom? (WIHIC) and the Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES). A seven‐item scale assessed students' academic efficacy at mathematics‐related tasks. Simple and multiple correlation analyses revealed statistically significant correlations between these classroom environment dimensions and academic efficacy. Enhanced classroom environments were associated with higher levels of student academic efficacy. A commonality analysis showed that the three CLES scales did not contribute greatly to explaining variance in academic efficacy beyond that attributed to the seven WIHIC scales.