TABLE OF CONTENTS The sample involved in data collection (learning environment and student attitudes, including academic efficacy) included Grade 11 and 12 students from across all learning areas at an innovative new school. The total sample available for the analyses reported in this chapter consisted of 1035 student responses from 80 classes. The students scores, designated at the end of the academic year were used as a measure of achievement. These scores were obtained for 356 students.
The school in which our study was undertaken, is an innovative new school located in a lower socioeconomic suburb of Perth, Western Australia. The unique ICT infrastructure built into the new school is aimed at facilitating a truly outcomes-focused curriculum that allows the integration of ICT into the delivery of programs, and it provides online curriculum and electronic information management systems to teachers and students. Therefore, this innovative new school is an ideal setting for this study of the educational benefits of technology-rich, outcomes-focused learning environments.
This chapter reports the reliability and validity of a widely-applicable questionnaire for assessing students perceptions of their actual and preferred classroom learning environments in technology-rich, outcomes-focused learning settings (known as the Technology-Rich Outcomes-Focused Learning Environment Inventory, TROFLEI). The validation of the questionnaire involved conducting various statistical analyses with data from a sample of 1035 student responses (e.g., factor analysis and item analysis) to refine the scales and furnish validity and reliability information (see Fraser, 1998a).
To investigate students attitudes,...
