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Whereas the purpose of the previous chapter was to report the development and validation of the two instruments developed as part of the research program, the COLES and the ASBS, this chapter describes how teachers used student feedback, generated using the two instruments, to improve the classroom learning environment.

One of the seven focus schools, the critical instance school, linked their involvement in the research program to one component of their multi-faceted school improvement plan which aimed to foster and develop a culture of improvement within the school.

The large-scale research program involved the use of a multi-method design that was comprised of two concurrent and interrelated investigations. The first (Part A) investigated the development and validation of the two instruments, one to assess students’ perceptions of the learning environment and another to assess their attitudes and academic self-efficacy beliefs.

Over the past 40 years, research has consistently shown that the quality of the classroom environment is an important determinant of student learning (Fraser, 2007, 2012). That is, students are likely to learn better when they perceive their classroom environment positively. According to Hanrahan (2002), research on science pedagogy suggests that the dynamics of science classrooms can be influential in alienating students before they even to begin to engage with science concepts.