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This paper reports on part of a cross-national study of science classroom environments in Taiwan and Australia. It focuses on teachers' beliefs about science and science teaching and the effects these beliefs have on the learning environment in the science classroom. Better understanding of this relationship between teacher beliefs and learning environment can lead to the identification of the barriers to the introduction of constructivist teaching approaches in school science. Descriptions of the Classroom Learning Environment Survey and the Beliefs about Science and School Science Questionnaire are provided. Statistical analyses of questionnaire data for each country are also provided and contain internal consistency reliability, discriminant validity, mean scores, and standard deviations. Recommendations for further research include using existing questionnaires as interview/observation frameworks and for future research to be guided by a set of interpretive research questions. (DDR)

The goals of this study were to explore students' perceptions of how teachers' science teaching matched students' understanding and needs levels, report on the development and validation of a questionnaire to probe these perceptions, and compare junior high school students' perceptions from Taiwan and Australia. Descriptions of both the pilot study and the main study are included. Taiwanese students (N=1800) and Australian students (N=500) responded to the questionnaire which employed a conceptual framework of four categories: (1) instructional repertoire; (2) representational repertoire; (3) knowledge of students' understanding; and (4) knowledge of subject matter. Examination of the mean data for these categories indicates that there is little difference between the perceptions of Taiwanese and Australian students about their teachers' knowledge. The instrument is useful for teachers in identifying students' perceptions of their own teaching performance. Contains 18 references. (DDR)

This study reports on the development and validation of a questionnaire to assess student perceptions of the teacher-student interaction in Taiwan and Australia. The questionnaire is part of a cross-national study of science classroom environments in Taiwan and Australia. The questionnaire contains five domains: (1) higher-order questioning behavior; (2) encouragement and praise behavior; (3) non-verbal supportive behavior; (4) understanding and friendly behavior; and (5) strict behavior. The development process included the translation of the Chinese version into English, the back translation of the English version into Chinese again by people not involved in the original translation, and subsequent changes to wording where necessary. Following the translation, a pilot study was conducted in both countries which included interviews with students about their comprehension and interpretation of individual items in the questionnaire. Refinements were made to the questionnaire based on statistical analyses the interviews. Administration of the questionnaire to a total of 100 grade 7-9 science classes (N=2,397) from both Taiwan and Australia supported each scale's internal consistency, reliability, and validity. Contains 11 references. (Author/JRH)