The Development and Validation of a Questionnaire for Assessing Student Perceptions of Teacher-Student Interaction in Taiwan and Australia.

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)