Students’ perceptions of the University learning environment in Singapore

Abstract

Recent literature in the study of educational learning environments suggests that there has been an increased interest in the conceptualization, assessment and investigation of student perceptions of psychosocial dimensions of their classroom environment in many countries. A considerable amount of work on the assessment and investigation of classroom environment in schools have been conducted in Singapore over the last few years. In contrast, this paper reports the pioneering effort in a study of a university learning environment in Singapore. The College and University Classroom Environment Inventory (CUCEI) was used to measure students' perceptions of their university learning environment and also to examine the associations between attitude and environment. The questionnaire was administered to graduate teacher education students enrolled in the one-year Postgraduate Diploma in Education Programme at the National Institute of Education, Singapore. The findings provided evidence of the reliability of the instrument and a significant attitude-environment relationship, as well as gender-related differences among teacher education students.