Objectives Of The Study The objectives of this study were to: · validate actual and preferred forms of the What Is Happening in This Class (WIHIC) with a sample of Queensland secondary school students, · investigate whether any differences between the actual and preferred classroom environment scores as assessed by the WIHIC hold for gender and year level sub-samples, · study whether any gaps between actual and preferred classroom environment scores are related to the actual classroom environment . Background To Study Reviews of classroom environment research by Fraser (1998) and Dorman (2002) and edited books by Khine and Fisher (2003) and Fisher and Khine (2006) have delineated at least 10 areas of classroom environment research including associations between classroom environment and outcomes, evaluation of educational innovations, differences between students’ and teachers’ perceptions of classrooms, comparisons of actual and preferred environments, effect on classroom environment of antecedent variables (e.g. gender, year, school type, subject), transition from primary to secondary school, school psychology, student metacognition, teacher education, educational productivity research, and using environment instruments to facilitate changes in classroom life. One line of classroom environment research of the past 25 years has been to compare and contrast the actual (or real) classroom environment with the preferred (or ideal) classroom environment as reported by students and teachers. In Australia, Fisher and Fraser (1983) used the Individualised Classroom Environment Questionnaire to show that students preferred higher levels of personalisation, participation, independence, investigation and differentiation in science classrooms. Similar results have been found in the United States (Moos, 1979), Israel, (Hofstein & Lazarowitz, 1986) and Japan (Hirata, Ishikawa, & Fisher (2007). The present study built upon and extended this research tradition.

Sample The sample employed in this study consisted of 978 students from secondary schools in Queensland, Australia. It consisted of 543 male and 435 female students from 63 classes in years 8 to 11. Students usually turn 13 years of age in year 8 and 16 years of age in year 11. Instrumentation The What is Happening In this Class? (WIHIC) questionnaire is a well-established and widely-used instrument in classroom environment research. The version of the WIHIC used in the present study consisted of 49 items assigned to 7 underlying scales (7 items per scale): student cohesiveness, teacher support, involvement, investigation, task orientation, cooperation and equity. Each item employs a 5-point Likert response format (viz. Almost Never = 1, Seldom = 2, Sometimes = 3, Often = 4, Almost Always = 5). Data Analysis and Interpretation Standard psychometric approaches including exploratory factor analysis and internal consistency reliability were use to validate actual and preferred forms of the WIHIC. Because actual and preferred data were in paired form, differences between actual and preferred classroom environment were investigated with a repeated measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Gaps between actual and preferred classroom environment scores and their relationships with the actual classroom environment involved two steps. First, for each WIHIC scale, differences between actual and preferred scores for each respondent were computed. Next, simple Pearson correlations between these differences and the actual scale score were computed.

Differences Between Actual and Preferred Classroom Environment for Gender and Year Level Sub-samples Analyses comparing actual and preferred classroom environment were conducted for gender and year level sub-samples. These analyses revealed results similar to those reported above for the full sample. The results of within subjects multivariate tests of the effect of WIHIC form (i.e. actual versus preferred) for each sub-sample were as follows: male, Wilks’ l = 0.32, [F(7, 536) = 155.78, p<.001]; female, Wilks’ l = 0.32, [F(7, 428) = 125.44, p<.001]; year 8, Wilks’ l = 0.29, [F(7, 157) = 33.27), p<.001]; year 9, Wilks’ l = 0.31, [F(7, 345) = 108.29, p<.001]; year 10, Wilks’ l = 0.31, [F(7, 266) = 81.02, p<.001]; and year 11, Wilks’ l = 0.28, [F(7, 182) = 40.43, p<.001]. Univariate F tests for each WIHIC scale revealed statistically significant differences between actual and preferred scores. Gaps Between Actual and Preferred Classroom Environment and Their Relationships with the Actual Classroom Environment Pearson correlations between actual and preferred WIHIC scale scores were computed and revealed moderate to strong positive relationships with correlations ranging from .46 (equity) to .69 (cooperation). Together with the results of the above analyses, these correlations suggest distinct gaps between actual and preferred environments. To investigate further the nature of these gaps, differences between actual and preferred environments for each scale were computed for each respondent. Pearson correlations between these differences and the actual scale score were computed for each WIHIC scale. Conclusion This study of actual and preferred classroom environment employed a widely used instrument, the What Is Happening in This Class (WIHIC). Substantial differences were found between actual and preferred environment and these results were consistent with previous research findings. One distinctive component of the present study was to compare the gap between actual and preferred scores with actual scores for each WIHIC scale. As such, this study has extended previous classroom environment and provided a greater understanding of the relationship between actual and preferred environments.