Turkish students' perceptions of their biology learning environments: the effects of gender and grade level

This study investigates the effects of gender and grade level on Turkish secondary school students’ perceptions of their biology learning environment. A total of 1474 high school students completed the What is Happening in This Classroom (WIHIC) questionnaire. The WIHIC maps several important classroom learning environment dimensions of the biology classroom environment such as the degree of investigation, cooperation, the extent of teacher support, student cohesiveness, student involvement, task orientation, and gender equity. Two-way multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) indicated statistically significant gender (Wilks’ Lambda=.923, F=12.505, p= .000) and grade level (Wilks’ Lambda=958, F=3.243, p= .000) differences with respect to the collective dimensions of the WIHIC. Analysis also revealed interaction between gender and grade level with respect to the collective WIHIC dimensions (Wilks’ Lambda=.974, F=2.010, p= .014).