5th and 8th grade pupils’ and teachers’ perceptions of the relationships between teaching methods, classroom ethos, and positive affective attitudes towards learning mathematics in Japan

70

provide the researcher with information which reflects ‘real life’, with its directness and
lack of artificiality (Robson, 1993). Observation has, often, been employed as a research
method, to assess the environment. For instance, Murray (1938) introduced the terms
“alpha press” to describe the environment as assessed by a detached observer and
“beta press” to describe the perceived environment of a milieu’s inhabitants. In the
current study, initial attempts were made to find opportunities for observation. However,
a very limited number of schools showed interest in taking part in observation, on the
grounds of the difficulties Ofsecuring teachers’ co-operation and parental permission.

The possible limitations of the absence of observation need to be examined. Fraser et
al. (1981, 1986) note that obtaining a high level of inference, when the respondent
makes a judgement about the meaning of classroom events through using
questionnaires is related more to psychological significance than obtaining a low
inference, which concerns specific explicit phenomena studied through the observation
method. Information on pupils’ perceptions over many lessons obtained through a
questionnaire method is more likely to reflect the situation accurately than information
based on observational data restricted to a very small number of lessons. Information on
pupils’ perceptions from questionnaires involves the pooled judgements of the pupils’
learning in a classroom, whereas information based on observation involves only one
single observer. Pupils’ perceptions, which in part may be assumed to determine their
behavior, may be more important than observed behaviors. Perceptual measures of the
classroom environment are likely to account for considerably more variance in student
learning outcomes than directly observed variables.

Eccles et al. (1993b) acknowledged that independent observer’s ratings are beneficial
for comparing the perceptions of different groups because elementary and junior high
school teachers might interpret similar features of classrooms differently. Changes in
students’ development, psychologically and socially, rather than changes in the
classroom environment may affect their perceptions. However, Eccles et al. (1993b)
commented that comparable results using teachers’ and students’ reports actually
provided more useful and significantly meaningful information than information gained
through observation. In addition, observation does not guarantee strong reliability and
validity, any more than other research techniques. Observation may also cause some
bias in the process of collecting data and analysis. For instance, the behaviours of the

70

<<   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>

More intriguing information