Development and Validation of an Instrument for Assessing Junior Secondary School Mathematics Classroom Environment in Enugu State of Nigeria

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an instrument for assessing junior secondary school Mathematics classroom environment as it affects teaching and learning of Mathematics in Enugu State. Instrumentation research design was adopted for the study. The sample of the study consisted of 1710 students drawn from the population of 43,540 Junior Secondary 1, 2 and 3 students for 2010/2011 academic session in the 75 public junior secondary schools in Enugu State. The instrument used for data collection was the Mathematics Classroom Environment Assessment Scale (MCEAS) developed and validated by the researcher. The instrument covered nine dimensions as follows: Involvement, Affiliation, Teacher Support, Task- Orientation, Cooperation, Competition, Order and organization, Teacher Control and innovation. The instrument has two sections: students’ actual and students’ preferred forms. These items will enable students to provide information about the learning environment that is present in their classroom (the actual environment) as well as information about the learning environment that they would like to be present (preferred environment). Three research questions and two hypotheses guided the study. The statistical techniques used in analyzing the data were factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha and analysis of variance. A test of reliability showed that the instrument was reliable at 0.82 and 0. 97. This result made the researcher to recommend that the instrument MCEAS be used in junior secondary schools in Enugu State to ascertain effective Mathematics classroom learning environment. The findings showed that students preferred more favorable Mathematics classroom environment than was perceived as being actually present.

Keywords: Development and Validation, Mathematics, Classroom and Environment