<![CDATA[The purpose of the present study was to examine Zimbabwean junior secondary school students’ perceptions of theirclassroom environment in science and to investigate relationships between these perceptions and students’ attitudes towardscience. The study also aimed to investigate differences in students’ attitudes toward science by gender, school location. Datawere collected from 1728 Zimbabwean junior secondary school science students in 10 Kwekwe district schools. Data werecollected with an adapted and modified version of the “What is Happening in This Classroom†(WIHIC) instrument and the “Testof Science Related Attitudes†(TOSRA). The study confirmed that the Zimbabwean version of the modified WIHIC is a valid andreliable instrument for measuring the classroom learning environment in the Zimbabwean educational context. Significantdifferences between students’ perceptions of the actual and preferred learning environment were shown to exist with studentstending to prefer a more favorable classroom learning environment than the one which they actually are experiencing. Femalestudents generally hold more positive perceptions of the learning environments than their male counterparts. The findings alsorevealed that student’ perceptions of the classroom learning environment depending on the schools’ locality, with students inrural schools holding less favorable perceptions than students in urban schools for all seven WIHIC scales. Correlation andregression analyses revealed that students’ perceptions of their learning environment in science were significantly associatedwith their attitudes.]]>
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