Abstract:
In recent times, there has been public outcry about students’ poor performance in
mathematics in Ghana. Since available literature is replete with the fact that students’
perception of their mathematics classroom environment influences their participation
in classroom activities and hence their mathematics achievement, this study was
designed to examine how junior high school students perceived their mathematics
classroom learning environment. A total of 350 eighth and ninth graders (i.e., junior
high school forms two and three students) from four public and two private schools
in a metropolitan community in southern Ghana participated in the study. The study
adapted the What is Happening in This Class (WIHIC) questionnaire, a questionnaire
designed to measure students’ perception of their classroom environment on four
different subscales. The results revealed that, though in general, the perception of
students were positive, ranging from sometimes to often, that of the public school
students were relatively more positive than their private school counterparts in each
of the subscales. Implications of this are discussed and recommendations for
classroom teachers and future research are also presented.
