Teachers' and their Students' Perceptions of their Mathematics Classroom Environments

Teacher and student versions of the same instrument were used to compare the perceptions of their classroom environments of a sample of mathematics teachers with those of their students. Overall the data suggest that the teachers had realistic views of the extent to which their classrooms conformed to constructivist principles, but significant differences were found for a one quarter of the items suggesting aspects of the classroom environment that may warrant consideration by teachers. Teachers’ descriptions of ideal and typical mathematics lessons provided insights into factors that teachers perceived as constraining their capacities to create the kinds of classroom environments that they wanted and suggest possible reasons for the discrepancies between their’s and their students’ perceptions.