School as they see it: validation of a measurement of perceptions of school context by second-level students

The purpose of this study was to develop a French-language questionnaire to measure students' perceptions of the teaching practices to which they are exposed (goal structures and teacher-student relations). The primary objective was to assess the psychometric qualities of the questionnaire with 1,265 students distributed among various high school years. Internal consistency and test-retest stability of the scales proved to be entirely satisfactory. Results of confirmatory factorial analysis demonstrate the scales' construction validity. Results of multiple regressions also indicate that retained perceptions are consistent predictors of students' motivational directions and emotional experience at school, regardless of their socio-demographic or academic characteristics. The study's second goal was to contribute to the theoretical debate over what students' perceptions reflect. Such perceptions have shown to have little dependency on their socio-demographic or academic characteristics. Students' responses also displayed consistency in relation to their class level. Further, the effects of students' perceptions when aggregated in exogenous variables parallel such effects on an individual basis. Finally, students' perceptions are in line with those of their teachers. These results support the notion that students' perceptions are based largely on the characteristics of their school environment.