Abstract

• The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of student teachers learning environments in University 1, University 2, and University 3 and the approaches they mostly used to learn. Moreover, this study had also examined differences in perceptions and employment of learning approaches by gender, education level, and university and also the relationship between these two variables. A total of 720 student teachers from University 1, University 2, and University 3 excluding first year students and students who joined from COE participated in this study. Dundee Ready Education Environment Measure (DREEM) developed by Roff et.al. in 1997 and Revised Approaches to Studying Inventory (RASI) by Richardson (2005) were used as instruments. DREEM was used with six subscales and composed of 55 items. RASI involves three subscales with 52 items. In this study, there was no significant difference on student teachers’ perceptions on learning environment by gender but there were significant differences by education level and by university. In identifying student groups with respect to their dominant learning approaches, five groups of students were found out. Significant differences were found by educational level and by university but not by gender. The correlation result showed that perceptions of student teachers on their learning environment were positively correlated with deep approach and strategic approach, and negatively correlated with surface approach. The results of regression analysis revealed that the perceptions on learning environment were significant predictors of those three learning approaches. According to the results, it could be assumed that student teachers who have good perceptions on their learning environment have the higher possibility to employ deep and strategic approaches, whilst student teachers who have low perceptions on learning environment are more likely to use surface approach.