ACADEMIC LEARNING ENVIRONMENT: PERCEPTIONS OF GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

ABSTRACT Learning environment plays a major role in shaping the quality of academic achievement. Environment of both home and school contributes to the development of child’s perceptual styles. Next to home, the school is the most important experience in the process of development of the child. Therefore, academic learning environment of child consists of both: School learning environment and Home learning environment. The present research aims to study academic learning environment of government and private secondary school students of Amritsar district. A total of 400 students (boys and girls) of IX class of secondary schools (Punjab School Education Board) were taken as respondents. Ten schools were selected through lottery method. School learning environment schedule and Home learning environment schedule by Sunitha (2005) were used to study the academic learning environment as perceived by students. The results of the study indicates that there is a significant difference in school learning environment as perceived by students from Government and Private schools, revealing that private school students have better perception of school learning environment as compared to government school students. While, it was found that adolescent students do not differ on the scores of academic learning environment with respect to gender, locale and type of family. The study also revealed that there is a significant difference in home learning environment of adolescent students with respect to gender, locale, and type of family. Keywords: Academic achievement, learning environment, government schools, private schools.