An instrument for investigating Chinese language learning environments in Singapore secondary schools

This paper describes how a new classroom environment instrument, the 'Chinese Language Classroom Environment Inventory (CLCEI)', was developed to investigate the nature of Chinese language classroom learning environments in Singapore secondary schools. The CLCEI is a bilingual instrument (English and Chinese Language) with 48 items written in both English and Chinese. The English version of the CLCEI was customised from the What is happening in this class? (WIHIC) questionnaire and its Chinese version was modified from the Taiwanese Chinese version of the WIHIC questionnaire. A rigorous 5 stage translation process involving 7 different focus groups with the application of the 4 step Nominal Focus Group technique was adopted to develop the CLCEI. The CLCEI was validated with a sample of 1460 secondary three (grade 9) students from 50 express stream (above average academic ability) classes in 25 secondary schools in Singapore. The validation results indicated that each of the scales exhibited high internal consistency reliability and satisfactory discriminant and factorial validity. The validation results also indicated that each scale of the CLCEI had the ability to differentiate between perceptions of students from different Chinese language classes. The detailed results were reported in Chua, Wong and Chen. The purpose of this paper is to share the detailed procedures of each translation stage and the outcome obtained from each stage. A discussion of the findings of the translation process is also provided. [Author abstract]