A Measure of the Classroom Environment for Hearing-Impaired Learners: The Development and Pilot of the Learning Environment Scale

This paper reports the development and piloting of the Learning Environment Scale (LES), an instrument designed to measure the social environment of the classroom as perceived by hearing-impaired students. The instrument contains categories of special concern to hearing-impaired students, relating to the communication environment of the classroom and to the students' feelings about themselves in relation to others. The initial version of the LES was administered to a sample of normally hearing and hearing-impaired students, and the instrument was revised on the basis of that administration. Group comparisons using the revised version of the scales indicated some differences in the responses of normally hearing and hearing-impaired students. However, most of the differences between groups were identified with students' degree level rather than with their hearing status.