It was hypothesized that the actions of the teacher in the classroom interact with a student’s conceptions of both teaching and learning to affect learning outcomes, and the ways that a student views her or his school experience. [...] Some of the direction is overt, some must be inferred from the actions and words of the teacher, and some from the reactions of the teacher to stimuli such as student questions or student body language. [...] To accomplish the goals of this project, the specific objectives in this study were: 1. to assess academic success and perseverance in science studies over a period of two years; 2. to assess students’ perceptions of learning environments in mathematics and science classes in high school and in CÉGEP; 3. to assess teachers’ perceptions of learning environments in mathematics and science classes in [...] It should be stressed that it is not just the actions of a teacher that influence student outcomes, but the students’ perceptions of these actions and of the social and psychological aspects of the classroom learning environment. [...] The body of knowledge of a subject, for example physics, is not tied to any individual, but is an internally consistent collection of axioms, rules and laws that is fluid in that it evolves as the results of new experiments are incorporated, and is shaped and shared by the community of physicists.