Johnson, Jr., Bob L. (forthcoming). Beyond groupthink in the study of learning environments: connecting the field to other literatures. Queensland Journal of Education.

The study of learning environments in educational organisations has a short but impressive history. A review of this literature reveals that considerable progress has been made in the investigation of this phenomenon. Yet in spite of these advances, momentum in the field has diminished in recent years. A mild groupthink has emerged. This state of affairs presents the research community with a collective puzzle. What to do next? How might the field be reinvigorated? The purpose of this paper is to offer one possible strategy for redirecting and re-energising learning environments research. It is argued that the time has come to aggressively link the study of learning environments with other bodies of related yet independent research. Using the school-classroom learning environment relationship as the focus of discussion, the author demonstrates how the organisational theory literature can assist in the explication of this under-explored relationship. In doing this, two related yet independent lines of inquiry – organisational theory and learning environments – are considered together.