A Study of attitudes towards science of grade 9 children in the schools of Sri Lanka

Abstract

The success of a student i n any school subject depends not only on i n t e l l i g e n c e but also on f a c t o r s i n the a f f e c t i v e domain. Of these, the i n t e r e s t s of the student and the A t t i t u d e s the student possesses towards that subject are found to be important. Following the c u r r i c u l a r reforms introduced i n 1972, besides being made a compulsory subject, Integrated Science became a very important subject i n the junior secondary l e v e l ; 5 periods were a l l o c a t e d per week. Further, not only Science i n i t s Integrated' form replaced Physics, Chemistry and Biology that were taught separately i n the older system and that too for a few selected students i n grades 9 and 10, but also was for'every body' from grade 6 to grade 9» a period of k years. Hence a study of Attitudes to Science of grade 9 students i n schools of S r i Lanka seemed purposeful., I t i s to be mentioned here that i t was i n 1975 that the f i r s t set of students who studied 'Integrated Science' sat the National C e r t i f i c a t e of General Education Examination o f f e r i n g t h i s as a subject. VII The purpose of the research was to f i n d out whether the A t t i t u d e to Science of grade 9 students i n schools of S r i Lanka was favourable and whether there existed any v a r i a b l e s s i g n i f i c a n t l y r e l a t e d to t h i s and a l s o , any cross r e l a t i o n s among these v a r i a b l e s. Kalutara Education Region was selected as representt a t i v e of the e n t i r e I s l a n d . The A t t i t u d e Questionnaire was r e f i n e d after being administered to 59 students by a s u i t a b l e item a n a l y s i s . The r e f i n e d instrument was administered to 328 students (165 g i r l s and 163 boys) from schools selected at random and the r e s u l ts analysed by computer. The analysis showed that the A t t i t u d e to Science was favourable and that i t was s i g n i f i c a n t l y related to some of the v a r i a b l e s the w r i t e r has selected, those r e l a t e d being Science A b i l i t y , S o c i a l Implications of Science, Subject Preference and School-Liking and those not r e l a t e d being Sex and Teacher-Liking. On the study of c r o s s - r e l a t i o n s , Sex was found to be not r e l a t e d to any one of the other variable$> but there were s i g n i f i c a n t r e l a t i o n s h i p s between few of the other v a r i a b l e s.