Exploring Factors Affecting Scientific Attitude in Secondary School Students: A Comprehensive Analysis

Abstract

This chapter explores factors Affecting Scientific Attitude in Secondary School Students.The attitudes students have toward science may affect their performance. Scientific attitude and scientific temper are complementary to one another and have many overlaps in their meaning. One of the indices for assessing scientific advancement through education is the performance of students. Scientific Attitude Scale prepared by Avinash Grewal and published by National Psychological Corporation (1977) is a standardized tool which was used for determining a student's scientific attitude. The scale consists of 20 items. A sample of 100 secondary school students of class IX students from government and private schools of Telangana, test was employed for analysis of the data. The type of management of the school; locality; gender are the three variables selected for the study .Findings of the study are,the private students had significantly higher levels of scientific attitude compared to the government students. The rural students had similar high and low levels of scientific attitudes like urban students. The female students had significantly similar, more or less levels of scientific attitude like that of the male students. At the secondary level, more emphasis should be given to hands-on experiences, project work and activity-based teaching should be focused. The knowledge of agriculture and farming technology in urban areas should be added to the curriculum. Based on the results of the present study, numerous new issues can be studied by future researchers. Testing the areas and variables that this study did not cover may be required to shed light on the factors related to the inculcation and development of a scientific attitude as well as other aspects related to scientific performance.