A study of the attitude toward science of fourth year high school students and science teachers in selected urban and rural areas

The study analyzes the scientific attitudes among high school science teachers and fourth year high school students in urban and in rural areas. The specific problems of this study include the following: 1) Are there significant differences in the attitudes towards science of fourth year high school students in the urban and in rural areas, and those with above average and below average mental ability? 2) Are there significant interaction between the mental ability of the students and their being classified as urban or rural? 3) Are there significant differences in the attitude towards science between and rural high school science teachers? 4) Is there a significant correlation between a teacher\u27s teaching experience and his attitude toward science? The instrument used in the study (for students) is a Revised Scientific Attitude Inventory which was developed and validated by Sutman and Moore in 1970. The Revised Scientific Attitude Inventory and the Otis Lennon Mental Ability Test (was used to classify the students as either above average or below average) were finally administered to selected 4 urban high schools and 4 rural high schools. There were 40 students out of one hundred sixty students from the urban high schools and there were 40 students who were selected randomly from one hundred fifty four students from the rural high schools of both which 20 students were classified as above average and 20 students as below average. On the other hand, there were 30 teachers on the same rural high school and 30 teachers on the same urban high schools that were included in the study. The 60 science teachers who were teaching biology, chemistry, physics, general science I and II and introductory physical science took the Original Scientific Attitude Inventory. Then, the average mean score of the Scientific Attitude Inventory was obtained by getting the weighted average for the positive and negative statements. The mean of the student\u27s mental ability was computed by adding all the scores obtained by the students and dividing it by the total number of students who took it. The findings showed that: 1) There is no significant difference in the attitude towards science between urban and rural fourth year high school students in selected urban and rural areas. 2) There is a significant difference at the .05 level in the attitude towards science of fourth year high school students with above average and below average mental ability. The higher the mental ability of the students, the more positive are their attitudes towards science. 3) There is no significant interaction at .05 level between the student\u27s mental ability and the student\u27s classification as urban and rural. 4) There is no significant differences in the attitudes towards science between urban and rural high school science teachers. 5) There is a slight but negative correlation between the teacher\u27s attitude towards science and their number of years of teaching experience