Attitude to the study of chemistry and its relationship with achievement in an introductory undergraduate course

A positive attitude to a subject may be congruent with higher achievement; however, limited evidence supports this for students in undergraduate chemistry – this may result from difficulties in quantifying attitude. Therefore, in this study, the Attitude to the Study of Chemistry Inventory (ASCI) – a validated instrument to quantify attitude, was used to measure attitude to chemistry in 125 undergraduates s udying an introductory course in chemistry, as part of a BSc Chemistry major. The 13 week course contained 4 summative assessments: practical (PRAC), tutorial (TUT), on-line web-based learning (OWL), and a final exam (FE). Sub-scales within ASCI which quantify the ‘affective’ and ‘cognitive’ components of attitude were determined. Firstly, for all 125 students, weak correlations (r) between the affective scale score and FE (r=0.275, P<0.01) and TOTAL (r=0.228, P<0.05), were recorded. Secondly, a low achieving (LA, n=48) and a high achieving (HA, n=77) group were identified using a cluster analysis procedure. The HA group scored higher than the LA group in PRAC, OWL, FE and TOTAL (all P