Research into attitudes in science focuses largely on determining if certain instruction methods affect student attitude and there is a broad range of opinions as to what attitude means and how to study it. We have analyzed the attitude of students enrolled into two introductory geology classes with the goal to test if demographic factors and success in the class play a significant role in determining students attitude towards science and learning science. A pre-test and a post-test Likert-type attitude questionnaire were administered to two introductory Geology classes at Iowa State University during the Autumn semester 2002. Results were analyzed for statistically significant relationships between attitude, gender, major and final grade. The results show that male students, science, math and technology majors, and students who successfully passed the class have a better attitude towards learning science.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/cinzia_cervato/16/
This is a manuscript of an article in Teaching Earth Science 29 (2004): 28. Posted with permission.