An Investigation of Some Factors Affecting Attitudes toward Chemistry in University Education

This is a study that explores university student attitudes toward chemistry who were taking an introductory chemistry course. Participants included freshmen enrolled in either a science teacher training program, an elementary school teacher training program or a mathematics teacher training program. 627 students were chosen from four different Education Faculties of Adıyaman, İnönü, Anadolu and Gazi University in Turkey. 348 subjects were male and 279 subjects were female students. The research instrument used 20 statements measuring students’ attitudes toward chemistry. Gender and study specialization differences in students’ attitudes toward chemistry were examined. It was found male students have more positive attitudes toward chemistry than female students and science teacher training program students’ attitude is more positive than others. Introduction Attitude was defined by Eagly & Chaiken, (1993) as “psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor”. Attitudes toward learning chemistry is very important concept that can be described as the students’ views of knowledge, assessment, laboratory activities, and the roles of instructors and students according to Berg (2005). Many researchers have investigated attitudes by studying variables or by examining its relation to a specific aim such as achievement (Albert, Aschenbrenner, & Schamolhover, 1989). Researches in science and chemistry education show that gender and academic major can affect attitudes toward science and chemistry. Many researchers found that boys exhibited significantly more positive attitudes toward science and chemistry than girls such as Lowery, Browyer and Padilla (1980), Baker (1983), Simpson and Oliver (1985), Pogge (1986), Oliver and Simpson (1990), Eryılmaz, (1992); Özyürek and Eryılmaz, (2001). Some researcher such as Maple & Stage, (1991) and Archer & McDonald, (1991) revealed that females had avoidance of additional science courses. Schibeci (1984) stated that females exhibit more positive attitudes toward biology and males toward physics. The American Association of University WomenAAUW (1992) data shows the need to focus more attention on the development of positive attitudes toward science with females. The females become less confident of their academic skills as they progress through secondary grades, therefore, their career aspirations are narrowed (AAUW, 1992; Linn & Hyde, 1989). National Science Foundation data (NSF, 1994) shows that females consist 46% of the labor force with only 22% of the scientists being female. Besides this, Barrington and Hendricks (1988) have concluded that there was no gender difference with respect to attitudes toward science. It is known that self-competence level plays important role in attitudes toward chemistry. A positive correlation was found between gender and attitude towards chemistry by Morgil and Seçken (2004). They have also found that self-efficacy belief of male student teachers was higher than female ones supporting the similar studies made by Betz & Hackett (1981), Jones & Wheatley (1990), Brophy (1985) and Aşkar & Dönmez (2006). Smithers and Robinson (1988) also have found a declining interest in chemistry for young people. There is 1 Ozden: Attitudes toward Chemistry in University Education Published by OpenRiver, 2008 Essays in Education Special Edition 91 a widespread scientific ignorance in general populace according to Durant and Bauer (1997); Durant, Evans, and Thomas (1989); Miller, Pardo, and Niwa (1997). On the other hand, House of Lords (2000); Jenkins (1994) and Lepkowska (1996) stated that an increasing recognition of the significance and economic utility of scientific information and its cultural background has become a matter of social concern and debate. In addition, the concept of attitudes toward chemistry is often poorly investigated and not understood well. University teachers usually mention characteristics like attitude, drive, and actual interest that are the most important student characteristics associated with successful studies. Likewise, questions about the importance of attitude (Dalgety et al., 2003), and of motivation (Covington, 2000) have been investigated by many educational researchers. University students' attitude towards learning chemistry is the focus of this study. To gain insight in what could influence changes in attitude, 627 first and second year university students, attending an introductory general chemistry course and displaying large changes in attitude toward learning chemistry were determined through questionnaires about attitudes towards chemistry course. Perry developed a theory of intellectual and ethical development among college students. He represented a developmental process and not static personality traits, and described six stages, or positions, usually condensed into four sequential categories (Fitch et al., 1984; Moore, 1994). Perry's work was later adapted (Fitch, 1984; Finster, 1991), and applied to science education (Mackenzie et al., 2003). Finster adapted the Perry scheme in the context of chemical education and presented examples of how a student's attitude position could affect. There are many factors affecting attitudes toward chemistry. Gender differences and academic major are some of these factors. The teaching programs should be prepared according to the factors affecting toward chemistry. For this reason, it is very important to determine different factors affecting attitudes toward chemistry. If gender and academic major play important role to taking chemistry course with respect to this study, what are the reasons of this important role? This study is also very important in the following ways: Firstly, if there is a difference between male and female students’ attitudes toward chemistry, which type of processes can be made by the university and educators to change this attitude? Is there any resistance to change this attitude in a positive way? The number of research should be increased about the reasons of different attitudes toward chemistry. Secondly, if there is a difference between students’ academic majors and their attitudes toward chemistry, the reasons should be investigated. The academic staff in the university could change their attitudes toward students to teach chemistry better. Thirdly, the results of this study can influence the contributors and writers of chemistry programs for the schools. The purpose of this study was to examine gender differences in students’ attitudes toward chemistry and determine any differences between academic major and attitudes toward chemistry. Besides this, it was also aimed to explore the reasons about the existence of attitudes toward chemistry with respect to gender and academic major and to propose solutions. 2 Essays in Education, Vol. 24 [2008], Art. 8 https://openriver.winona. edu/eie/vol24/iss1/8 Essays in Education Special Edition 92 Research questions The purpose was to answer the following questions: 1. Are there gender differences in student attitudes toward chemistry? 2. Is there a correlation between attitudes toward chemistry and student’s academic major? Hypothesis Null Hypothesis to be tested: 1. There is no gender difference between male and female students’ attitudes toward chemistry (Ho : mf – mm = 0 ; mf : female students mean ; mm : male students mean), 2. There is no correlation between students’ attitudes toward chemistry and their academic major. Methodology Population and Subjects The target population includes all university freshmen students enrolled in the first year introductory chemistry course in four different Education Faculties of four different Universities in Turkey. The available population is freshmen students in the first year introductory chemistry courses at Education Faculties of different universities in Turkey. The study sample was chosen from accessible population using a sample of convenience. Instrument Researcher has developed attitudes toward chemistry instrument consisting of 20 statements in this study because there was limited instruments measuring the same content at university level after a literature review (Perry, 1970; Fraser, 1981; Finster, 1991; Mackenzie et al., 2003; Henderleiter et al., 1999; Berg et al., 2003 and Reid, 2003). The questionnaire was designed to assess the attitudes of students towards chemistry learning. This instrument is in form of Likert scale with five scales (strongly agree, agree, disagree, etc.), toward chemistry. In the survey there are four validity threats: mortality, location, instrumentation, and instrument weakness. A mortality that arises in longitudinal studies, but in this study there was no longitudinal period or treatment period. Subjects were used only once. The missing data was not important, because the percentage of missing data was lower than five percent. Therefore, there was no mortality problem. The location was students’ their normal classroom; therefore, there was no negative effect to responding questionnaire. Questionnaire items can not be efficient if the participants get tired, but in this study survey consists of 20 short statements and would not take much time to get tired or rushed or these kind of negative effects. The internal reliability of the survey was calculated by using Cronbach’s Alpha formulae and found 0.94. Procedures This instrument was used at Education Faculty freshmen students who were taking first chemistry introductory course . At that time there were about 650 enrolled students could participate this research. Total 627 students took this survey. Table 1 shows the distribution of the students and their academic areas. After collecting data, the results were classified first as male and female to calculate ANOVA test. Second, the data were classified as academic areas (elementary school teacher candidates, primary mathematics teacher candidates, etc.) to calculate AN