Attitude towards science: a study of 9th grade adolescent students

Currently in many countries, the promotion of favourable science- related attitude is considered to be one of the most important aims of science education programs. The development of any country is based on the scientific knowledge as well as favourable attitude towards science among its people. The aim of the present study is to check felt problems in studying science and attitude towards science among adolescent students of 9th grade. This study covers 100 students from the different government schools of Almora and nearby places of Almora city, in Uttarakhand. Stratified random sampling technique has been used for the selection of the subjects. Scientific Attitude Scale (SAS) was administered to collect the data. “t”-test was used to analyse quantitative data to check the mean difference among different groups. The findings of the study revealed that there is significant difference observed in attitude towards science between rural and urban adolescent students and as well as in attitude towards science of adolescent students of Almora city owing to difference in their achievement in previous class. It may therefore be concluded that the attitude towards science of rural students have less in comparison to their urban counterparts. Adolescent students belonging to urban areas were found to have more positive attitude towards science than rural students. It may also be concluded that the attitude towards science is correlated with the achievement in previous class. Students who scored greater than first division in their previous class, showed more favourable attitude towards science compared to student who scored below first division. For the sustainable development of society, we have to make our attitude positive towards science in our daily lives. For the development of attitude towards science we have to organize many scientific programs, workshops, and science activities for awareness among the students who are not interested in science. It is well known factor that knowledge of science and using scientific knowledge in our day to day life increases the quality of life.