Assessing Form Four Students' Attitude Towards Science In North East District Of Penang
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Date
2012-05
Authors
Chin, Sook Fui
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
This study aimed to adapt and validate an ATS measure, assess students’
ATS, and investigate the effect of track position on students’ ATS. A total of 749
Form Four students from eight secondary schools in the state of Penang, Malaysia
were involved in this study. An ATS measure, namely Attitude towards Science
Scale (ATSS) was adapted from Test of Science-Related Attitude, TOSRA (Fraser,
1981) and Attitude towards Science Measure, ATSM (Kind, Jones, & Barmby, 2007)
upon considerations of appropriateness, theoretical framework, and psychometric
properties. It consists of eight distinct ATS constructs: (1) Self-concept in science; (2)
Social implications of science; (3) Normality of scientists; (4) Attitude to scientific
inquiry; (5) Adoption to scientific attitudes; (6) Leisure interest in science; (7) Career
interest and future participation in science; and (8) Enjoyment of science lesson.
Each construct consists of five items with five point Likert scale. ATSS was
translated from English language to Malay language by following test adaptation
guidelines by Hambleton and Patsula (1999). By using Rasch analyses, results
showed that ATSS demonstrated sufficient evidences of psychometric properties.
Besides, DIF was examined to determine items that function differently between
male and female respondents. Six items (15%) out of 40 items showed DIF. In
addition, findings showed that there is effect of track position on science stream
students’ ATS but not for arts stream students. Besides, there are strong correlations
among the eight ATS constructs, supporting the relevancy and accuracy of the
framework. The findings of this study bear significant implication to provide a valid
and reliable ATS measure for future implementation. It also can serve to remind
stakeholders to pay more attention on the effect of track position on students’ ATS,
especially for science stream students. Furthermore, the ATS framework in this study
has the potential to serve to advance the knowledge of ATS and provide a framework
for ATS research in the future.
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Keywords
Assessing form four students attitude towards science , in north east district of Penang