A study of the attitudes of students and the concerns of teachers toward the Science 1 and traditional Life Science curriculum

The purpose of this research was to determine if there was a difference between the attitudes of seventh grade students and the concerns of teachers in the Science 1 pilot curriculum project and the traditional life science curriculum.; The design of the study was a pretest/posttest model with data being collected at the beginning and end of the pilot project period. The data for student attitudes was collected using the Test of Science Related Attitudes developed by Dr. Barry J. Fraser. The data for teacher concerns was collected using the Stages of Concern Questionnaire developed by Dr. Gene Hall, Dr. Archie George and Dr. William Rutherford. Demographic data on the students and teachers were collected using researcher developed instruments. An overall response rate of 75.40% was obtained for the study. Data from forty-nine Science 1 and forty-six Life Science teachers and their students are in the study. Analysis of covariance of each classroom group mean was utilized to analyze the student data. Analysis was conducted between the pretest groups and posttest groups. The teacher data was analyzed in a similar manner.; The analysis of covariance performed on the student data did not indicate a difference in the attitudes of students toward science in either program except for the societal implications of science scale. The concerns of teachers about Science 1 were significantly different from the pretest to the posttest even though there were not the expected shift in concerns from stages 3 and 4. The majority of teachers involved in the Science 1 pilot believed they were as a majority prepared to teach an integrated program.; Based on the results of this study, a longitudinal study over a four year period of time should be conducted to fully establish if there is a difference in the attitudes of students toward science based on the curriculum utilized. Further studies should be conducted to determine the relationship between teachers concerns and student attitudes. In addition, the attitudes of the teachers toward science and that effect upon the students attitudes should be examined.