The differentiation between attitudes toward science based upon plant studies and gender

This study addressed the effectiveness of hands-on activities on rural seventh grade students. The purpose was to evaluate the effect of hands-on plant studies on the attitudes of male and female students toward science and botany.;The subjects included 400 students of four different teachers from three middle schools in one county. The subjects completed a pretest concerning their attitudes toward science at the beginning of the study and a posttest concerning their attitudes toward science at the end of the study. The subjects also completed a survey concerning their attitudes toward botany at the completion of the study.;SPSS for Windows was used in order to perform linear regression analysis. The data were determined to be statistically significant based upon an alpha level of 0.05. The data indicated that there were no significant results concerning the pretests and posttests. The data indicated no significant results concerning the botany survey. Hands-on experiments using seeds of fast-growing plants did not significantly improve the attitudes of the participating subjects toward science or botany. There was no significant difference between the attitudes of the male and female students.