Trend analysis and prediction of students' science attitude and achievement in Taiwan, Republic of China.

摘要

The purpose of this study was to examine elementary, junior, and senior high school students' science attitudes and achievement in Taiwan. A stratified random sampling procedure was used to select 380 elementary, 511 junior, and 366 senior high school students to participate in this study.;The trend analysis of elementary, junior, and senior high school students' science attitudes revealed that attitudes toward science are stable across the grade levels, although junior high school students' attitude mean score was slightly lower than the scores of elementary and senior high school students.;Although most students in this study said that they would like to take more science courses. Comparisons between males and females revealed that more males (in each level of elementary, junior, and senior high schools) expressed interest in taking science courses and pursuing science-related careers than their female counterparts.;In the prediction of elementary, junior, and senior high school students' science attitudes, it was found that the five selected variables (time on task, hours of homework, hours of laboratory, school location, and gender) explained 3-10% of the variance. The addition of the three variables (wanting to take more science courses, interest in science-related careers, and T.V. watching) improved the predictive ability, explaining an additional 10-15% of the variance.;In the prediction of junior high school students' science achievement, it was found that time on task, attitudes toward science, gender, school location, and hours of homework were significant predictors, explaining 48% of the variance.