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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 19, Issue 2, Article 7 (Dec., 2018) |
Students’ performance was specifically described in this section. Both SPS and CA were compared by gender and grade levels. Further, the SPS and CA scores of undergraduate chemistry students were presented in Table II. As presented in Table II, students’ mean SPS score (M=35.03, SD=6.187) was considered low level. While their mean CA score (M=97.91, SD=10.035) was classified as moderate (neutral attitudes).
Table II. SPS and CA Level of Students
Variables
N
Min
Max
Mean
Std.Deviation
Level
Science Process Skills
152
18
45
35.03
6.187
Low
Chemistry Attitudes
152
75
120
97.91
10.035
Moderate
After cognizing the level of students’ competence, the t-test was calculated to examine whether there were significant differences between students’ mean SPS and CA scores based on gender and grade levels.
Table III. Differences between Students' SPS and CA
Dependent
Independent
N
Mean
Std.Deviation
p
Science Process Skills
Male
54
29.50
3.908
.000
Female
98
38.08
4.982
First-Year
75
29.87
3.685
.000
Second-Year
77
40.06
3.294
Chemistry Attitudes
Male
54
91.28
6.864
.000
Female
98
101.57
9.643
First-Year
75
91.28
6.569
.000
Second-Year
77
104.38
8.504
As can be seen in Table III, there was a statistically significant difference (p<.05) between students' average SPS score based on gender in favor of females. The male students were 8.58 points lower in mean SPS score than the females. Furthermore, there was also a statistically significant differences (p<.05) between average SPS score based on grade levels in favor of second-year students. According to the study, second-year students tended to have a higher average SPS score of 10.19 points compared to first-year students.
In the case of chemistry attitudes, a significant difference in mean score (p<.05) between males and females was also found. The male students were 10.29 points lower in mean CA score than the females. Similar results were also shown by first-year students who tended to have a lower mean CA score of 13.10 points compared to second-year students. Statistically, there was a significant difference (p<.05) between CA scores for first-year and second-year students. In general, Table III informed that the female students in the second-year (code 1=male, 2=female, 1=first-year, 2=second-year) are higher in SPS and CA scores compared to males.
To answer the last research question, the Pearson's Correlation (see Table IV) was employed to determine the causal relationship between variables.
Table IV. The Results of the Pearson's Correlation Analysis on All Variables
Gender
Grades
Science Process Skills
Chemistry Attitudes
Gender
Pearson Correlation
1
.670**
.666**
.493**
Sig.
.000
.000
.000
Grades
Pearson Correlation
.670**
1
.827**
.655**
Sig.
.000
.000
.000
Science Process Skills
Pearson Correlation
.666**
.827**
1
.824**
Sig.
.000
.000
.000
Chemistry Attitudes
Pearson Correlation
.493**
.655**
.824**
1
Sig.
.000
.000
.000
Note: **. Correlation is significant at the .01 level (2-tailed).
As seen in Table IV, there was a high positive and significant correlation between SPS and CA (r=.824, p=.000), gender (r=.666, p=.000), and grade levels (r=.827, p=.000). The results also informed that there was a positive correlation between CA and gender (r=.493, p=.000) and grade levels (r=.655, p=.000). In addition, the linear relationship between SPS and CA was also confirmed by regression analysis which produced R2=.679, F(1, 150)=316,717, p=.000. It meant that the linear regression explained 67.90% of the variance in the data. Accordingly, the findings indicated that students who got a high SPS score tended to show a positive attitudes towards chemistry at the laboratory course.
