A Comparative Study On Scientific Attitudes Of University Students.

Abstract

University education is widely recognized as a critical period in the development of students' attitudes towards science. It is during this period that students are expected to engage in scientific research and inquiry. This study focused to examine and compare the variations in scientific attitudes of university students of sciences and social sciences. Scientific attitudes encompassed various dimensions, including the evolving nature of scientific knowledge, cultural consensus determination of scientific knowledge, subjective individualistic conception of scientific knowledge, non-universality or universality of laws in science, inherent bias against women, and the negativity of science toward the individual and society. The data were collected through a questionnaire to assess the scientific attitudes of a sample of university students from both sciences and social sciences faculties. Data were analyzed through descriptive (i.e. Frequency, Mean) and inferential statistics (i.e. Pearson correlation coefficient and independent samples t-test) using SPSS. The descriptive analyses revealed that all the dimensions of scientific attitudes were reported to be at a moderate level. The results of inferential statistics showed that there were significant relationships among dimensions of scientific attitudes of university students. The results also showed that there were no significant gender wise differences in the key dimensions of scientific attitudes of university students. Likewise, there were no significant faculty wise differences found in the key dimensions of scientific attitudes of university students.