An investigation of attitudes of secondary school students in Newfoundland toward the grade ten social studies course : Canadian Society, issues and concerns

Kannampadam, Joseph T. (1978) An investigation of attitudes of secondary school students in Newfoundland toward the grade ten social studies course : Canadian Society, issues and concerns. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudinal effects of a new social studies course, "Canadian Problems" upon grade ten students in three geographic regions--a large urban area, a small urban area, and a rural area--in the Province of Newfoundland. -- A fifty-six item questionnaire was developed employing the Likert Scale technique. It was administered to a sample of 210 students divided into "treatment" and "control" groups. Their responses to the questionnaire provided the data for this study. The items on the questionnaire were intended to elicit student responses to four specific areas of attitude toward the course. These areas were: (1) student attitude toward the course in general; (2) the methodology employed for it; (3) its learning outcomes among students; and (4) its impact on student attitudes. -- The data provided by the student responses were analyzed using a 2 x 3 Analysis of Variance and t-tests where applicable. The results indicated that the attitude responses of students in the rural area toward the overall course and knowledge obtained consistently exceeded the responses of students from the large and small urban areas. Their attitude responses toward the methodology also exceeded the responses of students from the small urban area. However, in comparisons involving large and small urban area students, large urban area student responses exceeded those of a small urban urban area on the subscales of methodology and attitude differences resulting from their exposure to the course. Finally, the large urban area students exceeded the rural area students on the attitude difference resulting from their exposure to the course.

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