Various factors have been reported to affect science learning outcomes, some of which are school, home and individual or self variables. A plethora of studies have been done in many countries in identifying and measuring relationships among perception of the science teacher, peer influence, home environment, parents' education level, classroom environment, ability, prior achievement, homework, amount of television watched, attitudes to science and science achievement. However, there are very few studies done in identifying the direction of causality in these relationships. A study of this nature has not previously been conducted in Singapore. Evidence for these directional links was sought in this study in the Singapore context. This study used causal modeling procedures to test causal inferences about hypothesized relationships among ability, prior achievement, motivation, peer influence, classroom environment, amount of television watched, home environment, parents' education level, student perception of the science teacher, homework, attitudes to science, and science achievement for a secondary-two (equivalent to grade 8) sample of Singaporean students. A model of educational productivity appropriate to the sociocultural context of Singapore was conceptualized and tested. The analysis showed that the data for both the gender groups did not contradict the model. This indicated the viability of the model. Attitudes to science affected achievement in science; the converse was not true. Neither was the relationship two-way. Prior achievement, ability, motivation, classroom environment, and attitudes to science emerged as the significant and consistent predictors of achievement in science. Hence, concerted efforts should be directed to raising the motivation level, improving the classroom environment, and enhancing the students' attitudes to science since these are the more alterable variables.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-8601 |
| Date | 01 January 1993 |
| Creators | Yeen, Foong Yoke |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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