ANALYSIS OF COGNITIVE DEMANDS OF THE CONCEPTS TAUGHT IN GENERAL SCIENCE AT 8TH GRADE, PIAGETIAN DEVELOPMENTAL LEVELS OF STUDENTS AND THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARDS LEARNING OF SCIENCE

Abstract

The science textbook is one of the elements that can affect the quality of science education. The science textbook for any grade usually contains complicated and abstract concepts that students have to comprehend. It was evident from reported literature that these science concepts usually demand a higher level of reasoning ability from students while they have not yet attained that cognitive developmental level. One of the reasons is that Piaget‘s proposed age-stage model does not exist in its true sense and there is great variation in distribution of students at different Piagetian developmental levels (PDLs) throughout the world. This causes a mismatch between curricula demand and students‘ reasoning ability level. This mismatch is ultimately claimed to affect the students‘ attitude towards science learning. This study aimed to analyze the cognitive demand of the curricula of the 8th grade General Science textbook and patterns of Piagetian developmental levels and attitude towards science learning of students at 8th and 9th grades. Along with that, this study was also focused on exploring the effect of the mismatch between curricula demand and students‘ Piagetian developmental levels on students‘ attitude towards science learning. From 35 districts of Punjab province, three districts (Okara, Sargodha, & Rawalpindi) were conveniently selected for data collection. The data was collected from 1233 students of 8th and 9th grades of 37 government schools of these three districts. Curriculum Analysis Taxonomy (CAT) was applied to breakdown the 8th grade General Science textbook in terms of Piagetian developmental levels. Attitude of the students was measured by Attitude towards Science Learning scale (AtSL), a five point Likert scale, whereas the existing Piagetian developmental levels of the students were measured by administering of the Pendulum task (PRT III). Both research instruments were in Urdu (national language) and were personally administered by the researcher to ensure the reliability and a high rate of return of data. The mismatch between cognitive demands of the curricula of the 8th grade General Science textbook and existing Piagetian developmental levels of students of 8th grade was calculated. Later, the effect of this mismatch (between cognitive demands of the curricula of the 8th grade General Science textbook and existing Piagetian developmental levels of students at 8th grade) on attitude towards science learning was examined. It was found that respondents‘ parental profile regarding qualification and profession was very low. The contents of General science textbook of 8th grade were found to be distributed unevenly at different Piagetian developmental levels throughout textbook. Most of the respondents were at different sub-stages of the Concrete Operational level and a few were at Early Formal Operational level. It was further found that female students scored higher on the Pendulum task and also have better attitude towards science learning than male students. Similarly 9th grade students performed better on the Pendulum task and have more positive attitude towards science learning than 8th grade students. Rural and urban students were not significantly different in their attitude, whereas urban students performed significantly better on the Pendulum task. Students at different Piagetian developmental levels significantly differ in their attitude towards science learning. It was concluded that the respondents were from the lower socio-economic sector of society. Female students were more clustered at higher levels of cognitive development than male students, and female students have better attitude towards science learning. The attitude of the students increases with the increase in their reasoning ability. It was concluded that there exists a mismatch between students‘ reasoning ability and curricula demand and, with the increase in quantity of the mismatch, a decrease in attitude towards science learning occurs. It was recommended that the curriculum development experts need to develop a model in terms of Piagetian developmental levels for deciding the nature, level and complexity of the content while developing science textbooks at any grade. It is further recommended that teachers replace the didactic teaching method with the interactive one. The teachers should group students with different reasoning abilities within the class. Teachers should use different teaching techniques to introduce the content of the science textbooks to enhance, encourage and motivate students and to develop their attitude towards science learning.