As was suggested in my previous post, Corbin’s (1994) survey was a major contributing factor in the makeup of most of the questions listed in my own questionnaire. Although, the focus group (and the geographic area of interest for his survey) differed from mine, the purposes and conclusions made are quite similar to my own. The difference between his study and my own of course, is the research into different ages/year levels, where Corbin (1994) is concerned with high school learning, I am more interested in attitudes gained at the primary level of schooling.
Corbin (1994) administered a questionnaire to high school graduates of two New York public schools in the spring of 1995. This questionnaire was to find the relationship between students’ attitudes towards social studies courses and their resulting achievements. The total numbers of recorded results from the sample group were 439 students – 280 of these students were from an urban school while 159 of these were from a suburban school, both within the New York region. Of these 53.3% of them were females and 46.7% of them were males.
Corbin (1994) set out three overarching reasons for completing this research study:
1) Before this time only one other study had examined the relationship between students’ attitudes toward social studies and their resulting achievement.
2) Increased emphasis on the role of women in history and government was thought to reflect a more positive attitude by females towards social studies. Before this time ‘the dominant role of males were prominent in subjects such as history and government’ (McTeer, 1986 as cited in Corbin, 1994) and was considered to be the reason for higher interest levels by male students in the social studies. Therefore, the analysis of data within this study pays careful attention to the gender differences – in both attainment and attitude.
3) Previous research had shown that social studies was among the least liked high school subject: ‘When Fernandez, Massey, and Dornbusch (1976) sampled high school students in San Francisco, they found that social studies ranked last in importance when compared to English and mathematics. The research suggested that the skills taught in social studies were perceived by students as ‘subtle and diffuse’ (p. 56) and had little relationship to students’ lives in terms of initial employment opportunities, choosing or succeeding in a future occupation’ (as cited in Corbin, 1994, p.5). This questionnaire intended to find if this was still the case and whether it was in fact affecting achievement.
The Questionnaire: The 30 question survey consists of: personal info, past experiences in social studies, a comparison to other learning areas, attitudes towards social studies education, and twenty rating questions about students experience over the 4 years in high school social studies courses. Ultimately, these questions could be split into four major areas of variance for student achievement levels. These were: 1) students’ interest in social studies, 2) personal values, 3) social studies presentation, 4) and co-operative learning.
2 Major Findings: From the results only two major findings were made. Firstly, ‘male and female students who liked social studies more than other major subjects were more likely to report higher achievement for four years of social studies than their counterparts who did not like social studies more than other subjects’ (Corbin, 1994, p.10). If this insight were utilised, students who show an interest early on can be supplied with additional courses and programs in order to influence their choice to pursue a social studies related career such as law, teaching or law enforcement. And secondly, ‘their experiences in social studies were generally more positive than their experiences in other major subject areas’ (p.10) – this is contrary to what previous research had shown.
Conclusions: Finally three major conclusions were drawn from the research:
1) Male and female seniors in high school expressed more interest in social studies when compared to other major subjects which contributed to their social studies achievement.
2) Female seniors in high school who expressed greater interest in their social studies courses reported higher social studies achievement than their counterparts who expressed lesser interest in social studies courses.
3) Male and female seniors in high school reported that their general attitudes as well as their interest, values, presentation and cooperative learning in social studies did not influence their achievement in social studies.
This research has been very interesting when considering my own topic of research. I feel I will be able to compare and contrast a number of items when analysing my data from my questionnaire:
1) The difference of interest levels between male and female students.
2) The interest expressed towards social studies compared to other learning areas.
3) Possibly, attitude change from primary learning to high school learning in social studies.
SIDE NOTE: Admittedly, when considering the focus group for my own questionnaire (persons aged 15+ years) it will be hard to ratify that their opinions have not been affected by their high school social studies experiences, similar to what has been dealt with in Corbin's (1994) research.
References:
Corbin, S. S. (1994). Lessons from the classroom: male and female high school students' attitudes toward and achievement in social studies. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED
393777)
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