The Influence of a ‘Transition Science’ Unit on Student Attitudes

Abstract

A substantial body of literature exists which documents attempts to determine the factors which influence student attitudes to school and to specific subjects. Many of these factors are generally thought to contribute to the ‘problem of transition’, the time of transfer of pupil cohorts from the primary school system to the secondary school system. In Western Australia, the adoption of a new secondary curriculum framework gave educators the opportunity to introduce a series of transition units in certain subjects, which would provide students with a standardised common statewide structure during the final year of primary education and the first year of secondary education. In the present study, attitudes of students in their first year of secondary education at four metropolitan senior high schools were investigated. The student sample was divided into those students who had been exposed to this new curriculum initiative and those who had not. In mid‐1987, a cross sectional analysis of student attitudes was conducted. The results of this analysis indicated that there was little difference in the attitudes of the two groups of students to a variety of attitude objects, including the school subject of science.