Summary And Suggestions For Further Research…

SUMMARY AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER

RESEARCH

5.1 SUMMARY

The word science is derived from a Latin word

which means “to know”. From this etymological
meaning-“science deals with the knowledge, quest for
further knowledge and exploring new arenas, welfare
and comforts of mankind.”

Scientific knowledge and technologies are

doubling itself in about 10–15 years. Science has
touched every aspect of human life, from food,
luxuries, transport and all what we can think and
imagine of. Any nation is considered to be prosperous
mighty, important in terms of the scientific knowledge
it is generating and putting into use.

Since the dawn of human race on this Earth the

science has been the loyal companion. The history of
science therefore, can be said to be begun with the
history of human existence. Even the earliest human
races invented crude tools and techniques for their
fitment in the struggle for survival.

57
 Summary And Suggestions For Further Research…

Nothing much can be said of this enormous

stretch of time of human existence till about 4000 B.C.

By then the men began to live in organized social

groups in some geographically congenial places of the
earth. History records that the human civilization thus
began in Mesopotamia, Egypt and other places. These
people among other things, knew the art of building,
smelting, time-telling, use of metals, they observed the
effect of heavenly bodies as the Sun, the Moon and the
stars on agriculture. About the ancient Indus Valley
Civilization, S.F. Mason,(in “History of education in
India”, by N. Jayapalan.2006) in his book History of
Science states that, “civilized society arose in India as
it did in Mesopotamia, Egypt and China with Bronze
Age culture in a river valley. The people of Indus Valley
civilization had pictographic scripts and decimal
numeral system. They used the same fast spinning
potter’s wheel as the Sumerians and alloyed copper
with tin to make bronze; but they wove cotton rather
than flax or wool of the West or the silk of the East.
About 2000 B.C. , however, the civilization of Indus
became extinct.” The modern system of education in
India grew during the British period which ultimately
replaced the indigenous system of education that was
in vogue in India since ancient times. Initially, during
the period of the East India Company’s rule, there were
more proselytising activities by the missionaries rather
than interest in education.

However, finally due to the combined efforts of

the missionaries, government officers and enlightened
Indians of the time, modern education slowly spread all

58
 Summary And Suggestions For Further Research…

over India. Initially, sporadic efforts were made to

spread all over India in different subject areas.
Calcutta Madrasa (1780) (ibid.) is said to have had
provision for teaching of subjects like natural sciences,
Quran, astrology, law, geometry, arithmetic, logic,
rhetoric, etc. The subjects taught in Benaras Sanskrit
College (started in 1791) (ibid.) included teaching of
medical sciences.

In the post-independence period the first

education commission was the University Education
Commission of 1948 under the Chairmanship of Dr.
Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan. Though the Commission was
to report primarily on the university education with
needed recommendations, it made valuable
recommendations in respect of secondary education
also, as it felt the improvement of curriculum and
syllabus at the secondary level to be essential for
improvement of university education. The Commission
recommended inclusion of general science (Physics and
Biology) as courses of study in secondary schools. For
first degree courses, the Commission suggested that
not less than two special subjects must be studied by
science students from among mathematics, physics,
chemistry, botany, zoology and geology.

Later, in 1953, the Secondary Education

Commission, (under Dr. Lakshmanaswami Mudaliar as
Chairman) suggested compulsory inclusion of general
science and mathematics as core subjects at the middle
as well as secondary level. At the higher secondary
level, the Commission suggested diversification of

59
 Summary And Suggestions For Further Research…

courses having science group subjects as optional

channel.

The question that comes fore mostly to our minds

by going through these issues is why pure science is
being given so much importance? When we think of the
marvels of science and further more go beyond and
think about the principles upon which the gazettes and
gizmos work, we come to realize the value of research
in pure sciences. The exponential growth of knowledge
and expectances from science are ever increasing day
by day. Hence more financial and manpower
infrastructure is required of in the pure fields. To
produces quality researchers, teaching is equally
essential as to get good quality fruits from an orchard.

Attitues are unquestionably an acquired

disposition and therefore conditioned by learning or
acquisition of experiences. Heredity factor does not
play any role in the formation or development of
attitudes. Environmental forces help an individual to
form and develop various attitudes. Scientific
attitude is a setting of mind and a way of life according
to certain principles. I t is developed when science
subjects are taught as discipline of mind. If scientific
attitude is developed, the children will live think and
work accordingly.

Science education is conceived as the need of the

hour, which has been reflected in the report of most of
educational commissions right from 1952-53 to 1986
the NPE. Such exigencies are due to the technological
revolution as observed and experienced in the present
century. Further exponential growth of knowledge and

60
 Summary And Suggestions For Further Research…

revolution in the field of information technology has also

substantiated such a need. The individuals of present century
need to possess a scientific out-look in their day to day
thinking style, as well as activities, simply for their
effective adjustment. In his context various state
governments with collaborations of NGOs’ are trying to
popularize the study of science especially at the senior
secondary stage

Statement of Problem

In view of above considerations the study has

been entitled as, “An attitude study of students of 10th
class of Mandi District towards opting science as a subject
at senior secondary level.”

Scope and Limitations of Study

Every study has some peripheral circumvents

which define the coverage area of its piece of work. The
present study deals with Mandi district only out of 12
districts of Himachal Pradesh. Due to the time and
material restrictions, the sample included only one
school each from the four categories viz. Government-
Urban, Government-Rural, Private-Urban and Private-
Rural. The study could have included more districts
and school samples from each category of school. The
total sample of the study is 200, comprising of 25 boys
and 25 girls from each category of school. The
methodologies of Educational Research are based on
research methodologies in Behavioural and Social-
Sciences, as research in these fields emphasis logical–
positivism. This part consists of three sub-parts;
subjects or sample, procedures and data analysis. The

61
 Summary And Suggestions For Further Research…

subject or sample section details the sampling

procedure of the population which researcher aims to
study. The procedure section outlines the research
plan. It describes what has done, how it has been done,
type of data collected, tools to collect data etc. The
data analysis details tools and techniques of data
analysis and interpretation.

I t is often impractical or unethical to arrange

occurrences, an analysis or past events or of already
existing conditions in such a case research design
followed is ex-post-facto. Studying the review of
literature and considering the objectives of the study
ex-post-facto type of descriptive design was found to be
most suited for the present study. The population of
the study is the 10th class students of Mandi District
of Himachal Pradesh. The selection of schools has been
done on the basis of area or cluster sample. The
sample of students taken is the batch sample of 25
boys and 25 girls of 10th class of each school. One
school each was selected from the categories-
Government-Rural, Government-Urban, Private-Rural
and Private-Urban The instrument used to collect the
data in the present study is an Attitude scale developed
by the investigator himself. Different dimensions and
the items included in them are prepared by consulting
school teachers, principals and personnel from
educational field. The scale has been developed as per
the principles of Likert’s Attitude scale.

The aim of the study is to study the attitudes of

10th class students towards opting science at senior
secondary school level and to have a comparative

62
 Summary And Suggestions For Further Research…

picture of the attitudes. For the latter 15 groups of

students were made. The data gathered on the attitude
scale was scored and tabulated. Total, Mean, Standard
Deviation, Standard Error Difference, ‘t’ Test and
Degree of Freedom was calculated using MS-Excel.

5.2 Suggestions for Further Research

Any research can be extended beyond the

limits of feasibility, practicality and utility. But
keeping in mind these parameters the present study
can be extended by the future workers so as to: -

- include all the districts of Himachal Pradesh.

- increase number of schools in each category of
school.
- find out correlation between scholastic
competency and attitude towards opting science at
senior secondary level.
- conduct a longitudinal study on the persistence of
attitude and relative success of students in
further studies.
- use better, more comprehensive analytical
statistics to reveal more informative and extensive
results.

63