Survey Write-Up

The survey used in this study was adapted from Vitale and Johnson (1988). This survey was designed to assess students’ attitudes towards science. The four subscales include: Instrumental Vale of Science; Active Participation in Science; Difficulty and Complexity of Science; and General Attitude toward Science. Each subscale contained a series of questions pertaining to the topic, such as “Scientific interventions improve our standard of living” (Instrumental Value of Science) and “There are too many facts to learn in science” (Difficulty and Complexity of Science). The questions are Likert Scale (from a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being strongly disagree and 5 being strongly agree) format.

In this study, pre-tests and post-tests were given to participants in order to evaluate their initial attitude toward science (pre-test) and their attitude after participating in the summer camp (post-test). Unfortunately the participants did not complete the post-tests, and the researchers only had the pre-test, which means the original hypothesis of this study could not be examined. There was a total of 11 pre-tests, but only ten could be used in the data analysis since one survey was unfinished (over half was uncompleted). Looking at the four subscales of the survey, some of the questions needed to be thrown out due to a majority of the participants not answering the question.

With only 10 surveys, the researchers were limited to frequency statistics of education style, religion, ethnicity, and gender of the participants.  The frequencies for educational style: 7 responded with homeschooled (70%), 2 for private school (20%), and one participant did not answer (10%). Of the 10 participants, 8 were Christian (80%), 1 responded Non-Denominational (10%), and another responded None (10%). Out of 10, 8 participants were Caucasian (88.9%) and only 1 was Asian (11.1%); there was a participant who did not answer the question about ethnicity. The gender distribution was almost even: 6 males (60%) and 4 females (40%).

Self-report styles of research, such as a survey, are good sources of information but have limitations. One major limitation is demonstrated by this study: respondents often times do not complete the questionnaire, skip questions, or not realize the survey is double sided or contains. multipage.

Vitale, P. A.. (1988). A factor analytic study of the attitudes of gifted secondary students toward

science. Educational and Psychological Measuremnt,48, 1011-1018.

Stats

               -edu style: valid 9, missing 1

               -religion: valid 10, missing 0

               -ethnicity: valid 9, missing 1

               -gender: valid 10, missing 0

Frequency: Edu Style

               -Valid: total 10, valid percent 100

                              -homeschool 7, valid percent 70

                              -priv school 2, valid percent 20

                              -pub school none

               -Missing: 1

Frequency: Religion

               -Valid: total 10, 100%

                              -none 1, 10%

                              -christian 8, 80%

                              -non denom 1, 10%

                              -other NA

Frequency: Ethnicity

               -Valid: total 10, 100%

                              -Caucasian 8, 88.9%

                              -Asian 1, 11.1%

               -Missing 1

Frequency: Gender

               -Valid: total 10, 100%

                              -male 6, 60%

                              -female 4, 40%

Had to throw out one survey because the respondant did not complete

Had to delete Value6,8,11,14 due to insufficient responses

Had to delete Partic1,2, 4-6

Had to delete GenAtt2-5