Motivation and attitude towards learning chemistry

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between attitudes and motivations of first year Biology and Chemistry students to learn chemistry. The study adopted co relational research design. A total of 155 first year biology and chemistry students (95 first year Biology and 60 Chemistry students) taking chemistry in the second semester of 2017/2018 at Dire University, Ethiopia, were involved in this study. Data for this study were collected using Attitude Inventory Test and the Achievement Motivation Scale. Data were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21. The results show that there is no statistically significant difference between biology and chemistry students in their attitudes and motivation towards learning chemistry. Furthermore, there is no a statistically significant relationship between attitudes and motivation of these students towards learning chemistry (i.e. there is negligible degree of relationship between attitude and motivation to learn chemistry). The relationship between attitude and motivation might be due to chance. On the basis of the results of this study, it can be concluded that there is no statistically significant relationship between attitude towards chemistry and the motivation to learn chemistry. The results did not support the expectation that there is a statistically significant relationship between attitude towards a given domain of science and the motivation to learn it. Therefore, teachers must help students comprehend basic facts, principles, concepts and theories and should encourage them apply these to solve chemistry problems and enhance the motivation. This would improve students’ ability to answer difficult chemistry questions which might appear every examination.