RELATONSHIP
BETWEEN ATTITUDE TOWARDS HISTORY AND ACHIEVEMENT IN HISTORY
Preeti Sinha
INTRODUCTION
The
progress, welfare and prosperity of a nation depends on rapid, planned and
sustained growth in the quality and extent of education and this can be
achieved only with peace and stability in the country in which informative
subject like history can play a pivotal role. Thus, history as a subject
becomes a priority area in education. History is a store house of information,
knowledge and culture. This knowledge, information and culture can preserve the
unity in diversity. It has the power to check the fissiparous tendencies by
enriching the cultural life of the nation by developing the culture of the
various groups as part of a single nation. History forms a part of the
curriculum in general education for the first ten years of schooling. The
course up to this stage is aimed at acquainting the pupil with important trends
and developments in history of
national emotional integration has to be our natural tune. For
this, a right attitude towards history is the greatest need of the hour. History learning should help to preserve the
unity in diversity, ensure rapid social, economic and educational progress,
enrich the cultural life of the nation and ensure security from internal and
external dangers. The children should be exposed to this store house of
information through the right methods of teaching and the right kind of
teachers.
OBJECTIVES
1.
To find the proportion of high attitude towards history.
2.To find the proportion of low attitude towards history.
3.To find the relationship between positive attitude
towards history and achievement in history.
4.To find out the significance of difference between
achievement in history of the low and high attitude students.
METHOD
Sample
The
sample consisted of 96 students of B. Ed. course studying in St. Xavier’s
Tool
A
scale of attitude towards history was developed and was standardised
by the investigator. The tool was on 3 point scale, with 12 items and the
respondents had to give one of the three clear indications- yes, no,
or uncertain. The test- retest reliability of the scale was 0.58.
RESULTS
AND DISCUSSION
Achievement
scores in history were taken into consideration from their performance in the
first semester examination of the college held in December 2004. These scores
were arranged in accordance with the attitude scores yielding two groups, i.e.,
high attitude group and low attitude group. The mean, SD and t-ratio were
calculated for the scores obtained. The obtained t – ratio [11.76
] appeared to be significant beyond 0.01. This leads us to reject our
null hypothesis that there is no difference in achievement in history between
high- and- low attitude groups. Thus, the higher the attitude towards history, the higher is the
achievement in history. Hence, attitude affects achievement.
CONCLUSION
Knowledge,
attitudes and behaviour are very closely linked. The formation of attitude is
unquestionably conditioned by experience. It is generally accepted that
attitudes are determined largely by social environment and home and school
influences are specially important. Hence, the
development of a right attitude towards a subject has to be created from the
very beginning. Parents and teachers should be conscious enough not to
disillusion the child in relation to any subject. The right attitude will
definitely result in right action in form of high achievement. The negative
attitude is largely based on environmental stimuli.