Measure
Scale of Interest in Science
Three separate versions of scale of interest in science were used to quantify interest in science of upper primary, secondary and higher secondary levels. Science topics suitable to the level of schooling were listed in each version for which students have to self-report by choosing any of the three alternatives- Not Interested, Somewhat Interested and Much Interested- which were scored 0, 1, and 2 respectively. Upper primary version listed 63 topics selected after thorough analysis of the contents in science textbooks of standards III to VII with which pupils are already familiar with. Test-retest and Split-half coefficients of correlation were 0.70 and internal consistency using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of homogeneity was r=0.95. Substantial positive correlation of 0.56 with the grades that pupils obtained in science indicated concurrent validity of this version of the scale. Secondary school version of scale of interest in science included 100 topics covering the three fields i.e., Physics, Chemistry and Biology after analyzing the contents in the science textbooks of standards 8-12 of schools following Kerala state curriculum. Test re-test reliability coefficient is 0.97 (N=40). For higher secondary version 6o topics of both theory and applications of various fields of science chosen after thorough analysis of the science text books of 11th and 12th standards were used. In order to make the scores from the three versions comparable, raw scores were transformed into standard scores using the formula,
Interest in Science of individual student = (Sum of score obtained on all the items in the version / number of items in the version)/ Standard Deviation of the distribution of above scores among the sample using that version.