Year-Level Differences in Student Attitudes Toward Social Studies and Other School Subjects Wally Moroz, Edith Cowan University Robert G Baker & Gil McDonald Curtin University of Technology Abstract This paper presents findings from a large survey which investigated the attitude of the students and their teachers toward the subject of social studies and other primary school subjects. The sample for the study involved over 3 000 Year 4, 5, 6, and 7 students and their teachers across 21 schools. The paper reports on the findings which emerged from a comparison of the year-level differences in students' attitudes toward social studies from Years 4 to 7 and compares the status accorded social studies by the students against their ratings of 12 other school subjects. While students were positive toward all school subjects in the mid-years of years 4 and 5, there was a significant decline in the positive attitude of students over the four years such that by Year 7 students' attitudes were negative toward two of the 12 school subjects, namely, religion and social studies. Health education was the only school subject to go against the trend and record a higher positive rating across the years from middle to upper primary. Studies of Society and Environment is one of the eight key areas of the primary and secondary school curriculum in Australia and the findings will be of great concern for all teachers and educators across the nation that recognise the significance of this key learning area. The findings are particularly disturbing in the light of a recent resurgence of interest in the civics and citizenship issue and Australian cultural heritage studies. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Australian Association for Research in Education. Hobart, November, 1995 Introduction The study reported in this paper is part of a larger study (Moroz, 1995) which surveyed 3 132 Year 4, 5, 6 and 7 students and their teachers across 21 primary level schools. The larger study followed on from earlier works of Moroz and Washbourne (1989) who investigated student, parent, teacher and principal perceptions of the nature and status of social studies as part of a state-wide inquiry into the current status of social studies education in government and private primary schools. While many previous studies (Pahl, 1994; Shaughnessy & Haladyna, 1985; Haladyna & Thomas 1979; Shaver, Davis & Helburn, 1979) had painted gloomy pictures about the status of social studies, Moroz and Washbourne were heartened by their findings and placed a somewhat rosier film over the previous gloom. They found students were positive toward the subject and generally liked it. However, the common perception among educators was that the decline in attitude largely occurred during secondary school programs (Fraser, 1981). It seemed the closer students got to the stage when they may be seeking employment, then the less relevant was the subject of social studies (Print, 1990; Betres, 1983). A quick glance at the field of social studies education literature over the last decade reveals it is replete with position papers and studies reporting the poor state of the subject in schools (Pahl, 1994; Barth et al., 1993; Stodolsky et al., 1991; Hornstein, 1990; Crawley, 1988; Fouts, 1987; Joyce, 1986; Shaughnessy and Haladyna, 1985). There are probably two or three articles advocating ways of overcoming the 'boring and irrelevant' tags applied to social studies for every single article revealing its declining status. Hutchens (1993) advocates 'Hooking Primary Children on Social Studies', by using cooperative learning, student research strategies, and integrating social studies with the language arts and educational technology. McKinney and Jones (1993) report students find social studies more interesting when children's books are used rather than a formal social studies text. Not only does the student attitude toward social studies improve with the use of children's books report the authors, but there is also more knowledge gained by students. Clifford (1993) believes the social studies teacher can improve the situation by 'bringing history alive in the classroom'. To do this the teacher needs to 'include active learning, integrate it with the language arts, and appeal to multiple intelligences'. Downs (1993) advocates using student surveys and interviews with parents. Bain (1993) also rests the blame with the teachers and believes better quality teachers would emerge if, during teacher education programs, more stress was placed on learning theory supported by more clinical practice. McGowan and others (1990), in a study of sixth graders, linked the solution directly with teaching style, while Fouts (1987) felt the negative attitude was partly due to classroom environment "which the teachers can manipulate". Joyce (1986) found a link between positive student attitudes and teachers who made the subject more personally meaningful for their students. Brophy and Van Sledright (1993), at the Institute for Research on Teaching found exemplary social studies teachers used more experiential learning, varied their content resources, and made constant comparisons between contemporary culture and the classroom topics being studied. How many teachers in the last decade have taken up the challenge of improving the students' enjoyment of the social studies? Not a great number it seems. Hornstein (1990), in a study of 44 elementary social studies classrooms, found eight main instructional modes existed in these rooms. They were: i) teacher reads, ii) student reads, iii) teacher lectures/discusses, iv) teacher corrects, student reads and completes, v) student completes packets/worksheets, vi) students do outlining, vii) students copy notes and viii) students are involved in some varied activity. For those among us who believe in the importance of such key learning areas as Studies of Society and Environment the challenge still lies ahead. One of the main purposes of the study reported in this paper was to investigate student attitudes toward social studies in Years 4 to 7, to identify where the decline in status began, and to compare the status of social studies, and its rise or fall with other subjects in the primary school. Social studies, since the 1960s, generally has been considered one of the "four core subjects" (along with mathematics, science and language arts) in school programs across Australia. With the advent of what became known as the Hobart Declaration in 1989, (Common and Agreed Goals of National Schooling), eight curriculum areas were identified for schooling in Australia. As a consequence of the development of the National Curriculum Statements, social studies took on a new label, Studies of Society and Environment, and became one of those eight learning areas together with English, Mathematics, Technology, Languages Other Than English (LOTE), Arts, Science and Health and Physical Education. It was to include environmental education, work-career education, gender studies, ethnic and cultural diversity and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander education. "It is arguable that all of these 'general studies' have, to varying degrees, always been included in social studies programs" (Carter, 1987:4). 2.The Study: Survey Design The study reported in this paper focused on a stratified random sample of 21 government primary schools selected from over 300 such schools in the metropolitan area of Perth. The respondents included all teachers and students from Years 4 to 7 in those schools, a total of 3 132 students and 112 teachers. Most classes ranged between 31-35 students and had slightly more boys than girls. Six school size categories emerged ranging from those with a student enrollment of 100 or less to those of 700 or more. Teachers were mainly female and aged between 40-49 years. A large scale survey research design was used to measure the attitudes of the teachers and students toward social studies and other school subjects. This necessitated the development of two attitude scales appropriate for the two different respondent groups. Students completed the 137 item SATSS questionnaire while teachers responded to the 101 item TATSS form of the questionnaire. Unlike the middle primary version of SATSS, the upper primary instrument included a number of item reversals. The design of the instruments was based on a number of previously developed and widely recognised attitude scales such as Moos and Trickett (1974), Anderson and Walberg (1976) and Haladyna, Shaughnessy and Redsun (1982). A five point Likert Scale was the major format of the attitude scales used and these items were grouped as subscales to measure a number of key constructs identified in the literature as possible influences on student or teacher attitude toward social studies. These were: attitude to school, attitude to social studies, usefulness of social studies, perceived teacher attitude to social studies, perceived teacher attitude to students, class environment, class management, perception of own ability and parental support for social studies. Other information collected via the survey instruments were: demographics data (sex, year level, type of student mix in class, size of class and school, teachers' age, experience and qualification, social science background, use of the K-10 Syllabus, professional development background, resources available for teaching social studies) and characteristics of the social studies lessons experienced by the students (eg., the knowledge, skills and attitudes covered; the nature, content and processes of the lessons). Two other matters addressed by the questionnaire were students liking for social studies and their preferred school subject. Subjects covered were the traditional core subjects of language (reading, writing, creative writing, spelling), mathematics, science and social studies, together with others, namely music, health, sport, computing, library and religion. Two open ended items were included to investigate respondents likes and dislikes for social studies and for suggestions on how the teaching of social studies could be improved. The instruments were trialled with 158 students and their teachers. One of the most successful aspects of this process was observing a small group of students as they completed the attitude scales and noting when they showed any puzzlement over the items. In this way many of the problems of appropriate language usage for the range of the primary children's ages and abilities were overcome. The reliability of the nine subscales of the instruments was improved substantially as a result of this pilot process (eg., 'Usefulness of social studies' 0.69 to 0.76; 'Own ability' -0.28 to 0.77). A number of research assistants (22) were trained to administer the survey questionnaires at the schools with the SATSS instrument being read to the Year 4 and 5 students but not to the Year 6 and 7 students unless requested. All teacher and student respondents at a participating school were sampled on the same day by a team of research assistants. Data were analysed using the 1987 version of the Statistical Analysis System (SAS) computer software package. Initial analysis employed descriptive statistics (frequency, means, standard deviations, and correlation coefficients) followed by inferential statistical operations such as t-tests and analysis of variance. The latter processes were used to investigate any statistically significant relationships between the key variables of the study, for example, year level differences and gender differences in attitudes toward social studies and other school subjects. 3.Results Out of 13 school subjects, social studies ranked a low twelfth, ahead only of religion. Most liked subjects were the more interactive subjects of sport and computing while creative writing and reading, the more student-focused of the formal subjects, rated very highly. Overall, most students rated social studies 'OK'. Most significant differences in views on attitude toward school subjects were found when responses were compared on the basis of year level. 3.a)Student Attitudes Toward Social Studies Table One: Student attitudes overall: years 4-7 Table Two: Comparison with other subjects across year levels Table Three: Status of social studies by middle and upper primary Table Four: Comparative status & ranking of social studies across year levels 4 - 7 Table Five: Percentage changes between year levels Figure One: Percentage changes -- social studies & all subjects Figure Two: Percentage changes -- social studies & sport Sport ranked number one across all year levels and remained consistently high, ranging between a mean of 4.7 and 4.6 while social studies dropped from 3.8 to 2.9 (ie. into the negative area of the five point scale). Computing, an optional, hands-on, active learning subject rated similar to sport. It remained consistently high with a mean ranging from 4.6 to 4.5 over the year levels. 3.b)Social Studies and the other Core Subjects: Figure Three: Percentage changes -- social studies & mathematics The rate of decline of student liking for mathematics is relatively small and steady across the year levels. Figure Four: Percentage changes -- social studies & reading Reading, like mathematics, also shows a fairly minimal and steady decline across the year levels. Figure Five: Percentage changes -- social studies & creative writing The status of creative writing was high. Students across all four year levels consistently rated creative writing as the third highest ranking by status. The mean dropped only by 0.1 at each change of year level, moving from 4.1 in Year 4 to 3.8 by Year 7, a fall of 7.04%. Figure Six: Percentage changes -- social studies & writing Writing, while rated as having the same status as social studies in Year 4 (Mean = 3.8) only dropped to a mean of 3.5 by Year 7 while social studies dropped almost two whole points to 2.9 on the five point scale. Figure Seven: Percentage changes -- social studies & spelling The status of spelling was unique. It varied little across the year levels with a mean of 3.6 from Year 4 to Year 6, dropping by only 0.1 to a mean of 3.5 by Year 7. Figure Eight: Percentage changes -- social studies & science Science rated highly in Year 4 with a mean of 4.0 but drops by 0.5 to 3.5 by Year 7 a drop of 12.7 percent - apart from social studies, the most significant decline among the more formal core subjects. 3.c)Social Studies and Religion: the Lowest Ranking Subjects: Figure Nine: Percentage changes -- social studies & religion Religion is the only subject to rate lower than social studies and is the only other subject to register a negative rating on the five point scale. It remained rated at approximately 0.2 less than social studies across all four years -- a decline of 22.9% compared with 23.2% for social studies. 3.d)Social Studies & Health: an Improving Status Across Year Levels: Figure Ten: Percentage changes -- social studies & health The status of health is intriguing. It is the only subject that improved its rating across the year levels, moving from 3.4 in Year 5 and 6 to 3.7 in Year 7. Sex education is included in the health syllabus at this stage of schooling in Western Australia and may account for the sudden surge of interest. Student Likes And Dislikes Numerous aspects of social studies that were liked were mentioned by the students. The most often mentioned matters could be described as instructional practices, for example: maps, colouring in, projects, graphs, drawing, and excursions. Others to receive most mentions were social studies content items, for example: topics dealing with the world, interesting things and the past. Students mentioned approximately 50% more aspects of social studies that they did not like compared to those they liked. Of the total number of responses identified, surprisingly, 55% related to instructional practices and only 4% were from the content area of social studies. Writing activities clearly headed the list of disliked practices; others were copying off the board, tests, worksheets, mapping, and teacher talking. Many other activities were also mentioned by the students, such as, projects, homework, colouring in, note-taking, bookwork, drawing and talking. Instructional Practices Undertaken in Social Studies Lessons Respondents were asked to indicate the frequency of a range of instructional practices undertaken during social studies lessons. Students were requested to indicate their frequency according to the following categories: at least once a week, every two weeks, once a month, once a term and hardly ever. The data for all years were grouped together and primary school activities were considered as a whole. Year level differences may, however, confound these results. This would need further exploration and is beyond the scope of this paper. The activities are listed below in rank order, based on the combined percentages of students indicating they undertook the activity either at least once a week or every two weeks. The results are particularly revealing. They show that the most common activities undertaken in social studies were: Copying from blackboard Reading Whole class discussion Colouring in Pictures and diagrams The activities listed are all conventional or teacher-dominated activities. Reliance on these kinds of activities as the predominant teaching and learning strategies raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the chosen teaching strategies for social studies. This concern is reinforced when results of the least common social studies activities are considered. The least frequent social studies activities experienced by students were the more interactive or action-oriented strategies - unfortunately, those most commonly recommended for social studies learning in the classroom: Role-plays Newspaper activities Social studies projects Films Guest speakers Excursions Students perceived social studies to be a useful and important subject: they felt they learned a lot in social studies, that it was important and it would help them with an understanding of the world around them. The students believed social studies would help them gain employment if they did well in the subject and that they expected to make use of what they learned. Less than 40% of students looked forward to their next social studies lesson but agreed that in social studies classes, students generally worked well together, tried to get a higher mark in social studies than their friends and found that social studies lessons were not too noisy. Students thought that their teachers' explanations in social studies lessons were clear and the teachers had control over students. Students had a moderately positive perception of their ability to do well in social studies. There was strong parental support for social studies. Students had a strong positive attitude toward school, were happy to go to school, found most subjects interesting, and were moderately positive about school rules and liking school. Although students tried to do well in social studies, their attitude toward the subject, their enjoyment of the activities and topics in social studies, and their liking for social studies, was mildly positive. Discussion In almost every case, the younger the student, the more positive their attitude to social studies. There was a significant decline in positive student attitude toward social studies from Year 4 to Year 7. Overall, the attitude of Year 7 students was significantly lower than for Year 4 students, even in subjects where Year 7 student attitudes were very positive, as was the case for sport and computing. While there was a general deterioration in positive student attitude toward all school subjects the decline in attitude toward social studies was almost three times more than the average. In terms of subject matter, students were in strongest agreement that they learned mostly about Australia, how to use maps, the state (Western Australia), how people used to live in the past and facts about the world. They felt least strongly that they learned about note taking skills, how to use different kinds of books, how to solve problems and 'things that help us to get on with people'. Instructional practices accounted for the majority of 'likes' with mapping being the most liked followed by colouring-in, projects, graphs and drawing. Most 'dislikes' were also instructional pratices such as, writing activities and copying off the board while a large number merely stated "social studies was boring". Past perception among social studies educators has been that the decline in status for social studies began in high school at about the Year 9 level, however, this study and another nearing completion (Simpson & Moroz, 1995), clearly shows this not to be the case. While a major decline occurs in secondary years, the decline begins as early as the mid-primary years. Indeed the attitude to almost all school subjects begins to decline after this stage of schooling. Health education appears to be the only subject to go against this trend. Perhaps the topic of sex education in upper primary health education curriculum has something to do with this! There is an overall decline in the status of all subjects across the years from Year 4 to 7, with the exception of health education which declines until a raise of status in Year 7; however, social studies experiences a rate of decline which far exceeds the overall rate for any other subject. It is the only recognised "core" academic subject which declines at such a dramatic rate. Others with a similar rate of decline are the more peripheral subjects such as library and religion, which are not recognised as "core" academic subjects. Only religion rates lower than social studies across all years and only social studies and religion drop into the negative area of the 5-point rating scale. By contrast, sport and computing, neither of which are recognised core academic subjects, rate consistently highest across all years, almost 2.0 points higher than social studies. Both these subjects are of the active "hands on" type compared to the more passive picture the students have painted for the delivery of social studies lessons they are currently experiencing. When the status of social studies is compared to other "core" academic subjects it fares badly. It is rated almost a full 1.0 point (on a 5-point scale) less than reading and creative writing and fares similarly poorly against mathematics , writing, spelling and science. However, far more concerning to enthusiastic teachers of social studies, particularly those in the upper primary and lower secondary area, is the rate of decline in status for social studies from Year 4 to 7. No other "core" subject is declining at the same rate. In Year 4 social studies rated higher than writing and spelling, at a similar level to mathematics, and only a fraction of a point less than for science and creative writing respectively. By Year 7 the gap had grown threefold for science, writing and spelling and even greater for math, reading and creative writing. In percentage terms, the rate of decline for social studies was over 23% from Year 4 to 7. Other subjects showed significantly less decline, for example, spelling 1.9%, and reading, creative writing, writing, and mathematics, less than 10% decline. Only religion (23%) and library (21%) approached the rate of decline of social studies. Another major concern is a lack of the appropriate instructional strategies we should expect to see in social studies classrooms, or as Hornstein (1990) observed, the "enduring pattern" of teacher-centred, text-centred social studies teaching. Previous status studies (Cuban, 1991; Good & Harmon, 1987; Haladyna, et al, 1982) have indicated social studies rates well with students where interactive, inductive, student-centred instructional practices are to be found. As Hutchens (1990) found, students become "hooked" on social studies when it involves cooperative learning, and student research strategies. But are our teachers equipped to deliver such strategies? Demographic data gathered for this study would suggest the answer is "No". There is not the background in the social sciences or teacher education curriculum and instruction courses to meet these needs. Even if there had been, a recent study by Baker & Scott (1995) indicates that the majority of graduates would not transfer such new learning into their ongoing, beginning teacher practices. If, as expected, Studies of Society and Environment is to be the vehicle for the rebirth of civics and citizenship education in our schools (Civics Expert Group, 1994), then, as Kennedy (1994) stated recently, it "will require considerable 'gearing up' if these new demands are to be met". 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