Determining the attitude of undergraduate students towards physics through concept mapping

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of using concept mapping strategy in teaching physics on the attitude towards physics. Participants were (46) first year students from two classes enrolled to the course “Fundamentals of Physics I”, in Dhofar University, Oman. One of the classes was randomly selected as experimental group (23), while the other was a control group (23). The data was collected via the pre- and post-attitude scale. The study was conducted within a period of 8 weeks and the class had three lessons in a week. The material covered was about mechanics. The results showed that there was a significant difference at (α=0.05) in the attitude towards physics between the experimental and the control group. The study also showed that there was no significant difference attributed to the gender and the interaction between teaching methods and gender.