Attitudes and influencing factors towards geography : a case study in state secondary schools in Gozo

Abstract

This dissertation is an attempt to examine non-optional geography students' attitudes towards geography. Two state secondary schools in Gozo were chosen as the study area. The work tries to obtain data on whether students' gender and academic level (Junior Lyceum students as opposed to students in Area Secondary school) affect attitudes towards geography. In this work attitudes are taken to include various options of which four were selected for the study, so as to determine whether these were affected by gender and academic level. These include: whether students enjoy or do not enjoy geography lessons, whether they look forward or not to the lesson, whether the students consider geography as an important or not important school subject and whether they consider the subject as useful or not for a future career. This study also provides insights on other influencing factors that might affect attitudes. Findings show that gender and academic level do affect how a non-optional geography student views geography. Conclusions based on present findings include not only whether students' gender and academic level affect attitudes towards geography, but also what can be done in schools by employing such findings in order to further promote Geography as a school subject. Together with gender and academic level, teachers, parents and the language used in class were also determined to be very influential factors.