| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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corpus of literature. The data obtained through this study has been used to address this gap. The findings of the study may have implications for alternative science curricula that could be used in urban middle school science classrooms. The study helps answer two overarching questions: (a) Does a contextualized science curriculum influence students' content acquisition, attitudes, and engagement in the science classroom; and (b) does a contextualized science curriculum affect teachers' perceptions of students' attitudes and teachers' self-efficacy beliefs in an urban middle school?
Research Questions
Though formal standardized test scores are not necessarily attributable to one intervention, I was interested in finding out whether intervention did lead to statistically significant differences in test scores between the control and experimental group. The hypothesis of three dependent variables, namely content knowledge, attitude toward science in the classroom, and student engagement in the science classroom, led to the formulation of the first three research questions.
The study also explored other indicators of the effectiveness of the implementation of contextualized curriculum in addition to the formal test scores. The desire to know what else happened during the implementation of contextualized and traditional science curriculum, such as whether students liked what they did and whether teachers perceived a positive change in students' attitudes, led to the formulation of the last two research questions.
The following research questions guided the study:
- 1. Does the use of a contextualized science curriculum in an urban setting improve seventh-grade students' content acquisition in science as opposed to the use of a traditional science curriculum?
- 2. Does the use of a contextualized science curriculum in an urban setting improve seventh-grade students' attitudes toward school science as opposed to the use of a traditional science curriculum?