Enhancing dental education through attitude-based analysis: a comparative study of biology achievement among dental students

Abstract

This research aimed to compare academic achievement in biology across two key dimensions: objective scores and subjective scores, between groups of dental students with high and low attitudes toward the subject. The study was grounded in established educational motivation theories. The research utilized comparative research design, employing extreme group selection to identify 40 participants (20 in each group) from students enrolled in the Faculty of Dentistry, Bangkokthonburi University. The primary research instrument was a 19-item attitude scale toward biology, which demonstrated high reliability (Cronbach's alpha = 0.9841) and collected data on student achievement scores. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics and the independent samples t-test. The findings revealed that the high-attitude group achieved significantly higher mean scores in subjective scores (p <.05) compared to the low-attitude group. This outcome supports the Expectancy-Value Theory (EVT) and achievement motivation theory.