Two hundred forty tribal and non tribal secondary school students of different schools in Odisha were tested for concept attainment in Biology as a subject in High School level through standard BISCAT. Effects of  gender bias in attainment of biological science concepts,  gender bias in attainment of biological science concepts at concrete level,  gender bias in attainment of biological science concepts at identity level, gender bias in attainment of biological science concepts at classificatory level and  gender bias in attainment of biological science concepts at formal level were found highly significant with p level 0.01 as tested through ANOVA.

The Hypothesis is whether there exists any significant independent and interaction effect of gender status in attainment of biological science concepts among  higher secondary school students?

So our aim and objective of the present study is-

To study the significant independent effect of gender status  in attainment of biological science concepts  among  higher secondary school students.

The first concern the nature of the context of mind what we call knowledge is represented mentally in terms of concepts. Concepts are the ideas within which we think. Technically concepts are our internal mental representations of the properties of objects and events. Concepts neither are not real objects nor are they literal representations of objects or events. For example, the concept of triangle is not as the same as a particular triangle. The word ‘triangle’ is a mental image of a triangle. Concepts are abstract and general in nature and are regarded as the ‘ideas’ behind the objects, events, words or images.The Concept  Attainment  Model of  teaching is a unique approach to instruction  that involves the active engagement of students in the process of identifying and internalizing key concepts through the use of inductive reasoning( Alam and Fatma-2023).

The present study is a causal comparative study in which both independent effect of gender status in the attainment of biological science concepts  in general and at different levels in particular like concrete, identity, classificatory & formal in higher secondary school male and female students have been investigated following 2 Factorial Design (Male Vs Female).

Population: - In the present study the population consists  of all science students who had just completed higher secondary education under C.H.S.E. syllabus, Orissa. The population comprised the higher secondary schools students of  both the sexes   in the state of Orissa.

Sample: - In the present study sample of 240 students were selected from the population using multistage sampling method. Since the study was conducted in the state of Orissa the investigator selected 10 districts randomly by using simple random sampling method.. From each district, two  higher secondary school with 12 male and 12 Female students were selected randomly. Therefore in the present study 240 higher secondary science students were included as sample for investigation  

Tools Used

Since the main objective of the study was to investigate the attainment of biological science concepts in higher secondary school male and female students, the investigator developed a biological science concept attainment test (BSCAT) .

Biological Science Concept Attainment Test (BSCAT)  The biological science concept attainment test was developed by the investigator on the basis of  cognitive theory of learning and development (CLD) originated by Klausemeier  and Allen (1978).The CLD theory is  based on the assumptions that cognitive development occurs due to interaction of learning and maturational factors, and the internal  and external conditions of learning necessarily  change the  higher levels of cognitive functioning. Further, the theory states that attainment of concept is the primary requirement of higher order mental operations. A concept is attended at four successive levels viz concrete, identity, classificatory and formal. At concrete level a concept is attended by recognising the perceptible feature of an object, discriminating object from other objects and remembering the discriminated object. Identity level of a concept is attended by generalising the object when experienced in different context or modalities as the same object and remembering the generalisation along with other three aspects of concrete level. A concept is attended at classificatory level by discriminating  examples of the concept from non examples, remembering the discriminated examples, generalising that each example when experienced in different context or modalities is the same example and generalising that the examples are equivalent (belongs to the same class) and rendering the generalisation. A concept is attended at formal level when a societal accepted definition of the object is given.

BSCAT is developed by the investigator to measure biological science concepts in so higher secondary school students at four successive levels of concepts attainment following four steps such as planning, preparation, trying out and evaluation.

Since the main purpose of the study is to investigate the independent  effects of  community in attainment of biological science concepts in higher secondary schools, two way  (Non Tribal Vs Tribal)  analysis of variance ANOVA described Ferguson (1781) was been used to analyse data. F ratios have been tested for their significance at 0.05 and 0.01 levels. 

Data collected from tribal and  non tribal higher secondary school students by administering biological science concept attainment test were analysed using two 2 (Male vs Female)] way analysis of variance (Guilford, 1983 Sindhu et.al. 2012). The F ratios obtained were tested for their significance at 0.05 and 0.01 levels respectively.. The summaries of analysis of variances showing  independent effects of community status in biological concept attainment have been given in different tables. Each table has been discussed in detail.

Concept attainment: - The effect of gender bias

Table .1: Summary of ANOVA showing effect of gender bias in attainment of biological science concepts (N=240)

Table 1 shows that sex had no significant independent effect in attainment of biological science concept in higher secondary school students (F = 1.79 ; P > 0.05). The performances of the male students were similar to the performance of female students. Therefore, the null hypothesis stating that there exists no significance difference between male and female students in attainment of biological science concept was retained. Thus it is concluded that male and female students of higher secondary school are in the same level of attainment of biological science concepts.

Concept attainment at concrete level: The effect of gender bias 

Table 2: Summary of ANOVA showing effect of gender bias in attainment of biological science concepts at concrete level (N=240)

Table 2 shows that sex had no significant independent effect in attainment of biological science concept at concrete level in higher secondary school students (F=1.75; P> 0.05) . The performances of the male students were similar to the performance of female students. Therefore, the null hypothesis stating that there exists no significance difference between male and female students in attainment of biological science concept at concrete level was retained. Thus, it is concluded that male and female students of higher secondary school are in the same level of attainment of biological science concepts at concrete level.

 Table 3: Summary of ANOVA showing effect of gender bias in attainment of biological science concepts at identity level(N=240).

Table 3 shows that gender bias had significant independent effect on the attainment of biological science concept at identity  level in the students of higher secondary school (F=183.63;P<0.01)) )The individual mean score of the tribal higher secondary school students was higher than the individual mean score of the tribal higher secondary school students.The performance of the students belonging to non tribal community was significantly better than the performance of the students belonging to tribal community in attainment of biological science concepts at identity level. Therefore, the null hypothesis stating that there exists no significance of difference between non tribal and tribal higher secondary school students in attainment of biological science concept was rejected. Thus, it is concluded that tribal community retards attainment of biological science concepts at identity level in the students significantly

Concept attainment at classificatory level: The effect of gender bias

Table 4: Summary of ANOVA showing effect of community in attainment of biological science concepts at classificatory level(N=240)

Table 4  displays that sex had no significant independent effect in attainment of biological science concept at classificatory level in higher secondary school students (F=0.59; P> 0.01) . The performances of the male students were similar to the performance of female students. Therefore, the null hypothesis stating that there exists no significance difference between male and female students in attainment of biological science concept at classificatory level was retained. Thus, it is concluded that male and female students of higher secondary school are in the same level of attainment of biological science concept at classificatory level.

Table 5: Summary of ANOVA showing effect of  community in attainment of biological science concepts at formal level

(N=240)                                                                         

Table 5 reveals that sex had no significant independent effect in attainment of biological science concept at formal level in higher secondary school students (F=2.79; P> 0.01) . The performances of the male students were similar to the performance of female students. Therefore, the null hypothesis stating that there exists no significance difference between male and female students in attainment of biological science concept at formal level was retained. Thus, it is concluded that male and female students of higher secondary school are in the same level of attainment of biological science concept at formal level. 

Sex has no significant effect in attainment of biological science concept in both males and females studying at higher secondary school attended biological science concepts at concrete, classificatory and formal level in similar line  unlike computer added reasonings (Sharma, M. R., & Sharma, R. 2021).. In identity level there exists a significant level of attainment among the male and female. Again in overall there is no difference in attainment of biological science concept in both males and females studying at higher secondary school attended biological science concepts, as earlier reported by Sindhu B and Amita ( 2012).

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