The above discussion has unveiled the concept of attitude towards science and it is clear now that this concept is best described by Fraser (1981) who designed a comprehensive scale (TOSRA) to measure the seven distinct and wide-ranging categories of attitudes toward science (Social Implications of Science, Attitude to Scientific Inquiry, Adoption of Scientific Attitudes, Enjoyment of Science Lesson, Leisure Interest In Science, Career Interest In Science and Normality of Scientists) at secondary level.

The scale used by them in this study was also TOSRA and boys were found to have higher attitude towards science than girls on the total score of this instrument, but in case of sub-scales, girls expressed more positive attitude towards Normality of Scientists and Attitude to Scientific Enquiry and boys had more positive attitude toward Leisure Interest in Science, Career Interest in Science and Enjoyment of Science Lessons.

The findings of such studies are noteworthy in a sense because the same instrument (TOSRA) was administered on respondents in different countries.

The major aim of the study was to find out the levels of students attitude towards science and to investigate the attitude towards different subscales of TOSRA regarding gender and locale.

Participants completed a 10-item demographic questionnaire (developed by the researchers), a 5 l-item Statistics Anxiety Rating Scale (STARS; Cruise & Wilkins, 1980), and a 70-item Test of Science-Related Attitudes measure (TOSRA; Fraser, 1981).

However, independent samples t-tests showed that the age groups differed on two subscales of the TOSRA (measure of attitudes toward science).

Furthermore, there were no differences between females and males on the TOSRA (measure of attitudes toward science) subscales (p > .05), but both groups viewed science somewhat positively, with all subscales ranging from 10-50 points (medians ranged from 30-39).

Contrary to what was hypothesized, results showed that the groups did not differ in the STARS and TOSRA scores (p > .05).

The AtSL is a short attitude scale as compared to long and multipurpose/ factors scales like TOSRA etc.

TOSRA, test of science- related attitudes, handbook.