The relationship between teaching methods and fostering the scientific attitude of the primary girl students in Tehran

This study aims at investigating the relationship between teaching methods and fostering the scientific attitude in the primary girl students in four regions (north, south, east, and west) of Tehran in academic year 2009-2010. 20 teachers and 20 classes were selected from among all these schools by multi-stage cluster sampling. The data were collected through researcher-made questionnaire, observation checklist, documents and the file of class activities and were analyzed by Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Friedman test, Binomial test and Spearman Correlation Coefficient. The findings revealed a significant correlation between collaborative, creative, question and answer, group discussion and experimental methods and the element of Creativity; the role playing methods and the elements of curiosity; and the teaching method and all three elements. The most commonly used methods were memorization and rehearsal, lecture, explanatory, expositive, and computer-aided method and the least commonly used ones were problem-solving and question and answer, collaborative, role-playing and thematic unit. The students under study were on average in terms of curiosity and at an unpleasant condition in terms of creativity and critical thinking.