Motivation and cognitive style as predictors of students’ attitude to environmental concepts in biology

Environmental concepts are one of the concepts embedded in the biology curriculum. It has an application in every walk of life and is of value. Over the years, however, it has been noticed that students' attitude towards the subject is not good. Therefore this study examined motivation and cognitive style of learning as predictors of students' attitude to environmental concepts in biology among secondary school students in three local government areas in Ekiti State. The descriptive survey design was used. Four research questions guided the study. 1000 senior secondary school II students were selected for the study. Data were collected using the motivation Scale (r=0.80), cognitive style scale (r=0.81) and attitudinal scale (r=0.88) in Biology. Descriptive statistics and Multiple Regression Analysis were used for data analysis. The results showed that there is a significant relationship between motivation (r=0.092) and attitude, cognitive style and attitude. Also, motivation and cognitive style (F2=51.3721) jointly contributed to students’ attitude. Furthermore, cognitive style (β = 0.366; t = 8.816; p>0.05) relatively contributed to the attitude of students toward environmental concepts in biology. Based on the findings, it was recommended that attention should be given to students’ cognitive style and students should be motivated to enhance their attitude