A STUDY TO EXTRACT COMMON FACTORS FOUND IN LEARNING CHEMISTRY AT SENIOR SECONDARY LEVEL

The present study was concerned with the extraction of common factors found in learning Chemistry at Senior Secondary level. A co-relation matrix was obtained from eighteen reliable and valid objective type tests taken into items and were distributed over the whole course. Investigator decided to use centric method for Factor Analysis of the correlation matrix because it involves less rigorous mathematical calculation and it was easy to interpret psychologically. Guilford and Lacey’s criterion was applied to test the validity of Factor VI. The product of two highest factor loadings fell short of 1/√N. Hence the factor stood rejected. After factorization, it was observed that difference between the obtained and guessed communalities is more than 0.10, and then factor analysis was done afresh, starting with obtained communalities without doing any adjustment in the diagonal cell. After first reiteration it was found that difference between the obtained and guessed communalities is less than 0.10. It was concluded that factor 1 constitutes 60% of the cognitive abilities in Chemistry while the other four factors contribute 40% of the total cognitive abilities in Chemistry.