Original Research Article

 

Year: 2014 | Month: 10 | Volume: 1 | Issue: 2 | Pages: 20-25

 

Analytical Study on Relationship between Academic Performance and Awareness about Gandhian Philosophy among Undergraduate Students of Gandhigram Rural Institute

 

R. Anandarasu

 

Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Tamil University, Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India.

 

ABSTRACT

 

The investigation of the study to find out the relationship between awareness about Gandhian thought and attitude towards Gandhian values, academic performance of the under graduate students in Gandhigram Rural Institute (GRI).The investigator adopted the following sampling procedure to select sample respondents at Gandhigram Rural Institute. The investigator selected undergraduate students because they were studying a separate course on Gandhian thought in second year. A scale to measure awareness of Gandhian thought and attitude towards Gandhian values was administered to a sample of 200 students. The sample consists of 200 students, 100 students from Arts and 100 students from science. Among the 50 are Boys and 50 are Girls. From the present study following conclusions were drawn, The Academic Performance has insignificant negligible negative relationship with Educational Awareness (in the sub groups of Science Boys, Girls) in Vocational Awareness (in the subgroup of Science Boys) in Social Awareness (in the subgroups of Science Boys, Science) in Rural Community Awareness (in the subgroup of Science Boys) in Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (in the subgroup of Science Boys).

 

Key words: Awareness, academic performance, attitude, Gandhian philosophy, undergraduate students.

 

INTRODUCTION

By Gandhiji’s thoughts we understood his thoughts on social, political economic and scientific matters. If we were to study Gandhiji’s thoughts we would have to take into account what Gandhiji said, thought and did about social, religious, economic, political and scientific sides of human life.

Gandhian thought, on the other hand, implies our thoughts as shaped or moulded by Gandhiji’s fundamental objective but we can explain what were understand by it by giving an example. Gandhiji believed in simplicity of life. He believed in simple living and high thinking consistently with this he desired our going book to nature. What are we doing today? We are going to the moon and we are trying to reach the other planets of the solar system. According to our way of thinking that it good as it adds to our knowledge of the universe, it increase our stock of scientific knowledge.

            The ultimate object of man’s life is, according to Gandhiji self-realization. Self-realization means seeing god face to face, realizing absolute truth, attaining moksha or knowing oneself. He believes in the principle of spiritual unity. So the immediate service of human beings becomes a necessary part of the endeavour, because the only way to find god is to see him in his creation and to be one with it.

Need and Importance of the study

“Education is the manifestation of the perfection that already exists within man”, said Swami Vivekananda. He believed that man-making education is essential for our country to develop into a strong nation and it has to be essentially value-based. The ancient gurukula system of education attributed higher importance to inculcation of values in its disciples than mere transfer of knowledge from scriptures. With the change in system of education and adoption of modern education system based on western ideology, the transfer of knowledge has gained higher importance than that of values. The revival of Indian education and venture of philosophical thinkers into the field of education in post-British India witnessed the emergence of ideology-based educational institutions with a view to bring back the ‘value’ component into education.

Gandhigram Rural Institute (GRI) is one of such pioneer institutions which took up ‘rural education’ as its domain, based on Gandhian ideologies. Since its inception, the institute imparts education to rural youth based on ‘Nai Talim’ system of education proposed by Gandhiji.

Statement of the problem

            The problem of the study is “to what extent the relationship between academic performance and awareness about Gandhian philosophy among undergraduate students of GRI.

Objectives

To find out whether there is any significant relationship between academic performance and awareness about Gandhian philosophy among undergraduate students of GRI.

Hypothesis

There will be a significant (Substantial/low) relationship between academic performance and awareness about Gandhian philosophy among undergraduate students of GRI.

 

METHODOLOGY

Population and sample design

            A population is any group of individuals that have one or more characteristic in common that is of interest to the researcher. The population may be all the individuals of a particular type or more restricted part of that group. A sample is a small portion of a population selected for observation and analysis. It is a collection consists of a part of subject of the objects of individuals of population, which is selected for express purpose of responding the population. By observing the characteristics of the sample, one can make certain inferences about the characteristics of the population from which it is drawn.

            The investigator adopted the following sampling procedure to select sample respondents at Gandhigram Rural Institute. The investigator selected undergraduate students because they were studying a separate course on Gandhian thought in second year. A scale to measure awareness of Gandhian thought and attitude towards Gandhian values was administered to a sample of 200 students. The sample consists of 200 students, 100 students from Arts and 100 students from science. Among the 50 are Boys and 50 are Girls.

 

Distribution of Sample Respondents

 

Instrumentation

            This section deals with development of tools of research employed in the study. The present study needed two major tools. They are follows.

·         Awareness of Gandhian thought.

·         Attitude towards Gandhian values.

Awareness of Gandhian Thought

            The Awareness of Gandhian Thought is a 75 multiple choice items. The multiple choice item consists of two parts (i) the stem which contains the problem (ii) a list of suggested answers (responses or options). The incorrect responses are often called foils or distracters. The stem may be stated as a direct question or an incomplete statement. From the list of responses provided, the student selects the one that is correct or best. These items were grouped under five headings given below.

 

Content item of the tool

 

 Attitude towards Gandhian Values

            Attitude scale was developed by the investigator with reference to the Gandhian Philosophy for knowing its impact on the final year undergraduate students regarding Gandhian values. This scale consisted of 40 items. The attitude scale was a 5 point rating scale and connotations for ordinal members. (Strongly Disagree, Disagree, Undecided, Agree, Strongly Agree)

Content Validity

            The content validity was well established by chosen examiners and secreting and critical analyses were done by expert in the field. Depending upon the modifications suggested by the panel of experts, the items in the tool were modified and enhanced.

The Refined Tool

            The refined awareness and attitude towards Gandhian philosophy questionnaire consists of 115 items. In the part of awareness of Gandhian thought there were 75 multiple choice items and finally the attitude towards Gandhian values part had 40 items.

Administration of the final tool

            The validated awareness and attitude towards Gandhian philosophy of the undergraduate students towards the Gandhian values, a questionnaire was administered to 100 Arts and 100 Science final year undergraduates student of Gandhigram Rural Institute.

Statistical technique used

The investigator employs the statistical technique, Correlation to investigate the relationship between the Awareness and Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy and Academic Performance.

Correlation is the relationship between two or more paired variables, between two or more sets of data. The degree of relationship may be measured by the co-efficient of correlation. This coefficient of correlation may be identified by the symbol ‘r’ of (Pearson)

 

The formula for calculating coefficient of correlation is

 

                                                   Nå XY – åX x åY

                r               =              ------------------------------------

                                                [NåX² – (åX)²] [NåY² (åY)²]

 

            Where X and Y are the raw scores for each variable and N is the number of pairs of individuals.

Interpretation of the degree of relationship expressed in terms of its values is usually based on the following criteria.

 

r from + 0.00 to + 0.19 denotes indifferent of negligible relationship.

r from + 0.20 to + 0.39 denotes low positive or negative relationship.

r from + 0.40 to + 0.59 denotes substantial positive or negative relationship.

r from + 0.60 to + 0.79 denotes high positive or negative relationship.

r from + 0.80 to + 0.99 denotes very high positive or negative relationship.

 

            Thus the correlation co-efficient is a precise way of stating the extent to which are variable is related to another and it is always to be judged with reference to the condition under which it was obtained and the objectives to the experiment.

 

RESULT & DISCUSSION

Relationship between Academic Performance and Awareness Variables

 

RELATIONSHIP OF CRITERION VARIABLE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE WITH CORRELATES

 

Arts Boys

            The Academic Performance (AP) has substantial positive relationship with Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP), Academic Performance has low positive relationship with personal Awareness (PER), Educational Awareness (EDU), Vocational Awareness (VOC), Social Awareness (SOC), Rural Community Awareness (RC), Total Awareness (TOT).

Arts Girls

The Academic Performance (AP) has negligible positive relationship with all awareness towards Gandhian philosophy (PER), (EDU), (VOC), (SOC), (RC), (TOT) and Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP).

Arts

            The Academic Performance (AP) has low positive relationship with Personal Awareness towards Gandhian Philosophy (PER), Social Awareness (SOC), Total Awareness (TOT), Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP), Educational Awareness (EDU), Academic Performance (AP) has negligible positive relationship with Rural community Awareness (RC), Vocational Awareness (VOC).

Science Boys

            The Academic Performance (AP) has low positive relationship with Personal Awareness towards Gandhian Philosophy (PER), Academic Performance (AP) has negligible negative relationship with Rural Community Awareness (RC) Vocational Awareness (VOC), Social Awareness (SOC), Total Awareness (TOT), Educational Awareness (EDU) and Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP).

Science Girls

            The Academic Performance (AP) has low positive relationship with Total Awareness towards Gandhian Philosophy (TOT), Rural Community Awareness (RC), Personal Awareness (PER), Vocational Awareness (VOC), Social Awareness (SOC), Academic Performance (AP) has negligible positive relationship with Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP), Educational Awareness (EDU).

Science

            The Academic Performance (AP) has low positive relationship with Personal Awareness towards Gandhian Philosophy (PER), Total Awareness (TOT), Academic Performance has negligible positive relationship with Rural Community Awareness (RC), Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP), Vocational Awareness (VOC), Educational Awareness (EDU), Academic Performance (AP) has insignificant negligible negative relationship with Social Awareness (SOC).

Boys

            The Academic Performance has low positive relationship with Personal Awareness towards Gandhian Philosophy (PER), Total Awareness (TOT), Academic Performance has insignificant negligible positive relationship with Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP), Social Awareness (SOC), Educational Awareness (EDU), Rural Community Awareness (RC), Vocational Awareness (VOC).

Girls

            The Academic Performance (AP) has low positive relationship with Rural Community Awareness towards Gandhian Philosophy (RC), Academic Performance (AP) has insignificant negligible positive relationship with Personal Awareness (PER) Total Awareness (TOT), Social Awareness (SOC), Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP), Vocational Awareness (VOC), Academic Performance has insignificant negligible negative relationship with Educational Awareness (EDU).

Global

            The Academic Performance has low positive relationship with Personal Awareness towards Gandhian Philosophy (PER), Total Awareness (TOT), Rural Community Awareness (RC), Academic Performance (AP) has insignificant negligible positive relationship with Social Awareness (SOC), Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (AGP), Educational Awareness (EDU), Vocational Awareness (VOC).

The Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy has substantial positive relationship with Academic Performance (in the subgroup of Arts Boys).

Findings and Interpretation

            The Academic Performance has substantial positive relationship with Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (in the subgroup of Arts Boys).

The Academic Performance has low positive relationship with Personal Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Boys, Arts, Science Boys, Science Girls, Science Boys, Global), in Educational Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Boys, Arts) in Vocational Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Boys, Science Girls), in Social Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Boys, Arts, Science girls), in Rural Community Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Boys, Science Girls, Girls, Global) in Total Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Boys, Arts, Science Girls, Science, Boys, Global) in Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (in the subgroup of Arts).

            The Academic Performance has negligible positive relationship with Personal Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Girls, Girls) in Educational Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Girls, Science girls, Science, Boys, Global) in Vocational Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Girls, Arts, Science, Boys, Girls, Global) in Social Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Girls, Boys, Girls, Global) in Rural Community Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Girls, Arts, Science, Boys) in Total Awareness (in the subgroups of Arts Girls, Girls) in Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (in the subgroups of Arts Girls, Science Girls, Science, Boys, Girls, Global).

 

CONCLUSION

From the present study following conclusions were drawn, The Academic Performance has insignificant negligible negative relationship with Educational Awareness (in the sub groups of Science Boys, Girls) in Vocational Awareness (in the subgroup of Science Boys) in Social Awareness (in the subgroups of Science Boys, Science) in Rural Community Awareness (in the subgroup of Science Boys) in Attitude towards Gandhian Philosophy (in the subgroup of Science Boys).

 

REFERENCES

·         Best, J.W., and Khan, J.V., ‘Research in Education’, New Delhi, Prentice Hall, 1989.

·         Brubacher, J.S., ‘Modern Philosophies of Education’, New Delhi, TATA McGrow-Hill Publishing Co. Pvt. LTd, 1969.

·         Bruce, W., and Tuckman, ‘Conducting Educational Research’, New York, Harcourt Bruce, javanrich, 1978.

·         Dhawan, G., ‘The political philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi’, New Delhi, The Gandhi peace foundation, 1990.

·         Hingorani, A.T. and Hingorani G.A., ‘The Encyclopaedia of Gandhian Thoughts’, New Delhi, All India Congress Committee (I), 1985.

·         Hopkins, D.C., ‘Educational Research A Structure for Inquiry’, hio, Columbus, Charles E. Merill Publishing Company, 1976.

·         Kothari, C.R., ‘Research Methodology Methods & Techniques’, New Delhi, Wishwa Prakasan, 2000.

·         Mehndiratta, M., ‘Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Education’, Vol.3, New Delhi, Sarup & Sons, 1997.

·         Mehta, J.K., ‘Gandhian Though’, New Delhi, Ashish Publishing House, 1985.

·         Mohanty, J., ‘Indian Education in the Emerging Society’, New York, 1982.

·         Best, J.W., and Khan, J.V., ‘Research in Education’, New Delhi, Prentice Hall, 1989.

How to cite this article: Anandarasu R. Analytical Study on Relationship between Academic Performance and Awareness about Gandhian Philosophy among Undergraduate Students of Gandhigram Rural Institute.. Int J Res Rev. 2014;1(2):20-25.

 

 

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