Student attitudes towards Science and Mathematics - continuation

We will seek answers to questions in areas such as:

1) How a student was influenced in their choice of a field of study by:

• their parents, relatives and other adults
• their peers
• their teachers
• the media

2) At what point in their lives the student made a decision to enter the discipline that they are currently studying.

3) Whether a student’s attitude towards Science and Math changed during several important transition periods, including:

• from elementary school to high school
• from junior high school (8, 9 &10) to senior high school (11 & 12)
• from high school to university

and what brought about changes in their attitude.

4) Whether a student was influenced to pursue math or science by an inspiring teacher (or teachers), or influenced not to pursue math or science by an uninspiring teacher (or teachers), and what it was about that person (or persons) that inspired them, or vice versa.

The study will be initiated with a series of interviews with second and third year university students in order to gain some insight into their experiences with the teaching of science, math and other subjects at the elementary and high school levels and their current attitudes towards science and math. Students will be selected from various disciplines.

The findings of the interviews will be used to design a comprehensive survey that will provide clear answers to the questions summarized above. Machine-readable survey forms will then be prepared and administered to at least 1000 second-year students in a wide variety of disciplines at all of the institutions represented in the consortium. The surveys will be carried out during classroom time and will be voluntary.

In addition to the quantitative data, participants will be invited to contribute anecdotal information that they feel may be relevant to the study.

For analysis purposes we will also determine what marks students obtained in recently completed Science, Math and English courses. We will also acquire information on gender and socio-economic background.

The findings of this study will be made available to other members of the research consortium to assist them in their efforts to design curriculum and teaching methods that will encourage young students to become engaged in Science and Math. The findings will also be made available to all Education Faculty members within the institutions of the consortium. It is intended that these findings will be used to improve our preparation of elementary and high school teachers so that they are in a better position to inspire young Canadians to study Math and Science.

References

• Fennema, & Sherman, J (1976). Fennema-Sherman Mathematics attitudes scales, JSAS Catalog of Selected Documents in Psychology, V. 6, p. 31 (Ms. No. 1225)
• Neathery, M (1997). Elementary and Secondary Students' Perceptions Toward Science: Correlations with Gender, Ethnicity, Ability, Grade, and Science Achievement, Electronic Journal of Science Education, Vol. 2, No. 1. (http://unr.edu/homepage/jcannon/ejse/ejse.html)
• Speering, W & Rennie, L (1996). Students’ perceptions about science: The impact of transition from primary to secondary school. Research in Science Education, Vol. 26, p. 283-298.