Secondary School Students' Attitudes Towards Science

Four hundred and fifty‐one students' attitudes towards science were investigated. Two types of instruments (questionnaire and Attitude Scale) were used to collect the data. The results show that the students in general hold a favourable attitude towards science; male students have more positive attitude towards science than female students; the type of school (science‐school, single‐sex school or general secondary school) attended have an effect on the students' attitudes to science. The low enrollment in science is not due to the lack of interest or negative attitudes to the subject but may be due to some other variables that need to be investigated.     

Language Attitudes of Estonian Secondary School Students

The results of a survey of language attitudes of Estonian secondary school students, ages 15 to 18, are presented, and the implications for the practice of language maintenance are discussed. The survey revealed that Estonian is valued as a token of identity but not much as a commodity in the sense of linguistic economy. It is argued that globalisation has changed the immediate communication domain from a national state level to a transnational level. Because of this global change, the traditional understanding of ethnolinguistic vitality may no longer be entirely adequate—the importance of subjective vitality factors gain importance over objective vitality factors. This means that in the near future, ideological issues concerning group identity become the key that determines which communities retain their language and which are to lose it.     

Examining Changing Attitudes in Secondary School Science

This study, carried out in England, examined the variation of attitudes towards science over the first three years of secondary schooling and with gender. The study in question was part of an evaluation of the “Lab in a Lorry” project, and involved 932 pupils completing a pre‐measure questionnaire containing items looking at six separate attitude constructs. From these data, two main patterns emerged; pupils’ attitudes towards science declined as they progressed through secondary school, and this decline was more pronounced for female pupils. These conclusions are largely in agreement with previous studies in this field. However, in examining separate attitude constructs, we were also able to identify that the sharpest decline occurred specifically for pupils’ attitude towards learning science in school. Furthermore, using linear regression, we identified that, as pupils progress through school, this construct becomes a greater influence on attitudes towards future participation in science. Therefore, we also concluded that learning science in school is a particular area that needs to be concentrated upon, if we are to improve children’s attitudes towards science. In the final part of the paper, we drew on interview data obtained from 44 pupils involved in the Lab in a Lorry study. Pupils’ comments in these interviews provided further insight into why pupils are “switched off” by school science. We drew out the most prevalent themes that emerged in the interviews, in order to provide further insight into why pupils do not enjoy science in school.     

Curriculum Continuity on Transfer from Middle to Secondary School

Centralised educational restructuring initiatives result in a wide variation of responses in schools, some are quite productive, others are much less so. Interview data were collected from seventy‐two teachers and principals in six schools as a response to government restructuring policies in British Columbia, Canada, in order to better understand the reasons for such variation. An organisational‐learning perspective was used to guide the study. The results describe the processes used by teachers in pursuit of their own individual and collective learning. Also identified are school conditions which foster and inhibit these processes, conditions related to school vision, culture, structure, strategies and resources.     

中学生对科学的态度影响因素研究

选取来自城市和农村学校的1546名初一到初三学生作为被试,对初中生科学态度发展的一般特点及影响学生科学态度因素进行研究。结果显示:(1)各年级学生在"对科学的态度"量表各维度上得分存在显著的年级差异,年级越高,对科学的态度越积极;性别差异显著,在科学价值维度上,女生得分高于男生,科学探索及科学学习维度上,男生得分高于女生;城乡差异显著,各维度上城市学生得分均高于农村学生;(2)教材因素是影响学生对科学态度最重要的因素,其次是教师、学生的自我效能感。     

Social,Moral and Religious Attitudes of Secondary School Students

In Australian schools, "inclusion" is a term that is used to challenge a previously narrow focus on students with disabilities and their integration within and distribution amongst "mainstream" schools and classrooms. Nevertheless, this article argues that, as a concept, "inclusion" requires further broadening and deepening, particularly in arenas of practice, if it is to serve the interests of all students. Informed by notions of recognitive justice, the paper advocates rethinking inclusion to accommodate student differences in more socially just ways - emphasising students' contributions rather than their disabilities - and what this means for the organisation of classrooms and schools. Within the article, research data are focused primarily on students with learning disabilities and draw on twenty semi-structured interviews conducted with parents and teachers across six Australian state primary and secondary schools. Three sets of conditions are proposed as necessary for inclusive classroom and school processes: specifically, those that promote self-identity and respect, self expression and development and selfdetermination and decision-making.     

Environmental Knowledge and Attitudes of Some Nigerian Secondary School Teachers

Nigerian secondary school teachers (n – 360) of three subject groupings (arts, sciences and social sciences) were administered an environmental knowledge and attitude scale. The teachers generally demonstrated a low level of environmental knowledge, although the science and social science teachers were found to be more knowledgeable than their arts counterparts. Negative environmental attitudes were also found to be prevalent among the three categories of teachers. The study revealed that most of the teachers have never heard of environmental education and have never attended any workshop or seminar on teaching of the subject.     

Children's Attitudes to Work at 11 Years

This paper reports on individual interviews with 175 children, from 33 inner London junior schools, at 11 years of age. The children were part of a large‐scale longitudinal study of educational progress based at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, and were also interviewed at 7 years. Children were heavily aware of the importance of school work, which figured prominently in views on the best and worst things about school. Only 17% were not looking forward to secondary school. They were looking forward to specialising in subjects not provided in depth at primary school. Maths was much the most popular subject, as it was at 7 years. There was no evidence that expressing a liking for a subject, or expressing a general interest in school, was associated with higher achievements. Success or not in academic work was perceived to be largely in children's own hands; external attributions were rare. Differences according to ethnic group and sex of children are discussed.     

Relations of Children's Effortful Control and Teacher-Child Relationship Quality to School Attitudes in a Low-Income Sample

RESEARCH FINDINGS: The purpose of this study was to examine the relations of children's effortful control and quality of relationships with teachers to school attitudes longitudinally in an ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged sample. Data were collected as part of a larger intervention project during mid-fall, winter, and late spring (ns = 823, 722, and 758, respectively) for 2 cohorts of 3- to 5-year-olds (collected during 2 different school years). Children's effortful control was assessed in the fall with parents' and teachers' reports and 2 behavioral measures. Teacher-child relationship quality was assessed mid-year with teachers' reports of closeness and conflict. Attitudes toward school were assessed in late spring using teachers' and students' reports of school avoidance and liking. Effortful control, in general, was positively correlated with teacher-child closeness and school liking and negatively correlated with conflict and school avoidance. Using structural equation modeling and controlling for sex and ethnicity, we found that effortful control was positively related to teacher-child relationship quality, which in turn was positively related to school attitudes. Furthermore, the relation of effortful control to school attitudes was mediated by teacher-child relationship quality. PRACTICE OR POLICY: Results provide evidence for the importance of relational processes that take place within the classroom context and have implications for teachers and clinicians working to increase school success in ethnic minority and low-income children.     

Children's Classroom Peer Relationships and Early School Attitudes: Concurrent and Longitudinal Associations

The purpose of this study was to further explore the linkage between children's early school attitudes and interpersonal features of the classroom, including children's relationships with classmates and their perceptions of these relationships. Participants included 102 kindergarten children (M age = 5.8 years) who were interviewed at the beginning and end of kindergarten to obtain measures of their school attitudes (i.e., school liking), classroom peer relationships (i.e., peer acceptance, mutual friendships), and peer relationship perceptions (i.e., perceived loneliness, peer support). Results showed that initial school liking was associated with all four measures of children's peer relationships; however, only the number of mutual friendships that children possessed in their classrooms predicted changes in school attitudes (gains) over time. Early school attitudes were linked to changes in children's peer perceptions; children who disliked school early in kindergarten were more likely to view classmates as unsupportive as the school year progressed. Results are discussed in terms of the potential impact that classroom peer relations may have on early school attitudes, and vice versa. Implications for educational policy are also considered.     

Gender Stereotyping and Affective Attitudes Towards Science in Chinese Secondary School Students

This study explores explicit and implicit gender‐science stereotypes and affective attitudes towards science in a sample of Chinese secondary school students. The results showed that (1) gender‐science stereotyping was more and more apparent as the specialization of science subjects progresses through secondary school, becoming stronger from the 10th grade; girls were more inclined to stereotype than boys while this gender difference decreased with increasing grade; (2) girls tend to have an implicit science‐unpleasant/humanities‐pleasant association from the 8th grade, while boys showed a negative implicit attitude towards science up to the 11th grade. In self‐report, girls preferred humanities to science, while boys preferred science to humanities; (3) implicit affective attitude was closely related to implicit stereotype. In particular, implicit affective attitude has a stronger predictive power on stereotype than the other way around, the result of which may have more significance for girls.     

Attitudes of Secondary School STEM Teachers towards Supervising Research and Design Activities

Research and design activities are important focus points in international policies for secondary Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. It is up to school teachers to implement and supervise these activities in the STEM classroom. However, not much is known about the attitudes teachers hold towards supervising research projects or design projects. In this study, a questionnaire to measure teacher attitudes towards supervising research activities and design activities in secondary school was completed by 130 Dutch teachers who taught the relatively new Dutch STEM subjects O&O (research and design) and NLT (nature, life, and technology). These integrated STEM subjects are project and context based and are taught in a limited number of schools. Important differences between these integrated STEM subjects are their student and teacher populations: NLT is taught in grades 10–12 by teachers with a qualification in a science subject, while O&O is taught in grades 7–12 and can be given by any teacher in secondary school. The results showed that on average, both O&O and NLT teachers had high self-efficacy scores on supervising research and design projects even when they had received no special education in doing so. Furthermore, the teachers in general viewed supervising research projects as a more relevant activity than supervising design. Since research and design activities are becoming more important in (inter)national curriculum standards, STEM teacher education and subsequent professional development should not only familiarize teachers with supervising research projects, but with design projects as well.

     

Curriculum Continuity and Transfer from Primary to Secondary School: the case of history

The transfer of children from primary school to secondary school has long been seen as a problematic area. The National Curriculum was depicted as offering a solution to some of the transfer problems by providing for curriculum continuity across the primary-secondary divide. This paper reports the results of a study of curriculum continuity in one subject, history, now that a National Curriculum has been in place for several years. It reports that teachers continue to see problems with the transfer and that secondary school teachers still incline to a ‘fresh start’ approach to year 7 pupils. There is also some evidence of a lack of curriculum consistency within the secondary schools involved in the research, there are differences between primary and secondary schools in the range of teaching and learning methods employed, there is some decline in pupils’ ratings of their experience of secondary education across year 7 and there are signs of some gender differences in these ratings. The conclusion is that there is a case for saying that the new arrangements have not alleviated the problems associated with the transfer.     

The Attitudes and Practices that Shape Children's Drawing Experience at Home and at School

Concept: Few empirical studies have investigated the influence of teachers, parents and children on children's drawing experience. The current study aims to examine the attitudes and practices of these three key players that shape children's drawing experience. Method: A survey methodology was used, as typically found in previous research in this area. Participants were 270 5–14 year old children, 44 of their teachers of the National Curriculum for Art and Design, and 146 of their parents. The teachers and children participated in individual interviews and the parents completed a postal survey. Responses to most interview questions were transcribed and content analysis used to identify salient themes. The other questions involved responses on five‐point scales, these were analysed by reporting percentages. Results: The findings are discussed in five sections. First, the positive perceptions of children's drawing behaviour and attitudes. Second, the perceived importance and principal aims of the National Curriculum for Art and Design Education. Third, the numerous sources of encouragement and support for drawing development. Fourth, the differing perceptions of what constitutes a good and bad drawing. Fifth, issues surrounding an age‐related decline in children's drawing activity. Conclusions: The findings are related to theories of drawing education, and implications for children's drawings and drawing pedagogy are discussed.     

Children's Attitudes to Reading: Do Teachers Know?

Twelve primary aged children with learning difficulties rated their attitudes to reading on a Likert scale. Their teachers rated these children's attitudes on the same scale. They then devised an observation schedule to assess the children's attitudes to reading activities in the classroom. The use of these assessment procedures in the classroom, their differing results and the implications for helping children with learning difficulties, are discussed.     

Peer Group Norms and Accountability Moderate the Effect of School Norms on Children's Intergroup Attitudes

The present study examined the interactive effects of school norms, peer norms, and accountability on children's intergroup attitudes. Participants (n = 229) aged 5–11 years, in a between‐subjects design, were randomly assigned to a peer group with an inclusion or exclusion norm, learned their school either had an inclusion norm or not, and were accountable to either their peer group, teachers, or nobody. Findings indicated, irrespective of age, that an inclusive school norm was less effective when the peer group had an exclusive norm and children were held accountable to their peers or teachers. These findings support social identity development theory (D. Nesdale, 2004, 2007), which expects both the in‐group peer and school norm to influence children's intergroup attitudes.