PERCEIVED ABILITY GOOD AVERAGE BELOW
AVERAGE
PERCEIVED DIFFICULTY
QUITE AVERAGE FAIRLY
DIFFICULT EASY LIKEBEST
BOYS ( RESPONSES) Biology 18 49 8 12 48 17 15 Chemistry 22 48 11 32 42 8 29 Physics 25 54 15 34 43 17 48 GIRLS (% RESPONSES) Biology 13 81 2 13 62 21 75 Chemistry 11 60 26 42 47 8 13 Physics 2 49 45 43 51 0 6
Questions 8 and 9, which asked students to indicate their likes and dislikes in relation to science lessons, gave interesting responses (Table 3.6) which were later used as a basis to investigate student preferences in relation to the structure of science lessons. This investigation (Research Task 10) yielded data which would be included in the discussions during subsequent planning for the delivery and development of the Suffolk Science course.
Table 3.6. Responses to the questions 'What do you like/dislike about science?' (Research Task 8)
LIKE
%BOYS %GIRLS %BOYS DISLIKE%GIRLS
Experiments 95 83 3 8 Calculations 22 6 38 42 Drawing diagrams 29 53 20 28 Written work 9 28 68 40 Science in everyday life 52 45 6 8 Listening to teacher 20 19 28 49 Talking to teacher 5 13 15 8 Group work 43 47 5 6 Practical assessments 32 19 18 38
The main data relating to the attitudes towards science of the students were provided by the survey of the entire Year 9 cohort in my school (Research Task 6) and were collected during May and June 1988. Again, the survey was completed by questionnaire (Appendix 8). This seemed the most suitable method of surveying an entire year group of widely differing abilities across a range of topics. The structure of the questionnaire was dictated by the attitudes I wished to investigate. These were:
1. the students' interest in science and their perceptions of the relevance of science in their everyday lives;
2. the students' perceptions of their own ability in science;
3. the students' attitudes towards a range of gender issues in science.
I hoped to be able to compare directly the boys' and girls' attitudes and opinions towards these issues. The questions themselves were introduced as a series of statements which had been made by students from Years 9 and 10 whilst discussing their science lessons. The cohort were asked to respond to each of these statements using a five point Lickert scale. The responses were coded to indicate positive or negative attitudes towards the specific issue with the questions being phrased so that agreement with the statement did not necessarily indicate a positive response.
The questionnaire was structured to contain 14 questions relating to each of the three issues. Some of the questions were derived from my own research but many of them were suggested by Year 10 students during discussions and conversations. In order to permit an exploration of the students' attitudes in each of the three science areas I decided to prepare three identical questionnaires in terms of the 42 questions which were to be asked. This was achieved, as explained in Chapter 2 by writing the questions on each questionnaire so that they referred to only one science subject. Question 32, for example, on the biology questionnaire was 'I usually understand a new idea quickly in BIOLOGY' and on the chemistry questionnaire 'I usually understand a new idea quickly in CHEMISTRY’ and so on for each question and subject.
the students were, as outlined in Chapter 2, asked to complete each questionnaire in the appropriate lesson. The questionnaires are presented in their entirety in Appendix 8, but for direct reference the questions are listed in Table 3.7 (interest/relevance issues), Table 3.9 (perceived ability) and Table 3.11 (gender issues). Tables 3.8, 3.10 and 3.12 show the boys' and the girls' mean scores in each of the three survey areas. These are based on a score of 1-5 with a low score representing a positive response and a high score a negative response. I intended to supplement the results of this survey by conducting individual interviews with a number of the students at a later stage in the programme.
The questions which addressed the students' interest in and relevance of their sciences showed a definite polarisation in terms of both gender and the individual subject. This proved to be the only one of the three areas of investigation where the negative responses were greater than the positive responses. This is indicated in the barcharts in Figures 3.13, 3.14 and 3.15 which show the boys' responses in biology, and the girls' responses in both chemistry and physics to be negatively skewed. The research discussed in chapter one has clearly demonstrated that biology is perceived as being a 'feminine' science with chemistry and physics as 'masculine' sciences. Statistical analysis using the Mann-Whitney U test revealed that many of the U-scores were close to the critical values (see Appendix 21) but only the interest/relevance responses for biology (in favour of the girls) and the perceived ability reponses for physics (in favour of the boys) were statistically significant (both at the 1% level). This suggests that the girls in general only see biological science as being interesting or relevant and that the boys perceive themselves as being particularly able in physics.
The data yielded by this aspect of the survey suggest that this subject polarisation functions either as a self-fulfilling prophecy or that both the way in which we teach science and the contexts we use to illustrate it precipitate this gender difference. This is an area which requires further investigation and will be reconsidered at a later stage in the thesis when evidence from another survey will be included.
Table 3.7 Questions from Research Task 6: INTEREST/RELEVANCE
I. Once I've left school I won't think about most of my B/C/P anymore. 3. Most of my friends think B/C/P is boring.
6. I don't find much use for B/C/P out of school.
7. I find B/C/P lessons interesting, whatever we are doing.
I I . 1 enjoy the fact that there's always something new for me to learn in B/C/P.