20.4 29.5 23.9 20.9 20 26.1 35.1 23.5 26.3 32.9 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Y E A R S PER C EN T A G E PA R T IC IPA T IO N GIRLS BOYS Linear (GIRLS) Linear (BOYS)
4.3.2 Participants: survey questionnaire
The quantitative survey questionnaire was administered to 600 English medium, Grades 7, 8 and 9 boy and girl learners. Of the total of 600, 200 each of Grades 7, 8 and 9 learners were surveyed. The data were collected at the end of the 2008 academic year, in the fourth term, when the learners completed that grade of the GET (General Education and Training) course.
The learners participating in the research survey study spanned the GET band and were in Grades 7, 8 and 9. Retrieving information from the whole GET band enabled one to assess the development, if any, of learners’ thoughts and opinions about science, science education and science careers in this phase of schooling. Whilst a longitudinal study could have been more advantageous, a cross-aged (Reid and Skryabina, 2003), cross-grades approach required a shorter timeframe and in this study, fewer logistical arrangements. According to Reid and Skyrabina (2003, p.512), “the cross- aged approach … allowed the development of ‘snapshots’ of attitudes held by pupils simultaneously at various stages of schooling and can be made in a very much shorter timeframe”.
In the South African schooling system, generally, and particularly in the Western Cape Province, Grade 7 forms part of the primary school. The questionnaire was presented to the Grade 7 learners of eight surrounding primary schools. These learners had been accepted at the school for Grade 8 for 2009. The make-up of the survey group, comprising primary and secondary school learners allows for the added advantage of comparing the perceptions of science of the learners in
the final year of primary schooling, Grade 7, with those who are beginning their secondary school education in Grade 8. The Grade 8 and 9 learners who participated in the survey were already enrolled at the school. The Grade 7 learners who participated in the survey are those learners who were required to write tests in Mathematics, English and Afrikaans, as well as to complete a social survey questionnaire and do a reading test so that educators could assess their strengths and weaknesses in preparation for their entering Grade 8 at the secondary school in 2009. The questionnaire for this research was conducted when they came to the school for the testing. The learners had been recruited for the research and permission had been sought from them and their parents to participate in the research, prior to their coming to the research site. Most of the learners are from the Coloured community and reside in Mitchells Plain. There is a slowly growing group of Black African learners at the school who reside in the nearby township of Khayelitsha, which is populated by mainly Black African residents.
Of the total number of learners who participated in the survey questionnaire, 41% were boys and 59%, the majority, were girls. The cohort of learners that participated in the research comprised learners who were accepted into Grade 8 at the secondary school that was the site of the research, and those who were already ‘resident’ in the school. The larger percentage of girls would not skew the results since percentages were used. The ages of the learners varied from 12 to older than 16 and they were represented, percentage-wise in the following manner:
FIGURE 4.3: Ages of learners participating in the survey questionnaire AGES IN YEARS % 12 8.7 13 30.6 14 36.4 15 17.5 16 5.5 16+ 1.3
The ages of the learners indicate that they could mostly be grouped in the adolescent phase of their development with the majority falling into the age group 13 to 14 years old. 84.5% of the learners fall into the 13 to 15 age group, which is in line with official government policy that stipulates the ideal ages that learners should be in a grade. This group of learners could thus be seen as progressing as expected through the grades.
Regarding religion, whilst the learners were presented with choices to select from in the questionnaire, the data that were generated were categorised into two main groups, Christianity and Islam, these being the two main religions in the area. Christian learners were presented choices
comprising a variety of different Christian denominations commonly found in the area: Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Moravians, Apostolics and adherents to the Dutch Reform Church. Below is a table in Figure 4.4 indicating the percentages of learners adhering to the different religious denominations.
FIGURE 4.4: Percentages of learners adhering to the different religious denominations
RELIGIONS %
Islam (Moslem) 31.0
Catholic 14.8
Anglican 9.4
Baptist 4.8
Seventh Day Adventist 0.5
Moravian 0.7
Apostolic 24.7
Dutch reformed Church 1.9
Other Religions 12.3
56.8% of the learners could be grouped into those following Christianity and 31% follow Islam.
The data indicate that 56.3% of the learners speak both English and Afrikaans at home while 38.3% of learners indicated that they speak English only at home. The learners who indicated that they speak Afrikaans only, Xhosa only or Xhosa and English at home represent just over 1% for each group. 94.6% of the learners thus speak English at home. This indicates how widespread the use of English is as a medium of communication. There is a generally held view that parents, in homes where English was not the home language, are sending their children to English medium schools so as to enable their children to access the perceived economic advantages of being able to communicate in English. The main medium of the school is English although there is a rapidly diminishing number of learners for whom the language of learning and teaching is Afrikaans.
The learners were requested to indicate which significant adult they lived with most of the time. 61.5% indicated that they live with both their mother and father. 38.5% thus lived in circumstances where there aren’t both parents in the home. Almost a quarter (23.3%) of the learners indicated that they live with their mother only and the rest responded that they live with ‘Granny and Grandpa’ (7.7%), an uncle or aunt (3.2%) and their father only (2.3%). The question was not raised whether there were other family members, outside of the nuclear family, living in the home. A significant percentage of the learners thus do not live in circumstances where there is the traditional family unit of mother, father and children as a single unit, living together. The fact that almost a quarter of the learners indicated that they lived in a family where there is only a mother and thus the
father figure is absent, would indicate that mothers play a significant role in social interaction in the family. Thus mothers’ opinions of masculinity and the image of science could have a significant impact on the children.
By way of attempting to define class and socio-economic standards, learners were requested to indicate the jobs of their parents. Their responses were classified into science (engineering, scientific, architecture, medical, computers) and non-science (everything else) jobs and the data that represent the sector in which parents are employed, show that parents are mostly employed in the non-science sector.
Learners’ exposure to science in the home is mediated by the socio-economic and cultural status of the household as determined by its purchasing power. In this respect a number of questions attempted to establish whether the learners have had exposure to science applications, through access to domestic, electrical science equipment or machines in their homes. These questions also tried to establish the economic status of the household through verifying the existence in the home of appliances that indicate the purchasing power of the family. The science-related resources that are present in learners’ homes present opportunities to facilitate and foster development of an interest in science in girls and boys. The questions were extracted from the South African Advertising Research Foundation’s Living Standards Measure (LSM), a multivariate market segmentation index used as a marketing research tool to establish individuals’ wealth based on their standard of living (Haupt, 2009). In order to differentiate between diverse groups in a population, it uses the index to establish commonalities amongst people. In so doing it allows one to “differentiate between people with different behaviour patterns and group together those people with similar behaviour” (Haupt, 2009, p.2). The LSM scale is divided into ten segments, each equated to a socio-economic level. The scale consists of an item bank, in which each item has a numeric value, of household appliances or machines, and was drawn up to gauge the economic potential of the household by establishing what appliances its members have been able to acquire. When one adds up the value of each item that exists in the household, one gets a quantified indication of its buying power that then allows one to infer what the socio-economic status of the household or individual is. For the purposes of this research some items from the original scale were omitted from the calculation. It must also be borne in mind that not all the relevant questions were answered by the learners. The particular level that the learners’ family is placed on allows inferences to be made and connections drawn to gender- stereotyped perceptions garnered from other responses in the survey. The breakdown of the placement of the learners’ households, with respect to the measuring of living standards by grade and gender, is tabulated below in Figure 4.5:
FIGURE 4.5: Learners’ household living standards
GRADES 7 8 9
GENDER GIRLS BOYS GIRLS BOYS GIRLS BOYS
LSM 10 0 0 0 0 0 0 LSM 9 78 54 90 71 88 62 LSM 8 35 23 25 12 28 16 LSM 7 6 3 0 1 4 2 LSM 6 1 0 1 0 0 0 LSM 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 LSM 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 LSM 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
On the ten-segment scale, the learners’ households are concentrated at levels eight and nine, with a few located at level seven. This indicates a fair level of basic applied science resources being present in their homes which points to a particular standard of living and implies that learners participating in the survey have access and exposure to, albeit domestic, electrical science applications.
The implication here is also that, whilst gender plays a role in which aspects of science learners would be interested and become active in, the economic status of the household is more important a factor than gender in determining the level of exposure to science at home. This opens up the broader debate of the link between access and exposure to science and economic status as determined by purchasing power, determined by income level. This link can be extended to the education system and more specifically the financial potential of the school that the learner attends, to expose her or him to science activities and experiences. The practical implication of the financial potential of the school that learners attend, and unfortunately the reality here, is that schools located in poorer communities do not have the same potential to purchase science equipment that would facilitate learner exposure to science as schools located in more affluent areas. This limits the level of exposure to science that learners have in schools in poorer communities. Social class as determined by economic status thus mediates learners’ access and exposure to science at the school level. The link between socio-economic class and science and science education is evident. The presence of applied science resources also necessitates a certain level of understanding of how these appliances or resources work and this would imply a functional level of scientific theoretical knowledge.
The homes of the learners who participated in this research, as sites where perceptions of science are cultivated, assume greater significance when the ability of the learners’ parents to encourage and facilitate discussion, in especially science topics, is gauged. It would appear that there are limitations in this area if one associates parents’ ability to foster discussion with their education level as indicated in Figure 4.6 below, since the majority of parents’ educational level is reported to
be in the FET Phase, although a sizeable percentage of learners appear not to know the educational level of their parents.
FIGURE 4.6 QUESTION 14 (MOTHER) AND QUESTION 15 (FATHER)