Why Do Secondary School Students Lose Their Interest in Science? Or Does it Never Emerge? A Possible and Overlooked Explanation

Anderhag, Per; Wickman, Per‐Olof; Bergqvist, Kerstin; Jakobson, Britt; Hamza, Karim; Säljö, Roger

doi:10.1002/sce.21231

Cited by 61 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 34 publications

(78 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…The percentage of female students who believed that men were better than women in mathematics jumped from 15% in ninth grade to 25% in 11th grade (Sansone, ). As argued by Anderhag et al (), education before high school often concerns everyday topics—interests that anyone could acquire in daily life—but, starting from high school, science education emphasizes scientific purposes that are gradually decontextualized from everyday interests. The majority of the students cannot spontaneously develop an appreciation for the scientific purpose behind science learning and often rely on school teachers to cultivate such an appreciation (Anderhag, Emanuelsson, Wickman, & Hamza, ; Carlone, Scott, & Lowder, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of first high school science teacher's gender and gender matching on students' science identity in college

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

To encourage the formation of science identity among girls, many scholars and practitioners have suggested to assign samegender science teachers to students so that the teachers can serve as gender role models. However, direct evidence of any long-term effect of gender-matching is scarce. In a nationally representative survey of college students from the United States, we investigated if gender-matching between students and their first high school science teachers was associated with students' stronger identity in those science subjects in college.In physics, we found no gender-matching effect. In chemistry, there was a gender-matching effect only for women students. In biology, there were gender-matching effects for students of both genders. In addition, we found that students in general had a lower science identity if they reported a negative influence of opposite gender domination (IOGD) on their career choices.However, for female students who were at the negative end of the IOGD scale, female biology teachers raised the level of biology identity to the grand average. Our findings suggested that the gender role model effect was strongest when the gender role models resonated with the overall disciplinary gender representation at the school or societal levels.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of first high school science teacher's gender and gender matching on students' science identity in college

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…There is ample evidence for a decline of interest over the years of schooling. Particularly, students tend to lose their interest in natural science subjects such as chemistry and physics (Anderhag et al, 2016;Krapp & Prenzel, 2011;Wigfield & Cambria, 2010). Krapp and Prenzel (2011) emphasize three main reasons for this decline, namely, (i) the quality and type of instruction (Kunter et al, 2014;Schiefele & Schaffner, 2015;Tr€ obst, Kleickmann, Lange-Schubert, Rothkopf, & M€ oller, 2016); (ii) developmental issues (students in adolescence prioritize new developmental tasks); and (iii) differentiation processes of interest in adolescence.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Krapp and Prenzel (2011) emphasize three main reasons for this decline, namely, (i) the quality and type of instruction (Kunter et al, 2014;Schiefele & Schaffner, 2015;Tr€ obst, Kleickmann, Lange-Schubert, Rothkopf, & M€ oller, 2016); (ii) developmental issues (students in adolescence prioritize new developmental tasks); and (iii) differentiation processes of interest in adolescence. Additionally, findings by Anderhag et al (2016) indicate a change of students' object of interest in science subjects during their school life, from general enjoyment of being in class to an increasing focus on scientific objects, underlining the need for a more discriminated approach for assessing interest.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Knowing more about things you care less about: Cross‐sectional analysis of the opposing trend and interplay between conceptual understanding and interest in secondary school chemistry

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The development of students' interest in school science activities, their understanding of central chemical concepts, and the interplay between both constructs across Grades 5–11 were analyzed in a cross‐sectional paper‐and‐pencil study (N = 2,510, mean age 11–17 years). Previous empirical findings indicate that students' knowledge increases over the time of secondary school while students' interest, especially in natural science subjects, tends to decrease. Concomitantly, there is evidence for an increase in the positive coupling between interest and knowledge across time. However, previous studies mainly rely on rather global measures, for example, school grades or general subject‐related interest, and focus on science as an integrated subject instead of specific disciplines, for example, chemistry. For this article, more proximal and differentiated measures for students' understanding of three chemical concepts (Chemical Reaction, Energy, Matter) and interest in seven dimensions of school science activities according to the RIASEC + N model (Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, Conventional, and Networking; cf. Dierks, Höffler, & Parchmann, 2014) were applied. The results are in line with previous research indicating a general increase in conceptual understanding and a decline in students' interest for all school science activities. However, the interplay between conceptual understanding and interest differs across the seven dimensions. Interest in activities which are likely to promote cognitive activation (investigative, networking) or involving the communication of knowledge (social, enterprising, and networking) are increasingly connected to conceptual understanding, especially in upper secondary grades. Interest in guided hands‐on activities (realistic) which are typical in secondary science teaching, however, shows only small positive correlations to students' conceptual understanding across all grades. Hence, in upper‐secondary school, investigative, social, enterprising, and networking activities seem to provide opportunities to benefit most from the interrelation between students' interests and their understanding.

show abstract

“…Comparing PS and L-SS students has indicated that the latter are oriented more towards practical issues (e.g. nutrition, modern diseases or phenomenon that science cannot explain) than areas such as biology or technology in general (Jidesjö 2008;Anderhag et al 2016). Based on this, we assume that our observations are also influenced by the specificity of this age group.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 83%

Physics competition to inspire learning and improve soft skills: a case of the Chain Experiment

Dziob

Górska

Kołodziej

et al. 2020

Int J Technol Des Educ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Chain Experiment competition has been held successfully for 6 years in Poland and is attracting growing interest. The competition provides participants with a task that involves designing and constructing a contraption that is an element in a chain of events that are based on various physical phenomena. The contraptions are then linked together in a chain and made to run consecutively. The operation of a contraption starts when it receives a ball from the preceding contraption and ends when it releases another ball to the next contraption. The process of constructing the contraptions includes elements of design education. This paper examines whether participating in the competition has a positive impact on the soft skills, social abilities and motivation of the participants, as well as their learning performance, mainly in physics. Questionnaires completed after the fifth running of the competition suggest that active participation in the Chain Experiment could have a positive impact on participants' soft skills and their abilities to solve problems, and it might also increase scientific knowledge, general interest in physics and science and motivation to be involved in similar challenges. The claim is that the format of the competition can stimulate versatile development of the participants and is a good way to arouse students' interests in physics and engineering, even in the very early stages of their education.

show abstract

Why Do Secondary School Students Lose Their Interest in Science? Or Does it Never Emerge? A Possible and Overlooked Explanation

Cited by 61 publications

References 34 publications

The effect of first high school science teacher's gender and gender matching on students' science identity in college

The effect of first high school science teacher's gender and gender matching on students' science identity in college

Knowing more about things you care less about: Cross‐sectional analysis of the opposing trend and interplay between conceptual understanding and interest in secondary school chemistry

Physics competition to inspire learning and improve soft skills: a case of the Chain Experiment

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About