Middle school students’ attitudes toward science, scientists, science teachers and classes

This study provides brief information about middle school students’ attitudes toward scientists, science teachers and classes, and usefulness of science. It helps us to see the similarities and differences among the regions, gender and grade levels concerning student attitudes toward scientists, science teachers and classes, and usefulness of science.

Student attitudes toward science, scientists, science classes and science teachers affect their interest and motivation when they learn science at school especially in elementary schools. There are studies (e.g. Osborne & Dillon, 2008) which advocate that students’ interests and attitudes toward science develop before age 14. It is important to develop positive student attitudes toward science and scientists since if students have positive attitudes, the learning of scientific information and science processes will be enhanced. Attitudes toward science and scientists have an impact on students’ views of science, future career awareness and classroom participation (Akcay et al., 2010).

The results of current study show that students who live in the west part of Turkey, mostly have higher positive attitudes toward scientists, science teachers and classes, and usefulness of science. The result supports the idea that general success of students from these regions at university entrance exams and some other national exams are higher than students from other parts of Turkey. On the other hand, students from Southeast Anatolia have usually less positive attitudes toward these variables. The reason of this conclusion might be due to school related problems such as poor physical conditions, lack of instructional equipment or overcrowded classes and so on. Furthermore, out of school reasons like parents’ attitudes toward education or science should have an impact on students’ attitudes toward these concepts because parents from Southeast Anatolia generally has lower educational level and more kids than parents from other regions in Turkey. This might be another reason for southeasterner students’ lower attitudes toward science and other related concepts. Students from Central Anatolia are the second group who has less positive attitudes toward scientists, science teacher and classes, and usefulness of science. This was an unexpected result since most of schools in this region have better physical conditions and equipment and classroom size than Eastern parts of Turkey. Because of this, the reasons of less positive attitudes toward science, scientists and science teaching and learning should be investigated.

Previous research indicates that there are gender differences concerning achievement, attitude and learning strategies used in science, that often favoring male students over female ones (Kenway & Gough, 1998; Miller et al., 2006; Ramsden, 1998; Simpson & Oliver, 1985). However, in this study the results indicate that female students have higher mean scores than male students regarding attitudes toward scientists, science teachers and classes, and usefulness of science. Yet, the only significant difference found in terms of gender issues was concerned with attitudes toward science teachers. The reason of such a consequence might be students’ gender at those ages may have an impact on their communications with people from other gender. It means that male students may have better communication with male teachers or vice versa. To sum up, it is difficult to generalize the effect of gender on attitudes toward science and other related concepts because there are several studies which found that there is no meaningful difference between boys’ and girls’ attitudes or boys have more positive attitudes toward science than girls (Miller et al., 2006; Ramsden, 1998; Simpson & Oliver, 1985) or the studies which concluded with totally opposite result as the current study (Baram-Tsabari and Kaadni, 2009; Çokadar & Külçe, 2008; Tal et al., 2000).

It was also found that students at early ages have more positive attitudes toward science, scientists and science learning and teaching. Students at fourth and fifth grades have more positive attitudes than the ones from sixth, seventh and eighth grades. The interests and attitudes toward these variables decrease with respect to grade levels (or age). The result is consistent with the conclusions of some other studies (Greenfield, 1996; Pell & Jarvis, 2001; Stark & Gray, 1999; Tal et al., 2000). Increasing in the complexity of concepts, numbers, formulas and mathematical operations in science topics with respect to grade levels might be one reason for such a conclusion. In order to deal with this situation, the topics or concepts may be taught by associating with daily life events. Different learning methods can be used to increase students’ motivations and successes in science teaching which will give rise to positive attitudes toward science ultimately. Certain characteristics of classroom environments that include personal support, use of a variety of teaching strategies, innovative learning activities and student-centered instructional designs are the factors which have an impact on to develop more positive attitudes toward science(Akcay et al., 2010; French & Russell, 2006; Kind et al., 2007; Osborne et al., 2003). It was reached that there is no meaningful difference among grade levels with respect to the subscale of PBS. This result shows that middle school students usually have similar views about perceptions (feelings) of a scientist. This condition can be dealt with emphasizing history and nature of science in science classes. In this way, students will be aware of what science is, why we need it, how scientists work, how scientific knowledge develops and so on.