Investigating pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards science in Bahrain: Positive or negative?

This study investigated pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards science. As it is known scientific attitudes towards science has a key role in achieving science literacy which is the vision of the curriculum of science courses that have been put into practice since there has been a decline in the number of students studying the science or science-related fields. There is a discussion about this fundamental problem is that the declining percentage of students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) graduate programs (Ortega, 2003) and steady decline in student interest in the physical sciences (Astin,1997). There are many factors for these problems stated as: students’ low interest and negative attitudes towards science course teaching methods, teacher’s attitude, influence of parents, gender, age, cognitive styles of students, career interest, societal view of science and scientists, social implications of science and achievement (Jelinek, 1998; Osborne, Simon & Collins, 2003; Slee, 1964). In addition, teaching style is also noted to be linked with students’ attitudes toward science and science teaching (Wood, 1998). As many researchers have pointed out the reality that students’ attitudes and feelings toward science and science courses, students’ decisions about their future career choices, and students’ achievement in science courses correlate with their attitudes toward science (Haladyna, Olsen & Shaughnessy, 1982; Oliver & Simpson, 1988; Rodrigues, Jindal-Snape & Snape, 2011; Shrigley, 1990; Turkmen, 2013). However, many factors could contribute to students’ attitudes towards studying science (Adesoji, 2008). Therefore, educators believe that they should promote science and mathematics so that students can choose science, mathematics, or science-related careers; in addition, they must increase students’ interest in science, technology, mathematics, and engineering (STEM) (Welch, 2010).

As this study focused on Bahraini pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards science, it is embarking on a challenge which has been one of the current foci of educational research. Several researches suggest that students’ positive attitudes towards science are linked with academic achievement (Freedman, 1997; Salta &Tzougraki, 2004; Simpson & Wasik, 1978; Wilson, 1983; Weinburgh, 1995). As Koballa (1988) stated, we are continuing to study attitudes for three reasons: attitudes are enduring and seem to remain relatively stable over time; attitudes are learned: students are not born liking or disliking the study of science and attitudes are related to behavior, that is, students’ actions reflect their feelings toward objects and issues. Attitudes have been a very difficult concept to describe since it cannot be directly observed (Fraser, 1994). Affective dimension acts as a bridge between behavioral and cognitive dimensions in learning. When teacher is unable to build this bridge on her/his students, s/he could not perform an effective learning (Demircioğlu, Aslan & Yadigaroğlu, 2014). Attitudes have been crucial importance in science. For this reason positive science-related attitudes are the precursors to interest in science and science course selection. Therefore, the accurate acquisition of attitudes is recommended to improve the quality of teaching science (Krylova, 1997; Turner & Lindsay, 2003). There is considerable consensus of opinion that the promotion of favorable attitudes towards science is an important aim of science education (Fraser, 1981; Aiken & Aiken, 1969; Kobolla, 1988; Laforgia, 1988).

However, the results of the study showed that pre-service teachers held negative attitudes towards science and science-related careers. Their attitudes impacted on their selection. So, they did not prefer to study science or science-related subjects. Mostly, these negative attitudes stem from individual and intrinsic interest and/or extrinsic interest which are related to classroom and teaching approaches (Osborne, J., Simon, S., & Collins, S., 2003). If students are disinterested in the subject then they become unmotivated. So their attitudes towards science become unfavorable. Also, the recent study (Hacieminoglu, 2016) supports our results that teachers’ different teaching approaches and classroom environment can cause that students might have negative attitudes towards science.

The results of this study will offer valuable insights about Bahraini pre-service teachers’ science-related attitudes and how their attitudes affect their choices in their future careers. As Simpson and Oliver (1990) pointed out students enter junior high school with a less than positive attitude toward science and that this attitude do not improve through high school. This view may be one of the reasons why students hold negative attitudes towards science or science-related fields. The results of this study will contribute in pedagogy, teaching practice, and curriculum development in science education. There is an agreement among educators on the importance of students’ attitudes toward science courses in school (Osborne, Simon, & Collins, 2003). Moreover, that is why in science teacher preparation, increasing positive attitudes toward science and possessing scientific attitudes are important for science teacher candidates (Turkmen, 2013). It is revealed that science teachers with positive attitudes toward science and science teaching should influence students’ attitudes to positive direction. Moreover, this influence could increase students’ achievement in science courses (Pigge & Marso, 1997).

Positive views toward science are viewed as an important correlate to help students achieve in science and improve students’ attitudes and interest in science besides motivation and attitude (Welch, 2010). The positive attitudes and interest may also lead to future careers in science related fields (Welch, 2010). There are many studies show that if science teachers improve students’ attitudes toward science, students increase their achievement in science courses (Osborne, Simon, & Collins, 2003; Brickhouse, 1992; Bloom, 1989; Friend, 1985; Gabel, 1980; Moore & Foy, 1997). There are some studies to demonstrate a positive correlation between the classroom environment and attitudes toward science (Chuang & Cheng, 2003; Lee & Fraser, 2002 in Smith & Ezeife, 2010; Smith & Ezeife, 2010; Telli, Cakiroglu, & Rakici, 2003), examine the relationship between teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and their perceptions of students’ attitudes about Science and Technology (S&T), gender differences in students’ patterns of S&T learning (Haase, 2009) and examine the effects of the programs and project-based activities that engage students in authentic science related learning activities to improve students’ attitudes, views of science and overall achievement in science (Haase, 2009; Turkmen, 2013; Welch, 2010). In addition, important factors to success in the classroom are motivation and attitude, class climate, characteristics and skills of the teacher, and physical environment, a high level of involvement, very high level of personal support, strong positive relationships with classmates, and use of a variety of teaching strategies and unusual learning activities (Myers & Fouts, 1992; Welch, 2010). Fraser (1986) accepts the influence of classroom environment as a significant determinant of attitude.

As several studies cited the most positive attitudes to science held by students were associated with a high level of personal support by the teacher and the comments teachers made in their classes (Bloom, 1989; Osborne et al., 2003). Consequently, based on the results we recommend using these kinds of challenging instructional situations. The present study might have implications for science teacher educators and instructors in the colleges of sciences and education who wish to design modules for science courses to promote science and positive science attitudes. Science educators agree on the main aims of the programs is improving students’ attitudes in science (Koballa, 1988; Laforgia, 1988).

To date many researcher and teacher have used the TOSRA to monitor student progress towards achieving attitude. Fraser (1981) recommends that a teacher might employ the TOSRA to obtain information about the science-related attitudes of a student or, preferably, whole classes (Fraser, 1981). A major advantage of the TOSRA is to yield a separate score for a number of distinct attitudinal aims instead of a single overall score. It is possible to obtain a profile of attitude scores for groups of students with the TOSRA and interpret scores obtained on the TOSRA; relative interpretations can be more meaningful than absolute ones for teachers (Fraser, 1981).

In conclusion, we recommend some future directions as following:

Future research could examine the effect of the one the factors such as teaching methods, teacher’s attitude, influence of parents, gender, age, cognitive styles of pupils, career interest, societal view of science and scientists, social implications of science and achievement. Moreover, whether the pre-service teachers’ attitudes change over their study or long-term impact of the recommended programs to improve students’ attitudes in science may be found out. For example finding out the effect of the gender differences regarding other cognitive and affective domains and studying the developmental process of those variables could yield valuable implications for further studies.

It should not be forgotten that attitudes of teachers and students toward science and science teaching do not change easily especially in a short time period (Akande, 2009; Turkmen, 2013). As a result, science education and science teacher preparation, increasing positive attitudes toward science and understanding and possessing scientific attitudes are important for science teacher candidates.