Examining Children’s Engagement in Science in the Preschool Classroom

Student engagement is one of the indicators of a successful teaching and learning process. Many studies claim that student engagement is associated with the performance and achievement of students. In this study, the researchers aimed to determine the effects of science laboratory environments and science learning motivation towards student engagement in learning science among non-science students. 468 upper secondary non-science students in Sarawak were involved in this survey with the administration of three sets of questionnaires on science laboratory environment, science learning motivation and student engagement in science learning. Multiple regression was used to analyse the research questions. Both science laboratory learning environment (r = 0.523) and science learning motivation (r = 0.670) are found positively correlated to student engagement. The results also revealed that the science laboratory learning environment and science learning motivation are significant predictors of student engagement in learning science with R2 = 0.463. Specifically, student cohesiveness, open-endedness, integration and material environment in the science laboratory learning environment and all the dimensions of motivation predict student engagement in science learning. The findings suggest that educators, especially science teachers, should utilise the laboratory effectively and keep students motivated to ensure their active engagement in science learning.

To teach students effectively, they must be engaged. This study investigated the combined significant influence of teaching quality and democratic behavior on students’ engagement in learning science. The study employed a non-experimental quantitative design using a descriptive-predictive technique. It utilized a total of 117 respondents from one of the private schools in Davao City who answered the adapted survey questionnaire. Using Mean, Pearson r, and Multiple Linear Regression the following findings were made: the level of teaching quality, teacher’s democratic behavior, and student engagement were high; teaching quality and student’s engagement have a significant relationship; teacher’s democratic behavior and student’s engagement have a significant relationship. Results implied that the indicators are oftentimes observed and significantly influenced students’ engagement. Furthermore, both teaching quality and democratic behavior have a combined significant influence on student’s scientific engagement. In conclusion, both variables have impact students' engagement in learning science. Thus, it is recommended that the two be utilized by the teachers to improve students’ engagement in science education.

This study assessed whether students' social networking usage and motivation significantly predict their engagement in learning science. A descriptive-correlational research design was utilized, involving 339 respondents from three selected public high schools in the Tagum City Division, chosen through stratified random sampling. The study gathered data using three adapted questionnaires: the Social Networking Usage Questionnaire, the Science Motivation Questionnaire II (SMQ-II), and the Science Engagement Scale. Statistical analyses included mean, standard deviation, Pearson’s r, and multiple regression. The findings indicated that the respondents’ social networking usage is often manifested; students’ motivation is highly manifested; and students’ engagement in learning science is observed most of the time. Moreover, the findings indicate both social networking usage and student motivation have significantly correlated and predicted students’ engagement in learning science. The study recommends that teachers utilize social networking and motivation to enhance student engagement. Finally, this study could provide valuable insights to students, parents, teachers, school administrators, DepEd officials, and researchers by gaining insight into the factors influencing students’ engagement in learning science. KEYWORDS: Science Education, Social Networking Usage, Student Motivation, Student Engagement, Descriptive And Correlational Design, Regression Analysis, Tagum City, Davao Del Norte, Philippines

Problem. A significant segment of the U.S. population, under-represented students, is under-engaged or disengaged in secondary science education. International and national assessments and various research studies illuminate the problem and/or the disparity between students’ aspirations in science and the means they have to achieve them. To improve engagement and address inequities among these students, more contemporary and/or inclusive pedagogy is recommended. More specifically, multicultural science education has been suggested as a potential strategy for increased equity so that all learners have access to and are readily engaged in quality science education. While multicultural science education emphasizes the integration of students’ backgrounds and experiences with science learning , multimedia has been suggested as a way to integrate the fundamentals of multicultural education into learning for increased engagement. In addition, individual characteristics such as race, sex, academic track and grades were considered. Therefore, this study examined the impact of multicultural science education, multimedia, and individual characteristics on under-represented students’ engagement in secondary science. Method. The Under-represented Students Engagement in Science Survey (USESS), an adaptation of the High School Survey of Student Engagement, was used with 76 highschool participants. The USESS was used to collect pretest and posttest data concerning their types and levels of student engagement. Levels of engagement were measured with Strongly Agree ranked as 5, down to Strongly Disagree ranked at 1. Participants provided this feedback prior to and after having interacted with either the multicultural or the nonmulticultural version of the multimedia science curriculum. Descriptive statistics for the study’s participants and the survey items, as well as Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for internal consistency reliability with respect to the survey subscales, were conducted. The reliability results prompted exploratory factory analyses, which resulted in two of the three subscale factors, cognitive and behavioral, being retained. One-within one-between subjects ANOVAs, independent samples t-test, and multiple linear regressions were also used to examine the impact of a multicultural science education, multimedia, and individual characteristics on students’ engagement in science learning. Results. There were main effects found within subjects on posttest scores for the cognitive and behavioral subscales of student engagement. Both groups, using their respective versions of the multimedia science curriculum, reported increased engagement in science learning. There was also a statistical difference found for the experimental group at posttest on the measure of “online science was more interesting than school science.” All five items unique to the posttest related to the multimedia

Emergent bilinguals (EBs) from Spanish-speaking households are a sizable and quickly growing segment of the preschool population in the United States. However, there is limited research on the provision of opportunities for EBs to engage in language-rich classroom discussion, particularly in English-dominant contexts where most EBs attend preschool. This study focused on teacher and Spanish-English EBs' language interactions in an English-dominant preschool program to better understand whether and, if so, how teachers' use of questioning strategies provided extended oral language use opportunities for Spanish-speaking EBs in their classrooms. We adopted a sequential-explanatory mixed-methods design to examine audio recordings from whole-group instruction across seven preschool classrooms and investigate how EBs responded to teachers' conversationally responsive questioning strategies, with a specific focus on how they used Spanish as they composed extended responses. Researchers coded 31 audio recordings from 12 EB students to identify teachers' (n = 7) use of questioning strategies (closed-response, open-response, and single-word-response), as well as students' responses to questions (one-word-response or extended response) and Spanish use. Teachers' use of closed-response and single-word-response questions emerged as most important in supporting Spanish-English EBs' extended language use during whole-group instruction. Furthermore, the majority of student responses that included Spanish utterances were extended responses, underscoring the value of Spanish use for students to develop extended responses. Findings suggest that equitable opportunities to enter into classroom dialogue for EBs might require more explicitly scaffolded questioning strategies and might necessitate the purposeful and intentional use of Spanish.

ABSTRACTThis study aimed to investigate the relationships among the middle school students’ perceptions of science teacher support, students’ motivation and students’ engagement in learning science. Student motivation was addressed with task value and academic self-concept while student engagement included aspects of agentic, behavioural, emotional and cognitive engagement. In the study, survey method was used and the data were collected though previously validated self-report questionnaires. Valid data were obtained from 1006 middle school students enrolled in one of the nine public schools in Turkey. The path analysis revealed that perceived science teacher’s support positively predicted students’ task value and academic self-concept in science. Furthermore, students who reported high levels of task value and academic self-concept showed higher levels of engagement in science. Accordingly, it seems important for science teachers to listen to the students, behave fairly and help them to solve their problems in order to motivate them for learning science and increase their engagement in science class.

Students’ attitudes towards science have long occupied the interest of the scientific community. The confirmed decline of students’ interest in pursuing the study of science, alongside the increasing recognition of scientific knowledge’s importance and economic utility, makes the issue even more imperative for any society attempting to raise its standards of scientific literacy. Attitudes towards science have been found to depend on variables like instructional teaching and curriculum. The latest research indicates that childhood experiences serve as a major influence on academic interest. The broad recommendation is to concentrate on improving 10 to 14-year-olds’ experience of science. Despite the recent flurry of media interest and the latest research in the scientific community, the school curriculum in most countries is still teaching obsolete science with scarce reference to current, cutting-edge scientific research. There is an urgent need to introduce the concepts of 20th-century Physics within the curriculum and exciting science programs that will enhance the interactive learning experience among students, as is shown by evaluating reports of OECD and PISA results. While this has led to several changes in the curriculum of secondary schooling in some countries, it is still an imperative case for others and definitely for Greece. There are some individual or institutional projects around the globe that introduce modern science and technology to upper primary students, yet of no nationwide effect. This paper aims to review the latest research on students’ attitudes towards science and to present the possible next research steps in amplifying students’ interest and engagement in science.

ABSTRACTIn this study, we examine patterns of students’ literacy and engagement in science associated with different levels of “inquiry‐oriented” learning reported by students in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. To achieve this, we analyzed data from the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development's 2006 Programme for International Student Assessment, which had science as its focus. Consistently, our findings show that science students who report experiencing low levels of inquiry‐oriented learning activities are found to have above‐average levels of science literacy, but below‐average levels of interest in science, and below‐average levels on six variables that reflect students’ engagement in science. Our findings show that the corollary is also true. Across the three countries, students who report high levels of inquiry‐oriented learning activities in science are observed to have below‐average levels of science literacy, but above‐average levels of interest in learning science, and above‐average engagement in science. These findings appear to run counter to science education orthodoxy that the more students experience inquiry‑oriented teaching and learning, the more likely they are to have stronger science literacy, as well as more positive affect toward science. We discuss the implications of these findings for science educators and researchers.

This chapter provides an analysis of recent research which has been conducted in South Africa in the fields of science communication and science engagement in informal settings. The majority of science communication research has been made available via meetings such as the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) and the African Science Communication Conference (ASCC). Presentations at PCST have been varied, from Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and outreach to health and social media, while the majority of presentations at the two ASCC conferences focused on science journalism, “show and tell” and policy issues. The relatively few published articles with the field of science communication indicate that there is considerable scope for an expanded research agenda. The field of science engagement research has tended to rely on the interests of a few individuals. Despite this, it has confirmed that many of the findings of similar research in developed countries hold true in South Africa, for example, that learning is incremental, and affective outcomes are as important as cognitive ones. Research studies on science fairs show impressive agency and initiative by the student participants, but resource constraints are hampering greater engagement with such informal learning opportunities. In summary, while informal sites are making strides in science communication and engagement, there are historical inequities in terms of space and culture which need to be addressed to ensure greater participation by the majority of the population.

To date, most studies of citizen science engagement focus on quantifiable measures related to the contribution of data or other output measures. Few studies have attempted to qualitatively characterize citizen science engagement across multiple projects and from the perspective of the participants. Building on pertinent literature and sociocultural learning theories, this study operationalizes engagement in citizen science through an analysis of interviews of 72 participants from six different environmentally based projects. We document engagement in citizen science through an examination of cognitive, affective, social, behavioral, and motivational dimensions. We assert that engagement in citizen science is enhanced by acknowledging these multiple dimensions and creating opportunities for volunteers to find personal relevance in their work with scientists. A Dimensions of Engagement framework is presented that can facilitate the innovation of new questions and methodologies for studying engagement in citizen science and other forms of informal science education.

The importance of increasing and widening participation in post-compulsory science and informal science learning (ISL) spaces is widely recognized—particularly for working-class and minority ethnic communities. While there is a growing understanding of the intersection of femininity with class, ethnicity, and science learning across formal and informal settings, there has been little work on how masculinity may shape urban boys’ science (non)participation and (dis)engagement. This article analyzes performances of masculinity enacted by 36 urban, working-class boys (from diverse ethnic backgrounds) during school science museum visits, exploring how these performances relate to science identity and engagement. We identify three main performances of masculinity enacted during the visits (“laddishness,” “muscular intellect,” and “translocational masculinity”), and trace the implications of each for boys’ science engagement. We consider the power implications of these performances, notably the extent to which hegemonic masculinity is normalized within the science museum space, the ways in which this normalization is co-constitutive of the boys’ performances of masculinity, and the implications of the boys’ performances of masculinity for other students (notably girls and less dominant boys). The article concludes with implications for research, policy, and practice regarding how to promote equitable participation and science learning within ISL.

This study looks at 5 and 6 years old children’s science learning experiences in field trips and classroom activities. It aims to contribute to recent interest in applying multimodality to the teaching and learning of science [McCormick, K. I., C. Uliassi, K. Barber, and K. Wieczorek. 2023. “Creating Multimodal Experiences to Engage All Students in Early Elementary Classrooms.” YC Young Children 78 (3): 24–32]. This research reports on findings from young children’s science learning in a preschool setting in Oman’s capital city of Muscat. The research uses ethnographic perspectives to situate children’s science learning in broader community practices, highlighting the idea that science learning is both a social and cultural practice. It also applies multimodality to highlight children’s micro-movements in science learning through field trips and classroom activities [Flewitt, R. 2011. “Bringing Ethnography to a Multimodal Investigation of Early Literacy in a Digital age.” Qualitative Research 11 (3): 293–310. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794111399838]. The findings show that children’s science learning can be a part of their daily lives and cultural practices. They also indicate that multimodality offers the participating children the chance to experience and make sense of science learning. The findings also show how teachers can benefit from the inclusion of science in their lives (e.g. through household activities and visiting parks) by basing their classroom activities on those that take place in children’s everyday world.

Using outdoor adventure to enhance intrinsic motivation and engagement in science and physical activity: An exploratory study

BackgroundPrompted by fewer females compared to males enrolling in physics and advanced mathematics at both secondary and university levels, our research investigated the views and experiences of female students currently studying upper secondary school physics. We interviewed 18 female students about influences they considered important to their own science education, interest in science, and future science-related aspirations. Our purpose was to identify the experiences that these students most strongly associated with the generation and maintenance of their engagement in science, particularly represented in this research by their enrolment in upper secondary physics.ResultsThe research team used a systematic, iterative process to identify the main themes in the transcribed interview data. We identified the influence each girl reported as the strongest (ranked first). We also combined all influences that the participants had nominated, regardless of their ranking, to further examine all factors participants suggested as influential in their sustained engagement in school science (represented by their decision to study upper secondary physics). Systematic analysis of the interview data confirms that the influences on these females’ choices to study physics at upper secondary originate from a combination of their teachers, their school’s science culture, members of their family, the participants themselves and their peers.ConclusionsThe interviews highlighted the idiographic complexities in understanding the wide range of important influences on these students studying physics at upper secondary school and their engagement in science. The unique contribution of this work is giving voice to the participants and reflecting on what these high-achieving females have to say about the influential factors in their decisions to pursue science. Supportive teachers and the school science culture play essential roles, and other cultural and/or social factors such as family members and peers are identified as important. References to the culture and expectations of the school, family holidays, and conversations with siblings are support factors that seem to interact and overlap. At the same time, the importance of policy-amenable factors such as competent and caring science teachers, and science-supportive school cultures should be emphasised and encouraged.

This study aims to examine the influence of inquiry-based instruction on eighth-grade male and female students’ motivation and engagement in science learning in two public junior high schools in central Taiwan. Mixed-methods methodology was adopted with 60 students (32 males and 28 females) in the experimental group and 56 students (28 males and 28 females) in the control group. The study lasted for one semester and six units using inquiry-based teaching (90–180 min each) were implemented in the experimental group. Questionnaires used for measuring students’ motivation and engagement in science learning were administered as pre- and post-tests. In addition, eight to ten male and female students from both experimental and control groups, as well as two instructors were interviewed four times throughout the semester. Quantitative data were analyzed with t test and the interview data were fully transcribed and coded. Results show that male and female students under intervention expected to do more experiments because it improved their understanding. Male and female students under intervention also used more learning strategies. However, males benefited more than females from the intervention in regard to their motivation and engagement in learning science. Males improved more in motivational constructs, recognized the value of learning science, and increased their cognitive, behavioral, and emotional engagement because what they learned applied to real life. In contrast, females had higher exam anxiety and lower cognitive engagement due to mathematics fear, stronger sense of pride in class, and caring too much about the right answers.