“I Have Learned to Hate Science”

Abstract

Every semester, during the first week of my non-science-majors biology class, I asked students to tell me what they were excited and nervous about that term, and if there was anything that they believed I needed to know about them. The quote that serves as the title of this commentary was among the most memorable responses I received. Sadly, this student was not an outlier. Many students shared their distaste for science or their nervousness about the class because, as they had come to believe, they were “not good at science.” Lukewarm attitudes like these were common at the inception of multiple semesters. For the majority of these students, this was their last formal science class – their final opportunity to build positive associations with the content of biology and to generate the confidence needed to engage with society's biology-related questions. That's a big, and important, responsibility for an educator. The negative comments led me to ask some important questions. Where do these attitudes and beliefs come from? How might we, as biology educators, address them? Why do some students have a disinterest in, and a lack of …