Student Interest In Science Research Articles

Social Justice, Place, and Equitable Science Education: Broadening Urban Students’ Opportunities to Learn

In this paper, results from a 2-year informal science education study are presented. Children (aged 8–12) in this study participated in multi-aged groups to learn science within the context of paleontology and climate change. The goals of the project were to increase science content knowledge among underrepresented minority students and to enhance their interest in science. Providing urban students of color with opportunities to learn science may promote social justice and science as a civil right. Students in this study demonstrated science content knowledge and academic brilliance as they engaged in environmental science tasks. Results of paired t tests revealed science content knowledge increased significantly in Phase 1 (Saturday academy) of the study and on two of three content tests in Phase 2 (summer camp). Qualitative data revealed the depth of student learning and that student interest in science was generally positive. We conclude the program was moderately successful in terms of its goals and provided lessons learned in terms of engaging in equitable science teaching. This study adds to the extant literature on underrepresented students’ content knowledge and interest in science while participating in place-based, informal science education focused on paleontology and climate change.

Calling STEM experts: how can experts contribute to students’ increased STEM engagement?

ABSTRACTEncouraging student interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is an urgent priority in the USA and abroad. How most effectively to generate and sustain student interest in and preparation for STEM education and careers remains a vexing question, as the content areas, target ages, instructional approaches, and specific purposes of STEM education—and career preparation—are so diverse. Political interest in uncovering means to prepare and engage both larger numbers and more diverse students in STEM fields has extended to the practice of engaging STEM professionals in educational activities with students. What is the empirical evidence about which approaches that rely upon STEM experts to engage students work, and for whom? This paper summarizes research about the effects of such programmes on student outcomes, and offers recommendations for strengthening the research basis about using STEM professionals in the future.

Air Toxics Under the Big Sky: examining the effectiveness of authentic scientific research on high school students’ science skills and interest

ABSTRACTAir Toxics Under the Big Sky is an environmental science outreach/education program that incorporates the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) 8 Practices with the goal of promoting knowledge and understanding of authentic scientific research in high school classrooms through air quality research. This research explored: (1) how the program affects student understanding of scientific inquiry and research and (2) how the open-inquiry learning opportunities provided by the program increase student interest in science as a career path. Treatment students received instruction related to air pollution (airborne particulate matter), associated health concerns, and training on how to operate air quality testing equipment. They then participated in a yearlong scientific research project in which they developed and tested hypotheses through research of their own design regarding the sources and concentrations of air pollution in their homes and communities. Results from an external evaluation revealed that treatment students developed a deeper understanding of scientific research than did comparison students, as measured by their ability to generate good hypotheses and research designs, and equally expressed an increased interest in pursuing a career in science. These results emphasize the value of and need for authentic science learning opportunities in the modern science classroom.

Designing and Demonstrating a Master Student Project To Explore Carbon Dioxide Capture Technology

The rise in carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere, and the associated strengthening of the greenhouse effect, requires the development of low carbon technologies. New carbon capture processes are being developed to remove CO2 that would otherwise be emitted from industrial processes and fossil fuel power stations. Given the increasing importance of this technology, we report on a new educational project, which is aimed to instill greater awareness of the role of CO2 in climate change while stimulating student interest in science, technology, engineering, and the environment. The project was carried out by master students, that is, CoolLCap team, who contributed to the design and manufacture of a pilot plant that demonstrates the basic operation of an amine scrubbing plant. The main goal of the project was to develop educational material and presentations for a range of audiences, from primary school to university students and academics. In this article, we present the project team’s...

Engaging elementary students in learning science: an analysis of classroom dialogue

Research over a long period of time has continued to demonstrate problems in the teaching of science in school. In addition, declining levels of participation and interest in science and related fields have been reported from many particularly western countries. Among the strategies suggested is the recruitment of professional scientists and technologists either at the graduate level or advanced career level to change career and teach. In this study, we analysed how one beginning middle primary teacher engaged with students to support their science learning by establishing rich classroom discussions. We followed his evolving teaching expertise over three years focussing on his communicative practices informed by socio-cultural theory. His practices exemplified a non-interactive dialogical communicative approach where ideas were readily discussed but were concentrated on the class acquiring acceptable scientific understandings. His focus on the language of science was a significant aspect of his practice and one that emerged from his professional background. The study affirms the theoretical frameworks proposed by Mortimer and Scott (Meaning making in secondary science classrooms, 2003) highlighting how dialogue contributes to heightened student interest in science.

A project-based course on Newton’s laws for talented junior high-school students

Research has shown that project-based learning promotes student interest in science and improves understanding of scientific content. Fostering student motivation is particularly important in accelerated science and technology programmes for talented students, which are often demanding and time-consuming. Current texts provide little guidance on ways to employ challenging, open-ended investigations in physics suitable for the more capable students. This paper presents a project-based approach for teaching Newton’s laws in a programme for talented eighth-grade students. Evidence from student work demonstrates that project-based learning is a feasible classroom practice, challenging yet fulfilling for both students and teachers.

Will a Black Hole Eventually Swallow Earth?” Fifth Graders' Interest in Questions from a Textbook, an Open Educational Resource and Other Students' Questions

Can questions sent to Open-Educational-Resource (OER) websites such as Ask-An-Expert serve as indicators for students’ interest in science? This issue was examined using an online questionnaire which included an equal number of questions about the topics “space” and “nutrition” randomly selected from three different sources: a 5th-grade science textbook, the “Ask-An-Expert” website, and questions collected from other students in the same age group. A sample of 113 5th-graders from two elementary schools were asked to rate their interest level in finding out the answer to these questions without knowledge of their source. Significant differences in students’ interest level were found between questions: textbook questions were ranked lowest for both subjects, and questions from the open-resource were ranked high. This finding suggests that questions sent to an open-resource could be used as an indicator of students’ interest in science. In addition, the high correlation of interests expressed by students from the two schools may point to a potential generalization of the findings. This study contributes by highlighting OER as a new and promising indicator of student interest, which may help bring “student voices” into mainstream science teaching to increase student interest in science.

Merging Remote Laboratories and Enquiry-based Learning for STEM Education

Practical learning activities are effective ways to increase the interest of students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) topics. Attracting school students to STEM careers is a challenge in many parts of the world. Remote Access Laboratories (RAL) allow for offsite control of state-of-the-art science and technology experiments. Such learning activities, while mostly used in universities, can also provide additional learning opportunities in schools. Current RAL technologies are targeted at undergraduate engineering education and offer limited operational autonomy. Opportunities for collaboration and experiment design are not well supported. However, both are important components of STEM education in schools. This paper discusses how RAL can be adapted to better support enquiry based learning in the context of STEM education. The limitations of current architectures are discussed and approaches to address these are presented.

Gross Domestic Product, Science Interest, and Science Achievement: A Person × Nation Interaction

Maximizing science achievement is a critical target of educational policy and has important implications for national and international economic and technological competitiveness. Previous research has identified both science interest and socioeconomic status (SES) as robust predictors of science achievement, but little research has examined their joint effects. In a data set drawn from approximately 400,000 high school students from 57 countries, we documented large Science Interest × SES and Science Interest × Per Capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) interactions in the prediction of science achievement. Student interest in science is a substantially stronger predictor of science achievement in higher socioeconomic contexts and in higher-GDP nations. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that in higher-opportunity contexts, motivational factors play larger roles in learning and achievement. They add to the growing body of evidence indicating that substantial cross-national differences in psychological effect sizes are not simply a logical possibility but, in many cases, an empirical reality.

International space station accomplishments update: Scientific discovery, advancing future exploration, and benefits brought home to earth

Throughout the history of the International Space Station (ISS), crews on board have conducted a variety of scientific research and educational activities. Well into the second year of full utilization of the ISS laboratory, the trend of scientific accomplishments and educational opportunities continues to grow. More than 1500 investigations have been conducted on the ISS since the first module launched in 1998, with over 700 scientific publications. The ISS provides a unique environment for research, international collaboration and educational activities that benefit humankind. This paper will provide an up to date summary of key investigations, facilities, publications, and benefits from ISS research that have developed over the past year. Discoveries in human physiology and nutrition have enabled astronauts to return from ISS with little bone loss, even as scientists seek to better understand the new puzzle of “ocular syndrome” affecting the vision of up to half of astronauts. The geneLAB campaign will unify life sciences investigations to seek genomic, proteomic and metabolomics of the effect of microgravity on life as a whole. Combustion scientists identified a new “cold flame” phenomenon that has the potential to improve models of efficient combustion back on Earth. A significant number of instruments in Earth remote sensing and astrophysics are providing new access to data or nearing completion for launch, making ISS a significant platform for understanding of the Earth system and the universe.In addition to multidisciplinary research, the ISS partnership conducts a myriad of student led research investigations and educational activities aimed at increasing student interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Over the past year, the ISS partnership compiled new statistics of the educational impact of the ISS on students around the world. More than 43 million students, from kindergarten to graduate school, with more than 28 million teachers located in 49 countries have participated in some aspect of ISS educational activities. These activities include student-developed investigations, education competitions and classroom versions of ISS investigations, participating in ISS investigator experiments, ISS hardware development, educational demonstrations and cultural activities. Through the many inquiry-based educational activities, students and teachers are encouraged to participate in the ISS program thus motivating the next generation of students to pursue careers in STEM.

Profiling interest of students in science: Learning in school and beyond

Background:Interest is assumed to be relevant for students’ learning processes. Many studies have investigated students’ interest in science; most of them however have not offered differentiated insights into the structure and elements of this interest.Purpose:The aim of this study is to obtain a precise image of secondary school students’ interest for school and out-of-school learning opportunities, both formal and informal. The study is part of a larger project on measuring the students’ Individual Concept about the Natural Sciences (ICoN), including self-efficacy, beliefs and achievements next to interest variables.Sample:Next to regular school students, a specific cohort will be analyzed as well: participants of science competitions who are regarded as having high interest, and perhaps different interest profiles than regular students. In the study described here, participants of the International Junior Science Olympiad (N = 133) and regular students from secondary schools (N = 305), age cohorts 10 to 17 years, participated.Design and methods:We adapted Holland’s well-established RIASEC-framework to analyze if and how it can also be used to assess students’ interest within science and in-school and out-of-school (leisure-time and enrichment) activities. The resulting questionnaire was piloted according to quality criteria and applied to analyze profiles of different groups (boys – girls, contest participants – non-participants).Results:The RIASEC-adaption to investigate profiles within science works apparently well for school and leisure-time activities. Concerning the interest in fostering measures, different emphases seem to appear. More research in this field needs to be done to adjust measures better to students’ interests and other pre-conditions in the future. Contrasting different groups like gender and participation in a junior science contest uncovered specific interest profiles.Conclusions:The instrument seems to offer a promising approach to identify different interest profiles for different environments and groups of students. Based on the results, further studies will be carried out to form a solid foundation for the design of enrichment measures.

The Development of the STEM Career Interest Survey (STEM-CIS)

Internationally, efforts to increase student interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) careers have been on the rise. It is often the goal of such efforts that increased interest in STEM careers should stimulate economic growth and enhance innovation. Scientific and educational organizations recommend that efforts to interest students in STEM majors and careers begin at the middle school level, a time when students are developing their own interests and recognizing their academic strengths. These factors have led scholars to call for instruments that effectively measure interest in STEM classes and careers, particularly for middle school students. In response, we leveraged the social cognitive career theory to develop a survey with subscales in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. In this manuscript, we detail the six stages of development of the STEM Career Interest Survey. To investigate the instrument's reliability and psychometric properties, we administered this 44-item survey to over 1,000 middle school students (grades 6–8) who primarily were in rural, high-poverty districts in the southeastern USA. Confirmatory factor analyses indicate that the STEM-CIS is a strong, single factor instrument and also has four strong, discipline-specific subscales, which allow for the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subscales to be administered separately or in combination. This instrument should prove helpful in research, evaluation, and professional development to measure STEM career interest in secondary level students.

Boosting Student Interest in Science

Adults could do much more to excite students about science as a subject and encourage their interest in science careers.

STUDENT INTEREST IN TECHNOLOGY AND SCIENCE (SITS) SURVEY: DEVELOPMENT, VALIDATION, AND USE OF A NEW INSTRUMENT

This study presents the systematic development, validation, and use of a new instrument for measuring student interest in science and technology. The Student Interest in Technology and Science (SITS) survey is composed of 5 sub-sections assessing the following dimensions: interest in learning science, using technology to learn science, science careers, technology careers, and attitudes toward biotechnology. Our development process included review of existing instrumentation, pilot testing, and expert panel review. The resulting instrument was administered before and after implementation of a biotechnology intervention which used a computer-based game to engage learners in the use of biotechnology to address a societal issue. We employed item response theory (IRT) to explore instrument validity and precision. Results of the psychometric analyses suggest that the SITS survey has a well-defined structure and meets IRT assumptions. Difficulty and discrimination parameters as well as reliability analyses indicate that SITS items provide useful measures of student interest. Finally, we use the SITS to explore the extent to which the intervention used in this study supports changes in student interest and association between students’ interest and related content knowledge. Implications for the future use of this instrument are discussed.

Evaluation of the fluids mixing enclosure system for life science experiments during a commercial Caenorhabditis elegans spaceflight experiment

The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a United States national science, technology, engineering, and mathematics initiative that aims to increase student interest in science by offering opportunities to perform spaceflight experiments. The experiment detailed here was selected and flown aboard the third SSEP mission and the first SSEP mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Caenorhabditis elegans is a small, transparent, self-fertilizing hermaphroditic roundworm that is commonly used in biological experiments both on Earth and in Low Earth Orbit. Past experiments have found decreased expression of mRNA for several genes whose expression can be controlled by the FOXO transcription factor DAF-16. We flew a daf-16 mutant and control worms to determine if the effects of spaceflight on C. elegans are mediated by DAF-16. The experiment used a Type Two Fluids Mixing Enclosure (FME), developed by Nanoracks LLC, and was delivered to the ISS aboard the SpaceX Dragon and returned aboard the Russian Soyuz. The short time interval between experiment selection and the flight rendered preflight experiment verification tests impossible. In addition, published research regarding the viability of the FME in life science experiments was not available. The experiment was therefore structured in such a way as to gather the needed data. Here we report that C. elegans can survive relatively short storage and activation in the FME but cannot produce viable populations for post-flight analysis on extended missions. The FME appears to support short-duration life science experiments, potentially on supply or crew exchange missions, but not on longer ISS expeditions. Additionally, the flown FME was not properly activated, reportedly due to a flaw in training procedures. We suggest that a modified transparent FME could prevent similar failures in future flight experiments.

Economic value analysis of the return from the Korean astronaut program and the science culture diffusion activity in Korea

In this study, we analyze the economic effects from the Korean Astronaut Program (KAP) and the subsequent Science Culture Diffusion Activity (SCDA). Korea has had a huge practical effect on the development of science and technology and has increased international awareness of Korea by producing Korea's first astronaut. There has also been a large, ripple effect on space related industries. In addition, the KAP has exercised a far-reaching influence on Korean society and culture by boosting all science and engineering and inspiring national pride. After the KAP, astronauts' outreach activities, such as lectures for the general public; interviews on television, newspapers and magazines; participating in children's science camps; and distributing publications and DVDs about astronaut program for general public, were instituted for diffusing science culture. Thus, positive effects such as the promotion of Korea's level of technology, student interest in science and engineering fields, and the expansion of the industrial base were reinforced after the KAP. This study is aimed at evaluating the economic significance and the value of return through analyzing the effects of the KAP and the subsequent Science Culture Diffusion Activity.

THE VENOM PATROL—AN ONLINE RESOURCE FOR IMPROVING HEALTH LITERACY AND FOR SNAKEBITE PREVENTION

BackgroundScience, health and general literacy are essential to fully address the determinants of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) such as snakebite. However, such literacy standards are either not improving or falling...

Backyard Botany: Using GPS Technology in the Science Classroom

Global Positioning System (GPS) technology can be used to connect students to the natural world and improve their skills in observation, identification, and classification. Using GPS devices in the classroom increases student interest in science, encourages team-building skills, and improves biology content knowledge. Additionally, it helps educators meet the ISTE’s Educational Technology Standards and the National Science Education Standards while increasing the environmental literacy of their students. This paper provides suggestions for utilizing GPS technology in student-led explorations of the local flora, as well as other innovative ideas for using these devices in science instruction.

Activity matters: Understanding student interest in school science

AbstractA genuine interest in science is an important part of scientific literacy, and thus a critical goal for science education. Recent studies, however, have found that school science has not been effective in meeting this goal, an important reason for which is the lack of knowledge about what makes science interesting (or not) to the students. Using instructional episodes as the unit of analysis, this study investigated the effects of learning environment elements (content topic, activity, and learning goal) on student interest in science. The findings indicated that when judging the interestingness of an instructional episode, students focused primarily on the form of activity rather than content topic and learning goal. Activities that were “hands‐on” in nature and allowed for engagement with technology elicited higher interest. This study highlights the need to place more emphasis on the role of activity in constructing interesting learning environments, and in the mean time, suggests that student science interest could be improved by making changes to relatively easy‐to‐manipulate aspects of learning environments, such as those examined in the study. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 515–537, 2012

Promoting Student Interest in Science

The authors of this article argue both the urgency and the promise of establishing a constructive conversation among different bodies of research, including science interest, sociocultural studies in science education, and culturally relevant teaching. With the instructional practices of eight exemplary African American elementary teachers serving their investigative site, they begin to develop a theory for promoting student interest in science. They argue that this emerging theory is distinguishable by three broad propositions: having a genuine interest, scaffolding student interest, and offering multiple standpoints. They further show that their theory based on these three related propositions has provided an important framework to better understand a number of important issues in science education (e.g., early interest in science and hands-on science activities).