UNE > News and Events > Browse by article > New insight into school science decline

Next Olympic gold medallist guest of honour at OPen Day September 3, 2004  

Previous Mystery prizes headline golden charity ball September 1, 2004 

New insight into school science decline

September 02, 2004

Research at the University of New England is overturning the popular belief
that high-school students are opting out of science subjects because they
see professions other than science as being more desirable in terms of
income and social status.
A study by UNE’s Dr Terry Lyons has revealed that the decline has more to do
with the way science is taught in schools and how it is valued by today’s
students and their parents.
Dr Lyons interviewed high-achieving Year 10 students at three metropolitan
and three regional NSW high schools about their subject choices for the
Higher School Certificate. He found that students’ experiences of science
classes often discouraged them from taking senior science courses,
particularly physics and chemistry. Many of the students described the
science taught in school as “boring”, “difficult”, and “irrelevant to the
real world”. Those who did choose physics or chemistry were motivated
principally by the “strategic” value of these courses in increasing
university and carer path options.

Factors within the students’ home lives were strongly influential in their
decisions, Dr Lyons said. “For those choosing science, there was an obvious
congruence between the values and beliefs of their families and those they
encountered in the science classroom,” he explained. “Parental support is
important for students undertaking these ‘difficult’ subjects. Those opting
out of science (and the boys in particular) often lacked supportive
relationships with a key parent.”
Such a supportive home environment contributed to a student’s confidence, he
said, and confidence was necessary in “taking the risk” of doing a subject
perceived as “difficult”.
Dr Lyons’s research addresses the problem of persistent declines in
post-compulsory high school science enrolments over the past two decades in
Australia (and many other developed countries). He presented his findings at
the International Organisation of Science and Technology Education
Conference in Poland at the end of July. He said he had found no evidence
that students in Year 10 were opting out of science because they perceived
it as a relatively low-paid or low-status profession. “Over the course of
this study it became increasingly obvious that the most cogent single force
acting against the choice of physical science courses was not external, but
rather the culture of school science itself,” he said.
Media contact: Dr Terry Lyons, School of Education, UNE (02) 6773 2983 or
Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.
A photograph of Dr Lyons is available. Please ring Jim Scanlan on (02) 6773
3049.

Posted by Lydia Roberts at September 2, 2004 11:35 AM