Students‘ Attitudes to Natural Science – results of PISA 2006 research

Students‘ attitudes play a significant role in their interest in, attention to, and response to science and technology. PISA 2006 has devoted significant attention to obtaining data on students‘ attitudes and engagement with science, both as part of science assessment and through separate questionnaires. Data on students‘ attitudes and engagement with science were gathered in four areas: support for scientific evidence, self-belief as science learners, interest in science and responsibility towards resources and environments. The article presents examples of some questions from particular areas with results for four of the participating countries - Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Finland and Japan. It also provides a short overview of 15-year-olds‘ attitudes to science.
PISA showed that students generally re-ported very positive attitudes towards science. The large majority reported that they recognised the important role that science plays in the world. Most students expressed a broad interest in science and most considered it relevant at some level to their own lives. On the other hand only about one-half of students are confident of their ability to interpret certain kinds of scientific evidence and a minority see science as something they will take up in their own future careers. Most students were concerned about scientific issues such as preserving the environment, but were pessimistic about the prospects that things will improve. Significantly fewer students believe that science can solve social problems than believe in its ability to bring technological improvements.