Fostering Today What is Needed Tomorrow: Investigating Students’ Interest in Science

Abstract

This paper investigates the structure of German sixth‐grade students’ interest in science (N = 474; age 11–12 years) by considering different subject‐related contexts (biology, chemistry, and physics) and different activities. Confirmatory factor analysis models were designed to validate the hypothetical structure of interest, connecting the whole spectrum of early school science with Holland's RIASEC model, and revealed that students’ interest in science is best described by a cross‐classified model with latent context and activity factors. Students were most interested in investigative and hands‐on activities in all contexts. Despite the young age group, there were significant gender differences with regard to interest in contexts and interest in activities. For example, girls were more interested in artistic and realistic activities among most contexts and generally in the biological context. Surprisingly, boys were more interested in social physics activities than girls.This paper discusses implications for future research, for school science curricula as well as for how to engage students in science with particular emphasis on gender differences.

Knowing more about things you care less about: Cross‐sectional analysis of the opposing trend and interplay between conceptual understanding and interest in secondary school chemistry

“…The RIASEC + N model acknowledges all seven dimension as meaningful elements of science instruction and thus provides a more multifarious picture of (school) science than the rather stereotypical categorization of science as an exclusively investigative endeavor in the original model (Holland, ). So far, evidence for the hypothesized structure has been found (Blankenburg et al, ), but no findings in connection to achievement have been reported. Due to its differentiation and decontextualized operationalization, the model allows precise comparisons of students' interests over longer time spans.…”

“…Additional aspects such as subject contents and themes, contexts (Häussler, Hoffmann, Langeheine, Rost, & Sievers, ), or activities (Schmidt, Rosenberg, & Beymer, ; Swarat et al, ) may be indispensable for describing profiles of interest in science. Such an integrated approach is provided by the adapted version of Holland's RIASEC model, allowing more precise insights into the development of interest and its connection to learning (Blankenburg, Höffler, & Parchmann, ; Dierks et al, , ). The adapted version of the RIASEC model takes up the multifaceted structure of the original model, that is, the categorization of interests into different personality types (according to which scientists would be allocated to the dimension investigative solely), but instead of focusing on vocational interests, it describes interest in different types of school science activities.…”

“…In summary, both measures were used in a cross‐sectional design to address the following three research questions: To what extent do both instruments provide valid and reliable measures for comparing students' interests in school science activities and their conceptual understanding across Grades 5–11?The instrument based on the adapted version of the RIASEC model has been used in different grade levels in different studies (Blankenburg et al, ; Dierks et al, ), but not across the entire grade span of secondary school chemistry. With respect to the first research question pertaining to the validity of the RIASEC + N model, we expect that tests against plausible, alternative models will speak in favor for the assumed seven‐dimensional factor structure of the adapted model.…”

“…The instrument based on the adapted version of the RIASEC model has been used in different grade levels in different studies (Blankenburg et al, ; Dierks et al, ), but not across the entire grade span of secondary school chemistry. With respect to the first research question pertaining to the validity of the RIASEC + N model, we expect that tests against plausible, alternative models will speak in favor for the assumed seven‐dimensional factor structure of the adapted model.…”

Science vs. Sports: Motivation and Self-concepts of Participants in Different School Competitions

“…Lastly, self-concept is correlated with gender. Often, boys were found to have a higher academic self-concept in mathematics (Meece, Wigfield, & Eccles, 1990) and science (Blankenburg, Höffler, & Parchmann, 2015;Wilkins, 2004) while girls' academic self-concept in languages was superior (Crain, 1996;Köller et al, 2000;Marsh & Yeung, 1997), which coincides with typical interest distributions between girls and boys (Baumert & Köller, 1998). However, the magnitude of those gender gaps differs across the world (Wilkins, 2004).…”