Nearly 5,000 self-generated science-related K-12 students' questions, classified into seven science subjects, were used to quantitatively measure the gender gap in science interests and its change with age. In this data set, a difference between boys' and girls' science interests did not exist during early childhood, but increased over 20-fold by…

In view of student shift away from science at advanced levels, and gender and locale based divergence in interest in studying physics, chemistry and biology, this study explores experience categories that significantly contribute to interest in science on a sample of upper primary school students from Kerala, India. A series of multiple regression…

International assessments provide important knowledge about science education and help inform decisions about policies, programmes, and practices in participating countries. In 2006, science was the primary domain for the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), supported by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development…

This paper focuses "interest in science" as one of the attitudinal aspects of scientific literacy. Large-scale data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006 are analysed in order to describe student interest more precisely. So far the analyses have provided a general indicator of interest, aggregated over all…

Recent research reveals that students' interest in school science begins to decline at an early age. As this lack of interest could result in fewer individuals qualified for scientific careers and a population unprepared to engage with scientific societal issues, it is imperative to investigate ways in which interest in school science can be…

The loss of talented women from the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline has been widely recognized within science education as a pressing issue, particularly in the physical sciences. To provide a gender-based perspective of a popular educational device, the present study evaluated undergraduate research experiences…

This study explores students' self-perceptions across science subjects (biology, chemistry, and physics) by gender and underrepresented minority group membership. The data are drawn from the Persistence Research in Science and Engineering (PRiSE) project, which surveyed 7,505 students (enrolled in college English courses required for all majors)…

This study aims to generate a conceptual framework for specialized Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) schools. To do so, we focused on literature and found specialized STEM schools have existed for over 100 years and recently expanded nationwide. The current perception for these schools can be described as unique environments…

This study aims to generate a conceptual framework for specialized Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) schools. To do so, we focused on literature and found specialized STEM schools have existed for over 100 years and recently expanded nationwide. The current perception for these schools can be described as unique environments…

Students' attitudes towards natural science constitute an important area in science education as fewer students are interested in natural science and they do not choose corresponding science disciplines in postsecondary education. The current study reports preliminary results of a survey on high school students' interests and attitudes towards…

ACT's annual Condition of STEM reports provide essential national data on student interest and achievement in STEM subjects. The latest report--"STEM Education in the U.S.: Where We Are and What We Can Do"--takes the data one step further by pairing the latest findings with promising practices aimed at improving STEM achievement and…

Background: Girls are considerably less interested in scientific subjects than boys. One reason may be that scientific subjects are considered to be genuinely masculine. Thus, being interested in science may threaten the self-perception of girls as well as the femininity of their self-image. Aims: If scientific topics that are considered to be…

Many countries belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) note a shortage of highly qualified scientific-technical personnel, whereas demand for such employees is growing. Therefore, how to motivate (female) high performers in science or mathematics to pursue scientific careers is of special interest. The sample…

This study used the "Relevance of Science Education" (ROSE) survey (Sjoberg & Schreiner, 2004) to examine topics of interest and perspectives of secondary science students in a large school district in the southwestern U.S. A situated learning perspective was used to frame the project. The research questions of this study focused on…

As secondary students' interest in science is decreasing, schools are faced with the challenging task of providing adequate instruction to engage students--and more particularly the disadvantaged students--to learn science and improve their science inquiry skills. In this respect, the integration of Web-based collaborative inquiry can be seen as a…