Students like science - they're just reluctant to take it on at third-level because they find it difficult. Dick Ahlstromreports on a new study's findings
Concerns about falling numbers of students willing to take science subjects at third level are misplaced, according to a challenging new report. It also suggests that students are more interested in the sciences than assumed.
The Royal Irish Academy yesterday published The Relevance of Science Education in Ireland. Authored by Dr Philip Matthews, it is one of a number of international studies looking at student responses to science education as part of the Rose (Relevance of Science Education) project.
Rose is an international comparative study meant to provide insights on the learning of science as perceived by the learners themselves, explains Matthews, a senior lecturer in Trinity College Dublin's School of Education.
Matthews learned about Rose while at a conference in Greece from one of its prime movers, Prof Svein Sjøberg of the University of Oslo. Conducted in schools as a questionnaire, Rose surveys have been completed by students in 37 countries.
"Ireland wasn't going to be in the survey so I decided to take it on. I was assisted by a group of my former MSc students," Matthews says. Ireland became one of a group of countries providing national studies. "The central Rose team organised the questionnaires. The same questioners were used in all the countries."
The work got under way in November 2003 and the Irish survey involved 688 students from 29 second level schools. Most of the students were in transition year with a smaller number in the first year of their Leaving Cert programme.
The survey is unusual in that it seeks qualitative information such as "My opinion about science and technology", "What I want to learn about", "Myself as a scientist" and similar questions.
Matthews and his team collated this data and loaded it onto a computer. "I did the analysis of the Rose data in Ireland, but the central Rose team were given the results for use by them to produce the international comparisons."
THERE WAS A delay between conducting the survey and publication of the results. This was due to release restrictions imposed by the central Rose team, but also because Matthews had no way to disseminate the information. The issue was resolved when the RIA stepped in to publish, with the support of Discover Science and Engineering, hence its launch at the RIA's Dublin headquarters yesterday.
Several fundamental and challenging findings emerged from the study here. "One of the main things is the current concern that people have with science education feeding the knowledge economy, one of the reasons that lay behind the Rose survey," he says.
But there is nothing wrong with Ireland or its science education methods, he suggests. International comparisons from other jurisdictions repeat the trends seen here. "Ireland is in fact no different than other western industrial societies."
People here have sought answers for the declining numbers taking Leaving Cert and third-level science and attempted to mount a response.
"We must do something so what will we do," is the view, he says. "It can't simply be a problem with science education within our schools because this problem is shared across countries," he says. "If it is a cultural thing then tinkering with say part of the physics syllabus is unlikely to be the answer."
He believes science education and the teachers involved are doing a good job on the basis of survey results. "Science education in Ireland is relatively successful. Students are not hating the science they do."
More than half like the subject, with more girls than boys indicating this. Many say they are not taking it up for further study because they find the subject matter difficult and because it is isolated and abstract.
His involvement in the study has also given him other insights. "Science education, in spite of what some politicians say, is very under- resourced," he believes. "The teachers do well despite the lack of facilities."