Research in Science Education, 1977, 7, 231-237.

CHANGES IN PUPILS' PERCEPTIONS OF SCIENTISTS, SCIENCE TEACHERS AND SELF

Lindsay D. Mackay and Richard T. White

Background

Among the outcomes that we hope for in teaching science in secondary schools is

an increase in students' awareness o f the attributes o f scientists. We might expect that the longer students study science, the more accurate wi l l be their knowledge of the desirable attributes for scientists to have in their work.

A second outcome we might hope for would be that students wi l l come to accept the attributes of scientists as desirable models for themselves to adopt, and that u l t imately they wi l l see descriptions of scientists' attributes as applicable to themselves. We might expect that the longer students study science the more they wi l l come to accept the attributes of scientists as their own.

We would expect science teachers to have a key role in developing students' percept- ions of scientists, and in encouraging students to adopt the attributes of scientists as their own.

A t last year's conference we reported the results of an exploratory study involving small numbers o f students which was concerned wi th the effects of senior secondary school science courses and tert iary science courses on the attainment of the two objectives described above (White and Mackay, 1976). The results o f that study led us to conclude that:

"' It seems that neither upper secondary and tertiary science courses nor cultural influences are doing anything to improve students' perceptions of desirable attributes of scientists.", and,

"those who study science in forms 5 and 6 come to have self-perceptions less like sci- entists."

The pre=ent study

These results were suff iciently disquieting for us to commence a longitudinal study wi th a larger sample to further investigate the area. This paper is based on the results of the

first testing o f the longitudinal study. The first testing represents a cross-sectional survey of all students in Grades 9, 10 and 11 of three Victor ian High Schools near the end of the 1976 school year.

Specifically, the analyses reported here attempt to answer five questions.

1. Do secondary school students in Grades 9, 10 and 11 differ in the accuracy of their knowledge of the desirable attributes of scientists?

2. Do students in Grades 9, 10 and 11 differ in the extent to which they see the attributes of scientists as applicable to themselves?

3. To what extent are students' self-perceptions congruent with their own perceptions of scientists and of science teachers?

4. Do students in Grades 9, 10 and 11 differ in the extent to which they perceive that science teachers possess the attributes that are desirable for scientists in their work?

5. To what extent are individual students' perceptions of science teachers congruent with their perceptions of scientists?

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Knowledge of the attributes that are desirable for scientists, and perceptions of one's own possession of these attributes, may be measured by the Tests of Perception of Scientists and Self (Mackay and White, 1974, 1976). The two forms of the tests TOPOSS-Scientists and TOPOSS-Self were administered to the population of students in Grades 9, 10 and 11 in three randomly selected high schools in the Melbourne metropolitan area. These students were also ~administered a third test which measured students' perceptions of the extent to which science teachers possessed the attributes that are desirable for scientists - the Test of Perception of Science Teachers (TOPOST).

The tests were administered in one session in the order TOPOSS-Self, TOPOSS- Scientists, TOPOST. TOPOSS-Self was administered first to ensure that students' self-percept- ions were obtained before they realised that the testing programmes had anything to do with science.

Results

Mean scores obtained on the three tests for students in the various schools and at the various grade levels are given in Tables 1, 2 and 3. These tables include summaries of analyses of variance. Table 4 provides the numbers in each of the groups in Tables 1, 2 and 3.

TABLE 1

A N O V A for scores on TOPOSS-Scientists

Source df MS F

Grades Schools Grades x Schools Error

2 2 4

1198

344.10 200.54 26.44

7.22

47.64"* 27.77**

3.66*

** p<.001 * p<.01

Mean scores on TOPOSS-Scientists

Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11

School 1 School 2 School 3 Grade Total

15.65 15.99 16.90

13.99 15.86 16.77

16.10 17.10 17.56

School Total 16.18 15.54 16.99

15.25 16;32 17.14

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TABLE 2

ANOVA for scores on TOPOSS-Self

Source df M S F

Grades Schools Grades x Schools Error

2 4

1198

65.51 56.17 4.55 8.33

7.87** 6.75* 0.55

** P <.001 * p < . 0 1

Mean scores on TOPOSS-Self

Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11

School 1

10.19 10.24 11.02

School 2

9.74 9.94

10.73

School 3

10.56 10.99 11.15

School Total 10.48 10.14 10.90

Grade Total

10.16 10.39 10.97

TABLE 3

ANOVA for scores on TOPOST

Source df

Grades Schools Grades x Schools Error

2 2 4

1198

p <.0ol p < .Ol

MS F

160.86 76.54 15.80 9.27

17.35** 8.26* 1.70

Mean scores on TOPOST

Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11

School Total

School 1

13.81 13.76 14.53

14.03

School 2

12.42 13.04 14.40

13.29

SChool 3

13.54 14.11 14.63

14.09

Grade To ta l

13.26 13.64 14.52

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TABLE 4

Numbers of subjects in various groups in analyses in Tables 1, 2 and 3

Grade 9 Grade 10 Grade 11

School 1

130 142 88

School 2

123 125 99

School 3

182 182 136

All three tests used consist of twenty pairs of statements, which are about scientists (TOPOSSoScientists), about the respondent (TOPOSS-Self) or about science teachers (TOPOST). In each pair the statements have been shown to be equally socially acceptable to senior secondary school pupils, but to differ in their applicability to scientists. The respondent must choose the one of each pair which best describes the group concerned.

The TOPOSS-Scientists scores in Table 1 show a moderately accurate level of per- ception of desirable attributes of scientists. Since the respondent must choose one statement in each of twenty pairs of statements, someone with no perception at all of what scientists should be like can be expected to score about 10. In that light, a mean of between 15 and 17 out of 20 shows some general perception of what scientists should be like, but in our judge- ment not a particularly accurate one.

The ANOVA table and the mean scores for TOPOSS-Scientists in Table 1 indicate that there is a significant difference between students at the various grade levels in the accuracy of their perceptions of the attributes of scientists. Students in higher grades have more accurate perceptions of desirable attributes of scientists than students in lower grades. This trend is apparent for all three schools individually. Differences between the various schools in the accuracy of students' perceptions of desirable attributes of scientists, and the significant inter- action between grades and schools suggests that schools may be having different effects in this area. However, conclusions on this must await the completion of the longitudinal study.

A mean of about 10 is to be expected for the TOPOSS-Self test when it is applied to a group that is not specially selected for its association with science, since the respondent has to choose one statement from each of twenty pairs. The ANOVA table in Table 2 indicates that students in higher grades have self-perceptions that are more like desirable attributes of scientists than do students in lower grades. However, for all groups, the TOPOSS-Self means are around 10 to 11, which indicates very l itt le correspondence between students' self- perceptions and desirable attributes of scientists. Readers who believe that science courses should bring students to be more like scientists in their self perceptions wil l find little comfort in these results.

Mean scores on TOPOS'I" in Table 3 lie about 13 to 14. For every group, students perceive that science teachers possess more of the desirable attributes for scientists than the students themselves possess.

The observation that students in higher grades perceived science teachers as possessing more of the desirable attributes of scientists than students in lower grades is heartening. How- ever, the moderate mean scores suggest that science teachers are not perceived by students to possess the attributes of scientists to any great extent.

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Congruence between perceptions of self, scientists and science teachers

Seventeen pairs of statements were common to the three tests TOPOSS-Self, TOPOSS- Scientists and TOPOST. Congruence in students' perceptions of the attributes of self, scientists and science teachers can be measured by the number of these pairs of statements in which the student selects the same statement as applicable to more than one group. This congruence measure takes no account of whether students' perceptions of the attributes of scientists are accurate or not.

Table 5 summarises the mean congruence scores on the 17 common statement pairs for students at various grade levels.

T A B L E 5

Mean congruence scores for pairs of tests

Mean congruence score for:

Grade TOPOSS/TOPOSS__ TOPOSS/ TOPOST TOPOSS /TOPOST Self / Scientists Self / Scientists /

9 9.77 11.14 11.55 10 9.73 11.26 11.87 11 10.16 11.73 12.67

Total 9.86 11.34 11.97

If there is no particular congruence between students' perceptions, a mean of about 8.5 would be expected in the congruence scores.

The results in Table 5 indicate that students' self-perceptions are not strongly con- gruent with their perceptions of the desirable attributes of scientists, as mean congruence scores for TOPOSS-Self and TOPOSS-Scientists lie around 10 out of a possible 17. There is no evidence of a consistent trend toward greater congruence in higher grades.

Congruence between students' self-perceptions and their perceptions of science teachers is measured by congruence scores for TOPOSS-Self and TOPOST. Mean congruence scores in this case lie around 11 to 12 out of a possible 17. Whilst students' self-perceptions are a l itt le more congruent wi th their perceptions of the attributes of science teachers than with their perceptions of scientists, the congruence between self-perception and perception of science teachers is still not high.

Neither scientists nor science teachers appear to be perceived by students as possessing attributes which are desirable models for students to adopt, although students appear more ready to identify wi th the perceived attributes of science teachers than with those of scientists.

The greatest mean congruence scores in Table 5 for each grade level are those concern- ed with congruence between the perceived attributes of scientists and science teachers as measured by congruence between TOPOSS-Scientists and TOPOST. Mean congruence scores in this case are about 12 out of a possible 17. It appears that students do not perceive science teachers as particularly like scientists in terms of the desirable attributes of scientists included

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in the test. There is, however, a heartening trend for students in higher grades to perceive science teachers as more similar to scientists than do students in lower grades.

Correlat ions between scores on the tests

Correlations between scores on the three tests used in the study have been used to examine whether the accuracy of students' knowledge of desirable attributes of scientists (score on TOPOSS-Scientists) is correlated with

the extent to which students perceive the attributes of scientists as applicable to them- selves (score on TOPOSS-Self), and the extent to which students perceive that science teachers possess the attributes that are desirable for scientists (score on TOPOST).

The wi th in schools correlations between these pairs of scores are provided in Table 6.

TABLE 6

Correlations between scores on the three tests

Grade N

9 435 10 449 11 323

Within school correlations between:

TOPOSS-Scientists/TOPOST

.49

.32

.30

TO POSS-Scientists/TOPOSS-Self

.20

.17

.13

Total 1207 .40 .20

There is a significant positive correlation over-all between scores on TOPOSS-Scientists and TOPOSS-Self, and between scores on TOPOSS-Scientists and TOPOST. It appears that accuracy of knowledge of the desirable attributes of scientists is positively correlated with the extent of self-adoption of these attributes, and with the extent to which science teachers are perceived to have the attributes of scientists.

There is, however, a significant trend for these correlations to be smaller for higher grade levels. It appears that accuracy of knowledge about scientists is more highly correlated with the extent of self-adoption of the attributes of scientists and with the extent to which science teachers are perceived as "scienti f ic" in lower grades than in higher grades.

Conclusion

The results of this study suggest that the causes for disquiet identified in the ex- ploratory study reported last year were well founded. The results of the longitudinal study of which this represents the first part should enable the issues to be explored in even greater depth.

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References

MACKAY, L.D. & WHITE, R.T. Development of an alternative to Likert scaling. Research in Science Education, 1974, 4, 131-139.

MACKAY, L.D. & WHITE, R.T. Tests o f perception of scientists and self. Melbourne: A.C.E.Ro, 1976.

WHITE, R.T. & MACKAY, L.D. The effect of science courses on perception of scientists and self. Research in Science Education, 1976, 6, 73-75.