T02 ISCIS session at SCWS

Youth and science centresin Norway

19th of March 2014, at 13.45Marte Foss, Merethe Frøyland

and Svein Anders DahlLillehammer University College, Norwegian University of life sciences and ViVite

science centre

Youth about:

– Science centres in general

– Science centre visits as vocational guidance

9 Science centres in Norway

Who is the target group?

• Respondents: – Youth aged 13-18

• Selection: – 10 classes from each science centre– 90 classes in total– Approximately 1340 pupils

• Response rate: – 836 pupils, 60 %

The questionnaire

• In addition to ISCIS, weasked about:

– Family behaviour and engagement relating to science and technology

– Attitude towardsstudying science and technology

Family engagement

• Questions about family attitudes (from theAspires research project, King’s College London)

• Aspires focus on «science capital» as an important factor in children’s educationalchoices.

Confidence and science education

• We wanted to address science educationrecruitment related to science centre visitsand asked:– Whether visits to the science center increased the students

confidence relating to mastering an education in science

– Whether science center visits increased students belief that a scienceeducation would be interesting, and that such education would be right for them

Preliminary results

• 41,5 % responded that science centre visits hadstrengthened their intention to choose a scienceeducation later in life

• Regression analysis showed that the two mainfactors important to the wish to choose a scienceeducation, were science interest and scienceconfidence.

• Family attitudes played an important role too

Increased science interest

….correlates with:

– Family: Parental attitudes correlated relatively strongly with increased interest (r = 0,35)

– Social interaction in the science center correlated relatively strongly (r ranging from 0,29 to 0,31)

– Number of visits: Total number of visits to the science center had a relatively low, but positive correlation (r = 0,21), number of visits last 12 months had a stronger correlation (r = 0,30)

– No gender differences in interest

Correlation analysis (Pearsons r)

Increased science confidence

…correlates with:

– Social interaction in science centre exhibitions correlates strongly (r = 0,40)

– Family: Both family engagement in science and parental attitudes towardsscience have relatively strong correlations with science confidence (r = 0,34)

– Number of visits total (r = 0,19) and in past 12 months (r = 0,27) correlated stronger with confidence than with interest

– Gender differences: Correlations showed boys to be more likely to have increased confidence after science centre visits – and gender differencesincreased with age

Correlation analysis (Pearsons r)

Preliminary conclusions

• Science confidence, is a crucial factor in science education recruitment, together with interest

• There is need for an increased focus on building science confidence among youth visitors

• Social interaction is a strength of science centres – and important in building both interest and confidence

• Family background matters - can science centers help to increase family involvement by increasing their focus towards families as target audience?

Contact

• Merethe Frøyland, Norwegian University of life sciences: merethe.froyland@naturfagsenteret.no

• Marte Foss, Lillehammer University Collegemarte_foss@hotmail.com