PISA 2006: Student attitudes to and engagement with science: How ready are our 15-year-olds for tomorrow's world?

Chapter 2: Interest, enjoyment, and motivation with respect to science

This chapter examines several aspects of 15-year-old students’ engagement with science: their general interest in science topics; their enjoyment of science in general, both in and out of school; the usefulness of school science for them and their future careers and study; and the likelihood they will engage in science beyond secondary school. It also includes a comparison of the importance to students of the three subject areas PISA covers: English, mathematics, and science.

General interest in learning science

Students in PISA were asked a series of questions designed to gauge their interest in learning about science topics. The list of topics is shown in Table 1. Two-thirds of students reported they were interested in learning about human biology and 55 percent of students were interested in learning about topics in chemistry, these two being the most popular topics among New Zealand 15-year-old students.

As shown in Table 1, the proportion of New Zealand students reporting high or medium interest in each of the topics is similar to the average across OECD countries. Australia had similar proportions of students reporting interest in human biology (62%), astronomy (46%), physics (44%), and the biology of plants (40%), but fewer interested in chemistry (48%).

Interestingly, Korea, Finland, and the Netherlands, although having a large proportion of high-performing students, were among the countries with the smallest proportions of students reporting high or medium levels of interest across topics in science. This may imply that in these countries high achievement may come at the price of interest in these topics.

Table 1: Proportion of students reporting high or medium interest in topics in science

Note:

Response options for each statement were: high interest, medium interest, low interest, and no interest. The proportions shown combine high and medium interest. For individual values, see Appendix 2. 

Students’ responses for these eight statements were combined in order to derive an index of general interest in science. The index was constructed so that, in general, students who reported higher interest were higher on the index, and students who were less interested in the science topics were lower on the index. The

New Zealand average on the scale was lower than the OECD average, but higher than the averages for Finland, Korea, and Australia.
New Zealand students who were higher on the index - that is, students who had a greater general interest in science - had higher achievement than their peers who were lower on the index, as shown in Figure 1. The relationship between science achievement and general interest for New Zealand students was similar to that found on average across OECD countries.

Figure 1: Mean scientific literacy of New Zealand students in each quarter of the index of general interest in science

Notes:

The index of general interest in science combines the responses to the aspects of science presented in Table 1. Students in the lowest ¼ of the index did not necessarily have no interest in all topics; rather, they were less interested in the topics in general than their counterparts in the other groupings.

Standard errors appear in parentheses.

Enjoyment of science

Students were asked how much they agreed with five statements designed to gauge their enjoyment of science (see Table 2 for statements). In the preamble to these statements, science was defined as follows:

Science refers to any topics that you might encounter in school, or outside of school (for example on television) that relate to space science, biology, chemistry, earth science or physics.

This wording was meant to indicate to students that they should answer this question more broadly than just how much they enjoyed science at school. A variety of words were used to capture aspects of enjoyment, including ‘like’, ‘have fun’, ‘interest’, ‘happy’, and ‘enjoy’, as shown in Table 2.

In general, the majority of students answered these questions positively, which implies that students are more likely than not to enjoy science. It is worth noting that while nearly three-quarters of students (71%) agreed that they enjoyed acquiring new knowledge in science, less than half (43%) liked to acquire it by reading. Just under two-thirds of students reported that they were interested in learning about science; a slightly smaller proportion (62%) agreed that they generally have fun when learning about science topics.

The proportions of New Zealand students enjoying science were similar to the proportions found on average across OECD countries, as shown in Table 2. However, fewer New Zealand students liked reading about science compared with the OECD average. In contrast, a greater proportion of New Zealand students reported being happy doing science problems compared with the average across OECD countries.

Table 2: Proportion of students agreeing with statements on enjoyment of science

Note:

Response options for each statement were: strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. The proportions for agreement shown in this table combine those who agreed and those who strongly agreed.

Students’ responses for these five statements were combined in order to derive an index of enjoyment of science. The index was constructed so that, in general, students who agreed with these statements were higher on the index, and students who reacted more negatively to the statements were lower on the index. The New Zealand average on the scale was about the same as the OECD average, but higher than the averages for Australia, Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands.

New Zealand students who were more positive on the index, implying a greater enjoyment of science, had higher achievement than their peers who were less positive in their enjoyment of science, as shown in Figure 2. Internationally, New Zealand, along with Australia and the United Kingdom, showed a particularly strong relationship between enjoyment of science and science achievement. It is interesting to note that the OECD (2007) states that of all the motivational indices calculated for PISA, the index of enjoyment of science on average explains more of the performance variation than any other index.

Figure 2: Mean scientific literacy of students in each quarter of the index of enjoyment of science

Notes:

The index of enjoyment of science combines the responses to the five statements in Table 2. Students in the lowest ¼ of the index did not necessarily have no enjoyment of science; rather, they were less likely to report enjoyment in general than were their counterparts in the other groupings.

Standard errors appear in parentheses.

Importance of learning science for future careers (instrumental motivation)

While enjoyment of science has been shown in the previous section to be strongly related to achievement, students may be inclined to work harder at their study if they think it will be useful in their future working lives. In New Zealand currently, the Government is advocating a move towards a more knowledge-based economy (Ministry of Education 2007, Department of Labour 2000). Koslow (2005) argues that an increase in the number of university science graduates is one solution that would help make the New Zealand knowledge economy sustainable. Secondary school students’ engagement in science should help in this changing environment.

Students were asked if they agreed with the statements (listed in Table 3) on the usefulness of school science for them, their future careers, and their future study. The majority of students agreed with each of these statements, implying that students were more likely than not to agree that science was important for their future study and careers. In particular, nearly three-quarters (71%) of students agreed that they study science because it is useful for them, with around two-thirds agreeing on each of the statements on the importance of science to their future careers and just over half of students agreeing that current science learning will help in future study.

With the exception of the statement about the value of current science learning for their future study, the proportions of New Zealand students agreeing with the statements were a little higher than the OECD average, as shown in Table 3. The proportions of New Zealand students agreeing with the statements were similar to those found in Australia (range of proportions 55% to 69%) and the United Kingdom (54% to 75%), but lower than in the United States (68% to 78%). See Appendix 3 for details.

Table 3: Proportion of students agreeing with statements on instrumental motivation to learn science

Notes:

Response options for each statement were: strongly agree, agree, disagree, and strongly disagree. The proportions shown in this table combine those who agreed and those who strongly agreed.

See Appendix 3 for proportions of students agreeing in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

An index of instrumental motivation was created by combining students’ responses to these five statements. The index was constructed so that, in general, students who agreed with these statements were higher on the index, and students who reacted more negatively to the statements were lower on the index. The New Zealand average on the scale was higher than the OECD average, and higher than the averages for Finland, Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands.

As observed for the enjoyment index, students who agreed science was useful in their future (i.e. were higher on the index) had higher achievement when compared with those who did not agree, as shown in Figure 3. Internationally, although the relationship was not as clear-cut as for enjoyment, students high on the instrumental motivation index generally had higher achievement than those lower on the index.

Figure 3: Mean scientific literacy of students in each quarter of the index of instrumental motivation to learn science

Notes:

The student index of instrumental motivation to learn science combines the responses to the five statements presented in Table 3. Students in the lowest ¼ of the index did not necessarily disagree with all statements on the usefulness of science; rather, they were less likely to report agreement in general than were their counterparts in the other groupings.

Standard errors appear in parentheses.

Importance of doing well in science compared with mathematics and English

While the previous sections indicate that science is important to many New Zealand students, PISA also included questions that allow comparisons to be made between the importance of science and what are often described as the core learning areas. Specifically, the New Zealand version of the question asked students how important they thought it was for them to do well in science subjects, mathematics subjects, and English subjects. Note that in other countries the wording differed to take account of language and naming conventions, but it had a similar intention.

Compared to mathematics and English subjects, fewer students thought it was important to do well in science. Nearly all New Zealand students thought it was important or very important for them to do well in mathematics (95%) and English (93%) subjects, compared with a much smaller proportion, around three-quarters, for science subjects (76%).

Comparison of the proportions of New Zealand students indicating they thought it was important or very important to do well in science with their counterparts in other countries (see Figure 4) showed that similar proportions of students on average across OECD countries (73%) indicated this level of importance of science. Fewer students in Australia (72%) thought that doing well in science was important or very important, while larger proportions of students in the United Kingdom (84%) and the United States (82%) indicated this. 

Figure 4: Proportion of students who thought it important to do well in science compared with mathematics and reading, by country

Note:

Response options for each statement were: very important, important, of little importance, and not important at all. The proportions shown in this graph combine very important and important.

Desire for future science study and a scientific career (future-oriented motivation)

Although similar to the statements in the instrumental motivation index, the future-oriented motivation statements were more specifically asking about students’ desire to study science or pursue a scientific career in the future. These statements, listed in Table 4, gained much less agreement than the instrumental motivation statements, with students more likely to disagree with the statements than agree with them.

As shown in Table 4, the proportion of students agreeing in New Zealand was similar, on average, to that in OECD countries. However, it is interesting to note that some non-OECD countries (Thailand, 71%; Indonesia, 73%; Jordan, 78%; Kyrgyzstan, 78%; and Tunisia, 83%) had more than two-thirds of students who would like to work in a career involving science, and that these were among the lowest-performing countries internationally.

Table 4: Proportion of students agreeing with statements on future-oriented motivation to learn science 

Note:

Response options for each statement were: strongly agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree. Proportions for agreement shown in this table combine those who agreed and those who strongly agreed.

An index of future-oriented motivation to learn science was created using students’ responses to these four statements. The index was constructed so that, in general, students who agreed with these statements were higher on the index, and students who reacted more negatively to the statements were lower on the index. The New Zealand average on the scale was the same as the OECD average, and higher than the averages for Australia, Finland, Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands.

As with the indices mentioned previously, New Zealand students who reported higher future-oriented motivation were more likely to perform well in the science assessment questions than those who were not as highly motivated, as shown in Figure 5. New Zealand, along with Finland, Australia, Iceland, the United Kingdom, Japan, Ireland, and France, showed a strong positive relationship between performance on the science items and future-oriented motivation to learn science.

Figure 5: Mean scientific literacy of students in each quarter of the index of future-oriented motivation to learn science

Notes:

The student index of future-oriented motivation to learn science combines the responses to the four statements presented in Table 4. Students in the lowest ¼ of the index did not necessarily disagree with all statements on science in their futures; rather, they were less likely to report agreement in general than were their counterparts in the other groupings.

Standard errors appear in parentheses.

Intention to pursue a science-related career

Students were asked specifically what type of job they expected to have when they were about 30 years old. Twenty-four percent of New Zealand 15-year-olds were expecting to have a science-related career at age 30. This was similar to the OECD average of 25 percent of students. Interestingly, in the high-performing countries, Finland and Hong Kong-China, smaller proportions of students were intending to pursue science-related careers (18% and 21% respectively).

In general, students expecting to pursue a science-related career had higher scientific literacy achievement than those who were not (56 score points difference). This pattern was also evident across OECD countries (the OECD average score point difference was 48).

Gender differences in interest, enjoyment and motivation

New Zealand girls were just as interested in science as New Zealand boys, with no significant¹ difference observed on the index of general interest in science. No gender differences were observed when students’ beliefs on the usefulness of science in their futures (instrumental motivation index) or students’ intention to do more science in the future (future-oriented motivation to learn science index) were compared for boys and girls. There was also no significant difference in the proportions of boys and girls who agreed that it was important to do well in science or mathematics subjects.

A gender difference was observable, however, on the enjoyment index. A significantly greater proportion of boys enjoyed science compared to girls. In contrast, a higher proportion of girls (28%) expected to be in a science-related career at age 30 than boys (21%).

Ethnic differences in interest, enjoyment and motivation

Asian students in New Zealand were consistently more positive in their views on engagement with science in comparison to their Pākehā/European, Māori, and Pasifika peers. Specifically, the Asian students were more likely to have a higher general interest in science, higher enjoyment of science, and higher motivation to learn science.

Māori students were among the least likely to be positive in their views on engagement with science, with the lowest level on the enjoyment of science and the instrumental motivation to learn science indices. For the other two indices, general interest in science and future-oriented motivation to learn science, Māori students were just as likely to be positive as their Pākehā/European counterparts but less likely than their Pasifika and Asian peers; the Māori and Pākehā/European ethnic groupings had similar means on these indices.

Socio-economic differences in interest, enjoyment and motivation

Students from higher socio-economic backgrounds² tended to have higher engagement with science on average than those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
 

Footnotes

1. Throughout this report, the term ‘significant’ refers to statistical significance at the 0.05 level. See the ‘Definitions and technical notes’ section at the back of this report for further details.
2. The measure used in PISA 2006 for socio-economic background was the PISA index of economic, social and cultural status (ESCS), which was derived from information from students on parental occupations, parental education, and home possessions. Students from higher socio-economic backgrounds are defined as those in the top quarter of the index, while students from lower socio-economic backgrounds are those in the bottom quarter of  the index.