The article reviews a range of national and international studies concerned with students’ views about science and their school science education. It suggests that such views have gained some prominence in recent years and comments why this is so. It examines the implications of some of the research findings for policy makers, curriculum developers and science teachers. It concludes that, while the outcomes of specific research studies are always interesting, such outcomes may prove to be of most use in helping to develop more general strategies for increasing student motivation, commitment and attainment.
Given the methodological diversity among the various studies of student opinion about their school science education, it is perhaps somewhat surprising that many of the findings are consistent across a number of different education systems and cultures. For example, physics seems an unpopular subject with girls in most countries and a number of other gender differences in students’ responses are prevalent. It is also the case that many students would like to see more attention given in their school science education to contemporary and controversial issues in science that relate to their everyday experiences. ‘Many’ however, is not all and most surveys reveal a significant but important minority of students who either have no strong opinion upon, or take a contrary view about, a number of issues such as the alleged difficulty of school science or the inclusion of socio-scientific issues within the school science curriculum. For example, in the Student Review of the Science Curriculum in England, referred to above, 29 per cent of the students (n = 1,471) “didn’t mind” whether or not controversial issues were included in school science and 55 per cent said that their experience of primary schools had had no effect on their attitudes towards science (Planet Science et al., 2003).