Engineering challenges that involve both the design and building of devices that satisfy constraints are increasingly employed in precollege science courses. We have experimented with exercises that are distinguished from those employed with elite students by reducing competition and increasing cooperation through the use of tests against nature, large dynamic ranges in performance, initial prototype designs, and alternative methods of recording and presenting results. We find that formulating easily understood goals helps engage students in fascinatingly creative processes that expose the need for a scientific methodology. Such challenges engage male and female students equally, helping to erase the gender disparity in familiarity with the technology and skills common to physical science.

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Engineering Competitions in the Middle School Classroom: Key Elements in Developing Effective Design Challenges

Relations between parent attitudes, intrinsic value of science, peer support, available activities, and preference for future science careers were examined for science-talented, rural, adolescent females. Two hundred and twenty 9th-12th-grade girls and their mothers responded to questionnaires about science courses, plans for future courses and college majors, perceptions of the girls’ abilities in science, and numerous supports and deterrents for continued interest in science areas. Current intrinsic interest in science was most strongly related to preferring a science career, but previous experiences with science (measured by grade in school, science GPA, friends’ support for science, and extracurricular science activities) and socializers’ attitudes (measured by mothers’ perceptions of the value of science for women and of their daughters’ abilities) were also related. The discussion highlights the importance of providing activities and other supports to maintain girls’ interests in science in a rural ...

The Career Plans of Science-Talented Rural Adolescent Girls

This study involved the development of an instrument, the Science Career Predictor Scale (SCPS), which assesses seven factors thought to be involved with science career choices: teacher/counselor encouragement, participation in science-related hobbies and activities, academic self-image, science-related career interest, parental encouragement and support, the perceived relevance of mathematics and science, and mathematics and science ability. This instrument was administered to a sample of 522 middle and high school students, and a sample of 185 students from an historically black university, and the effects of such factors as sex, race, personal acquaintance with a scientist, and type of community (rural or urban) on the above-mentioned variables were ascertained using a multivariate analysis of covariance with age as the covariate. A separate study on a sample of 81 high school students looked at race and gender differences in critical thinking abilities as measured by the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking appraisal, and how these abilities correlated with scores on the Science Career Predictor Scale. These studies produced several significant findings. Female subjects did produce significantly lower scores on the career interest factor. Black students actually had significantly higher science-career preference scores than their white counterparts. However, blacks scored significantly lower on the measure of critical thinking ability. Across both races and both sexes, however, the major factor affecting science-related career decisions appears to be personal contact with a scientist. The implications of these findings are discussed, along with possible strategies for increasing the participation of these groups in science.

Three Studies of Factors Affecting the Attitudes of Blacks and Females toward the Pursuit of Science and Science-Related Careers.

To assess the developmental relationship of perceptions of self-concept and gender role identification with adolescents' attitudes and achievement in science, a two-year longitudinal study was conducted. A battery of instruments assessing 16 dimensions of self-concept/gender role identifications was employed to predict students' achievement and attitudes toward science. Specific behaviors studied included self-concept in school and science and mathematics, attitudes toward appropriate gender roles in science activities and careers, and self-perceptions of masculine and feminine traits. One hundred and fifty-five adolescents, enrolled, respectively, in the seventh and eighth grades, participated in the study. Through Fisher z transformations of correlation coefficients, differences in relationships between these two sets of variables were studied for males and females during the two years. Results indicated that students' self-concepts/gender role perceptions were related to both achievement and attitudes toward science, but more related to attitudes than achievement. These relationships became more pronounced for students as they matured from seventh to eighth graders.

Two-Year Study Relating Adolescents' Self-Concept and Gender Role Perceptions to Achievement and Attitudes Toward Science.

This paper examines students’ attitudes towards mathematics at the secondary school level. Using five of the Fennema-Sherman scales, the attitudes of boys and girls in Grades 8 to 12 in four schools were compared: a single-sex boys’ and a single-sex girls’ private school, and a state and a private coeducational school. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to guide an exploration of how students’ attitudes varied according to grade, sex and educational setting. There were no differences between students in the two coeducational schools. In general, students’ attitudes were found to be less positive in more senior grades; and overall, boys had more positive attitudes than girls. There were clear differences between boys and girls on the Mathematics as a Male Domain scale, with girls being less stereotyped in their perceptions than boys. Except for this scale, effects related to the sex of the student were small, and effects relating to grade level and school type on all variables were also small. Implications are drawn for future research in this area.

Students' Attitudes towards Mathematics in Single-Sex and Coeducational Schools.

Opening New Doors: Taking Sex-Role Stereotyping Out of Science and Mathematics.

1We would like to thank the reviewers for suggesting KidsNetwork as an appropriate example of active involvement and Audrey B. Campaign for reminding us to include the social nature of the scientific enterprise.

Michael R. Cohen

Papers

Opening New Doors: Taking Sex-Role Stereotyping Out of Science and Mathematics.

Student‐as‐Scientist and scientist‐as‐Student: Changing Models for Learning From Experience