Vocaciones e intereses en ciencia y tecnología en 4º curso de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria

Laburpena

The present research aims to explore which are 4th year ESO students¿ interests and vocations in relation to science and technology. The number of participants was 723 teenagers. An educational proposal was applied to 33 of them in order to see how interests and vocations with regards to science and technology varied. The collected data enables to analyze the differences regarding gender, parents¿ academic level and profession, as well as the effect of an educational proposal based on a practical and cooperative approach. All of the foregoing is divided into different thematic blocks which shape interests and vocations towards science and technology: students¿ perception towards science and technology and scientific activity, school science, environmental challenges and ultimately, their future career. OBJECTIVES RESEARCH PROBLEM 1: How much interest in science does 4th year ESO students have? RESEARCH PROBLEM 2: Are there any changes in 4th year ESO students towards science after practice activities of scientific and cooperative nature? METHODOLOGY The study is clearly divided into two different sections, each one related to the main research problems raised. In the first part, a diagnostic study about 4th year ESO students¿ vocations and their perception of S&T through a survey based on the ROSE questionnaire is proposed. The basis of the instrument is grounded on 75 questions or items pertain to part of the questionnaire of the ROSE investigation. Those items are divided into four blocks which would try to answer to the previously raised problem. These scales are: My future job (23 items), science classes (17 items), environmental challenges and me (19 items) and my opinion about science and technology (16 items). Statistics software package SPSS has been used for the tabulation and data analysis. Gender, parents¿ academic level and their occupational group have been considered as cross variables. The second part focuses on the description of the activities of the educational proposal. After its application, the aim is to study how the students¿ interests and vocations in S&T change. For this purpose, a pretest ¿ intervention- posttest descriptive design is used. The activities carried out by the students and the ROSE responses are analyzed before and after the educational proposal application. The results treatment, as well as in research problem 1, have been elaborated using the statistics software package SPSS. RESULTS Research problem 1 results Students¿ perception of school science and S&T is slightly positive, whereas their perception of scientific activity is slightly negative. Pupils¿ perception of environmental challenges is also moderately positive. Scientific and technological vocation is low. Regarding females, their vocation towards technology is noticeably lower than in males. Parents¿ professions and studies are not very influential as far as these questions are concerned, however, when it actually is, is always in favor of parents with technological or scientific careers. Research problem 2 results Activities helped to improve some attitudes, especially those related to interest in science and school science, being more meaningful in the case of females. Nevertheless, these activities have not accomplished the task of promoting any kind of vocation.