CHAPTER 4
Attitudinal and Motivational Constructs in Science Learning
This chapter examines the attitudinal and motivational constructs that are closely linked to science learning. First, we present a rationale for the study of attitudes and motivation in the context of science learning. We then discuss the history of attitude research in science education, define constructs prominent in this research, and review recent attitude research findings. We review research methods and instruments, students’ attitudes toward science and factors that influence them, and interventions to change students’ attitudes. Next, we focus on motivation, highlighting the historical background of theoretical orientations and discussing research on constructs of particular relevance to science education researchers. We conclude our chapter by offering recommendations for future research involving attitudinal and motivational constructs, noting implications for policy and practice.
At this point, we wish to acknowledge that it is impossible within the scope of this chapter to evaluate every significant study in the field of science education that addresses attitudinal or motivational constructs. Our goal is to provide the reader with an overview of the role these constructs play in science learning through strategic sampling of the relevant research.
Throughout this chapter we use the term construct to mean a scientific concept that represents a hypothesized psychological function (Snow, Corno, & Jackson, 1996). Attitudinal and motivational constructs are used to account for and infer patterns of science-related thinking, emotion, and action. They tend to be relatively enduring within a person, but have the potential to change. According to Snow et al. (1996), a construct identifies a unique dimension on which all persons differ by degree and should be represented by more than one kind of data.
Effective science instruction has the potential to improve attitudes toward science and heighten the motivation to learn science. Hands-on science activities, laboratory work, field study, and inquiry-oriented lessons tend to have these goals. Attitudinal and motivational constructs may also serve useful purposes in the context of science program evaluation and national comparisons. Of course, science instruction that is purposely developed to influence attitudes and motives may be construed as indoctrination (Koballa, 1992), raising ethical questions in some circumstances. In addition, there are attitudinal and motivational constructs that may be considered as both entry characteristics and outcomes of science instruction (Bloom, 1976). For example, motivation to enroll in elective science courses and positive attitudes toward chemistry are just as likely to be considered important instructional outcomes as they are determinants of whether a person will engage in certain science learning experiences.
An important reason for examining attitudinal and motivational constructs in science education is to understand the ways in which they affect student learning in the cognitive arena. Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle (1993) described attitudinal and motivational constructs as moderators of a learner's conceptual change and suggest that they may influence science learning in the short term and over longer periods of time. Researchers have studied these relationships intensively as individual learner differences and caution against forming expected “straightforward monotone relations” between such constructs and cognitive learning (Snow et al., 1996, p. 246). Furthermore, these relationships are influenced by contextual factors, including classroom organization, teacher authority, the nature of classroom academic tasks, and evaluation structure (Pintrich et al., 1993). These contextual factors may serve to strengthen the relations between attitudinal and motivational constructs and science learning as well as to weaken them.
Attitudinal and motivational constructs also are associated with students’ actions that are considered precursors to science learning and achievement. Often, attitudes and motives are considered predictors of students’ science-related decisions that affect learning, such as attending class, reading textbook assignments, and completing homework. However, the influence of attitudes and motives on science learning and achievement has tended to be difficult to document through research.
Finally, attitude and motivation are constructs of the affective domain. And although the affective dimensions of science learning have long been recognized as important, they have received much less attention by researchers than have the cognitive dimensions. Reasons for this imbalance include the “archetypal image of science itself,” where reason is separated from feeling, and the “long-standing cognitive tradition” of science education research (Alsop & Watts, 2003, p. 1044). A contemporary view is that the “affective dimension is not just a simple catalyst, but a necessary condition for learning to occur” (Perrier & Nsengiyumva, 2003, p. 1124). Attitude and motivation are indeed the most critically important constructs of the affective domain in science education.
ATTITUDES
Attitudinal constructs have been part of the science education literature for more than a century; however, the interest in students’ science-related attitudes among researchers and practitioners has waxed and waned over the years. According to Jones (1998), waxing interest in any research topic may result from factors ranging from convenient research paradigms and new measurement instruments to prestige of the investigator, funding priorities, and theoretical power. Waning interest, on the other hand, may result from redirection to other emerging research areas, achieving solutions to previous research problems, and research activity reaching an empirical plateau. Factors such as these have caused research on students’ science-related attitudes to wax and wane.
Historical Background and Theoretical Orientations
John Dewey's philosophy served as an early inspiration for attitude research in science education. Dewey (1916) underscored the need for teaching scientific attitudes as an important aspect of educating reflective thinkers in the inaugural issue of the journal General Science Quarterly, which later became Science Education. He believed that science instruction should foster such mental attitudes as intellectual integrity, interest in testing opinions and beliefs, and open-mindedness rather than communicate a fixed body of information (Dewey, 1934). Many agreed with Dewey's thinking about scientific attitudes and translated it into practice. An early effort by Weller (1933) involved the development and use of a true-false scale to determine whether scientific attitudes could be taught. Others developed scales to measure elements of scientific attitude (Koslow & Nay, 1976) and sought to determine whether scientific attitudes can be changed by instruction (Charen, 1966).
Pioneering work on attitude measurement (Likert, 1932; Thurstone, 1928) and theoretical ideas about attitude and its relationship to behavior (Sherif, Sherif, & Nebergall, 1965) were major influences on science attitude research. In the 1960s, research on students’ attitudes toward science, scientists, and science learning appeared regularly in the science education literature (e.g., Weinstock, 1967). Science educators began to distinguish “attitudes toward science” from “scientific attitudes,” also called scientific attributes. This new label stems from the notion that scientific attitudes, such as open-mindedness, embody the attributes of scientists that are considered desirable in students (Koballa & Crawley, 1985).
The 1970s and 1980s saw a proliferation of research on students’ attitudes toward science; however, research interest in scientific attitudes waned. This shift in interest from scientific attitudes to attitudes toward science was attributed to the understanding that learning about the modes of thinking associated with scientific attitudes does not mean that students will adopt them as their own (Schibeci, 1984). In other words, students may hold favorable or unfavorable attitudes toward these scientific attitudes. Attitudes came to be viewed as both the facilitators and products of science learning and research efforts focused on documenting student attitudes and their relationship to science achievement. Highlighting the research of this period was the learning theory-based program led by Shrigley (1983) that addressed the influence of persuasive messages on science attitudes and the development of Likert-type attitude scales.
Attitude research in science education began to wane in the 1990s, in part because attitude researchers seemed to reach an empirical plateau. Many studies produced results that provided little direction for improving classroom practice or advancing research in the field. For example, some studies showed favorable effects of activity-oriented instruction on students’ attitudes toward science, whereas others did not (see Simpson, Koballa, Oliver, & Crawley, 1994). A second reason for the decline is that the research paradigms in social psychology and educational psychology that had influenced attitude research in science education shifted from a behavioral to a more cognitive orientation (Richardson, 1996). This shift in theoretical orientation saw attitudes aligned with affect, or feeling and belief with cognition, as exemplified in studies based on Ajzen & Fishbein's (1980) theory of reasoned action (see Crawley & Koballa, 1994). With the separation of attitudes from cognition, and the emergence of beliefs as a construct thought to explain the actions of learners, attitudes became less important.
Research on students’ science-related attitudes is again receiving increased attention. The disturbing decreases in science course enrollments at the secondary and post-secondary levels, particularly in Western countries, the disdain expressed by many students for school science, and the promise of new research methods have prompted renewed interest in attitude research (Osborne, Simon, & Collins, 2003). Exemplifying this renewed interest is the special issue on affect edited by Alsop and Watts (2003) in the International Journal of Science Education, which included three articles that address aspects of students’ attitudes.
Attitudinal Constructs
Unfortunately, issues of definition and meaning have hampered the advancement of attitude research in science education. School science is typically the focus of investigations, but often this is not made clear in reports of science attitude research. Osborne, Driver, and Simon (1998) contend that attitude researchers should consider the elements of science in society, school science, and scientific careers separately, defining them carefully. But attitude has been defined in many ways and has, unfortunately, often been used interchangeably with terms such as interest, value, motivation, and opinion. This confusion is unnecessary because quite specific definitions appear in the attitude literature (e.g., Ramsden, 1998; Schibeci, 1984; Shrigley, Koballa, & Simpson, 1988).
An attitude is “a general and enduring positive or negative feeling about some person, object, or issue” (Petty & Cacioppo, 1981, p. 7). I love science, I hate my science teacher, and Science experiments are wonderful! reflect attitudes because they express general positive or negative feelings about something. This definition distinguishes attitude from related terms such as value, belief, and opinion. Values are more complex and broader than attitudes and are more enduring (Trenholm, 1989). Examples of values are equality, justice, and symmetry in nature. Beliefs are often described as the cognitive basis for attitudes (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980); they provide information about a person, object, or issue that may be used in forming an attitude. Science is fun, My science teacher is smart, and Animal dissection should be banned all reflect beliefs. Opinions are cast as verbal expressions of attitudes and historically have been used to represent not only attitudes but also the constructs of cognition, evaluation, and behavior (Shrigley, Koballa, & Simpson, 1988). When considered in relation to one another, a person will have far fewer values than attitudes or beliefs and many more beliefs than attitudes.
The relationship between attitude, belief, and behavior was presented in a causal model in research based on the theory of reasoned action (e.g., Crawley & Black, 1992). Attitude is the overall evaluation of a highly specific behavior that is defined in terms of action, target, context, and time. The overall evaluation of the behavior, called attitude toward the behavior (AB), is the affective component of the model. Attitude toward the behavior is a significant determinant of intention to engage in the behavior, the conative component of the model, called behavioral intention (BI). Personal beliefs, the cognitive element of the model, are the determinants of attitude. According to Simpson et al. (1994): “Each belief about the behavior links the behavior with a specific attribute (a characteristic, outcome, or event). The strength of the link between an attribute and the object (called behavioral belief, b) is weighted by the attribute's subjective evaluation (called outcome evaluation, e) through the expectancy value theorem” (p. 222). The summed product of each salient belief by its associated evaluation is the cognitive or belief-based estimate of attitude, called attitude toward the behavior (AB).
Feeling and emotion are other constructs considered in science education attitude research. According to Teixeira dos Santos and Mortimer (2003), “the word feeling is used to characterize the mental experience of an emotion, and the word emotion is used to describe the organic reactions to external stimuli” (p. 1197). Basing their definitions of these terms in the work of Damasio (1994), these researchers explain that while feelings cannot be observed, the emotions that prompt feeling are observable. The emotional states of science students and teachers that are detectable through observation of body posture, body movement, and contraction of facial musculature include anger, annoyance, joy, and satisfaction. Mood is the term used to describe a long-term emotional climate (Damasio, 1994; Teixeira dos Santos & Mortimer, 2003).
Reaching a universal agreement on definitions of attitude and its related terms is unlikely to occur in the near future and may even be undesirable. It is for this reason that Snow et al. (1996) recommended that it is “important not to belabor definitions unduly, even while seeking common agreement on some convenient and useful terminology” (p. 247). We suggest that science educators heed this recommendation when conducting and interpreting attitude research.
Research Methods and Instruments
The methodological approaches used in studying students’ science-related attitudes are increasing in their variety. While most studies continue to make use of self-report instruments that provide quantitative measures of attitude, investigators are also employing student drawings, personal interviews, and physiological expression as indicators of attitudes. Furthermore, the research methods reveal different levels of emotiveness, ranging from “the detached, statistical analysis of attitudes to the personalized, emotionally charged account[s] of teaching and learning” (Alsop & Watts, 2003, p. 1044). In this regard, it comes as no surprise that the various methodological approaches employed in the research reflect, and in a sense are limited by, the strategies used to collect and interpret attitudinal data. For example, Siegel and Ranney (2003) used quantitative modeling and Rasch analysis to develop and test the usefulness of the Changes in Attitudes about the Relevance of Science (CARS) questionnaire. In contrast, the ethnographic approaches highlighted in the research of Palmer (1997) and Pilburn and Baker (1993) used interviews and researchers’ field notes. In the study by Teixeira dos Santos and Mortimer (2003), which is anchored in work of Damasio (1994) on emotions and feelings, videotapes of lessons were used to attend to such details as personal posture, gestures, and facial expressions in constructing understandings of emotion and attitudes. Stretching the methodological envelope of science attitude research are studies like that reported by Perrier and Nsengiyumva (2003). Basing their work on trauma recovery therapy, these researchers used data gleaned from photographs and the contents of personal diaries to construct a vivid description of the influence of inquiry-based science activities on the attitudes of orphans in war-ravaged Rwanda.
Attitude Instruments
The self-report instruments used in much of the research address one or more dimensions of attitude. An example of a unidimensional instrument is the Attitude Toward Science Scale (Francis & Greer, 1999), which has only 20 items and purports to measure secondary students’ attitude toward science. A second example is the Changes in Attitudes about the Relevance of Science questionnaire (Siegel & Ranney, 2003), which includes three equally balanced versions to overcome problems associated with assessing students’ attitudes over multiple intervals. In comparison, the scale developed by Pell and Jarvis (2001) includes subscales that measure the five dimensions of liking science, independent investigator, science enthusiasm, the social context of science, and science as a difficult subject. Excluding instrument development influenced by the theoretical work of Ajzen and Fishbein (1980), science attitude instruments typically address the evaluative or affective component of attitude and do not distinguish among the cognitive, affective, and conative components that constitute the attitude trilogy. Some of these instruments (e.g., West, Hailes, & Sammons, 1997) that have been designed for young children make use of smiley faces rather than words, in an effort to better capture the children's expressions of attitude. We present summary data for a sampling of recently developed attitude instruments in Table 4.1.
Instrument reliability and validity are important qualities of attitude scales. Content analysis, exploratory factor analyses, item analyses, correlations between subscales, correlations between attitude scale scores and the number of science-related subjects studied, and student interviews are among the tests and procedures used by researchers to explain the reliability and validity of their instruments (Francis & Greer, 1999; Pell & Jarvis, 2001; Siegel & Ranney, 2003). It is recognized that attitude scale construction is a multistep process that may take more than a year to complete (Bennett, Rollnick, Green, & White, 2001). In addition, instrument reliability and validity need to be reestablished when an instrument is modified or used with a population that is different from the one for which it was originally developed. Unfortunately, attitude instruments are sometimes selected for use without adequate attention to reliability and validity (e.g., Terry & Baird, 1997).
There are two limitations commonly associated with science attitude scales: (a) the limited amount of information yielded about the respondents’ attitudes and (b) the inclusion of items generated by researchers who do not share the mindset of the respondents (Pilburn & Baker, 1993). These limitations have been addressed in several ways by science education researchers. One strategy involves scale construction in which researchers solicit input from a sample of respondents. Crawley and Koballa (1992) questioned a representative sample of Hispanic-American students and used the students’ responses to construct a scale to assess attitudes toward chemistry enrollment. Along similar lines, Bennett et al. (2001) and Ellis, Killip, and Bennett (2000) solicited student input in developing multiple-choice attitude scale items. Guided by work on the Views on Science-Technology-Society instrument (Aikenhead & Ryan, 1992), they used data from students to construct four or more statements for each scale item that are expressions of agreement or disagreement with the item and reasons for agreeing or disagreeing. For example, for the scale item Scientists do a wide variety of jobs, sample statements are: “I AGREE because they do jobs ranging from designing new medicines to being astronauts,” and “I DISAGREE because scientists tend to concentrate on one thing” (Ellis et al., 2000, p. 25).
TABLE 4.1.
Summary Data for Sample Attitude Instruments
| Developers and instrument focus | Instrument format | Sample items |
Thompson and Mintzes's (2002) Shark Attitude Inventory measures the attitudes toward sharks of fifth-grade students through senior citizens. |
Five-point Likert scale, with response options ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree across four subscales. |
I would like to touch a shark. Sharks should not be protected if protecting them makes shark fishermen lose money. |
Francis and Greer (1999) developed an instrument to measure secondary school students’ attitudes towards science. |
A 20-item unidimensional instrument arranged for scoring on a 3-point Likert scale, with not certain as the midpoint response. |
Science has ruined the environment. Studying science gives me great pleasure. |
Pell and Jarvis's (2001) instrument assesses the attitudes to science of 5- to 11-year-old children. |
Five-point “smiley” face Likert scoring scheme across five attitude subscales that include only positively worded items. |
How do you feel about … Doing science experiments. Watching the teacher do an experiment. |
Bennett, Rollnick, Green, and White's (2001) instrument measures university students’ attitudes toward the study of chemistry. |
Patterned after Aikenhead and Ryan's VOSTS, the multiple-choice items include response options that combine evaluation and explanation. |
I like it when the lecturer gives us small tasks to do in lecture. A. I AGREE with this statement because it improves my understanding. E. I DISAGREE with this statement because it increases the noise and wastes time. X. None of the above statements reflect my view, which is … |
The Parkinson, Hendley, Tanner, and Stable (1998) questionnaire was developed to assess the attitudes toward science of age 13 pupils in England and Wales. |
Statements generated by pupils were selected for inclusion on the 34-item scale. Scoring is based on a 4-point Likert scale. |
I like doing experiments in science lessons. More time should be spent on science at school. |
Siegel and Ranney's (2003) Changes in Attitude about the Relevance of Science (CARS) questionnaire was designed for use with adolescents. |
Three versions for repeated measures were developed. Scoring for each 20-item version is based on a 5-point Likert scale with an additional don't understand response option. |
Science helps me to make sensible decisions. The things I do in science have nothing to do with the real world. |
Drawing
Finson (2002) reviewed efforts since 1957 to use drawings to gather information about one aspect of students’ attitudes toward science, perceptions of scientists. The image that school students hold of scientists tends to be stereotypical and rather negative, with scientists most often depicted as men with unkempt hair, wearing glasses and white lab coats, and working alone in laboratories. He concluded that Chamber's Draw-a-Scientist Test and the more recently developed Draw-a-Scientist Checklist are reliable and valid instruments for gathering data about students’ perceptions of scientists and recommends that interviewing students about their drawings can enhance researchers’ interpretations of students’ perceptions. Finson also cautioned researchers about assuming that a student's drawing provides the definitive image of his or her perception of a scientist because students may hold multiple images of scientists that differ depending on context and recent exposure.
Interview
Other researchers have turned to student interviews as a way to overcome the limitations associated with attitude scales and to augment the data provided by the scales. In an effort to determine more about the meaning associated with students’ images of scientists, Palmer (1997) interviewed upper elementary and high school students about their understandings of scientists and their work in an environmental context. From an analysis of 125 interviews, he concluded that students hold both private perceptions and stereotyped images of scientists and their work. The findings of Palmer's study suggest that drawings may not encourage students to express the full range of their perceptions about scientists. Pilburn and Baker (1993) also interviewed students with the use of a semi-structured protocol and employed a qualitative data analysis approach to gauge students’ attitudes. Students were questioned about their attitudes toward science and school, academic and career goals, and what improvements they would make to science class if they were the teacher. By changing the wording of questions to suit the age of their student participants and following initial student responses with additional probing questions, Pilburn and Baker gathered attitude data from students in kindergarten through grade 12. They concluded from their work that student interviews provide useful information about students’ attitudes toward science.
Attitudes and What Influences Them
Despite the limitations associated with attitude scales and other techniques used to gather attitudinal data, what they reveal provides valuable insight into students’ science attitudes. A number of studies reported that although children at the primary level hold positive feelings about science, attitude scores decline as students progress through the grades (George, 2000; Jurd, 2001; Osborne et al., 1998; Reid & Skryabina, 2002). This decline, which is particularly evident in the middle school and high school years, is likely related in some way to the types of science courses in which the students are enrolled and the science self-concept that they develop as a result of these courses (George, 2000). However, it is also possible that the decline is a result of students’ inability to separate their attitudes toward science from their attitudes toward school. Morrell and Lederman's (1998) investigation of the relationship between students’ attitudes toward school and attitudes toward classroom science revealed a weak relationship between the two attitudes. Their findings led them to conclude that students’ less-than-favorable attitudes toward science are not part of a bigger school-related attitude problem and that attitudes toward science could not be improved by addressing students’ attitudes toward school. Also, in contrast to the findings of the other studies previously discussed, Morrell and Lederman found no evidence of declining attitudes toward science for older students.
Gender
Despite more than two decades of attention to issues of gender equity in science education, differences between girls and boys still persist regarding attitudes toward science. The findings of several recent studies indicate that the differences develop during the elementary school years (Andre, Whigham, Hendrickson, & Chambers, 1999; Jones, Howe, & Rua, 2000). Consistent with previous findings (e.g., Weinburgh, 1995), these studies report that girls tend to have less favorable attitudes toward science than boys, and that girls’ science-related interests are more focused on the biological than physical sciences. Dawson (2000) reported similar trends in a study of primary-age boys and girls in Australia and concluded that little has changed in two decades. In contrast, Andre et al. (1999) found no differences between girls and boys in their liking of life science or physical science. However, their comparison of students’ preferences for school subjects revealed that, in the elementary grades, girls prefer reading and language arts over physical science. Their findings led them to speculate that the attitudinal differences often detected between boys and girls are not a result of girls liking physical science less than boys, but their liking reading more.
Differences between boys and girls also extend to the stereotypic images that they hold of science and scientists. Boys and girls view science as a male-dominated school subject and consider science to be a male profession (Andre et al., 1999). Students in Taiwan, as is the case in other countries, are influenced by the stereotypic images of science and scientists that are often depicted in the popular media. However, the impact of these stereotypes on students’ interest in a science career seems to decline as students advance in school, with girls more so than boys open to the idea of women working as scientists (She, 1998). One possible interpretation of this finding is that students hold both private perceptions of scientists and their work in addition to the public stereotypes (Palmer, 1997).
Explanations for these gender differences include both physiological and sociological functions. More credence is given to sociological factors, as indicated by the widespread support for broad-based intervention programs such as EQUALS and Family Science that target the science attitudes and experiences of girls. The most frequently given sociological reasons for why girls have less positive attitudes toward science than do boys include the differential cultural expectations placed on girls and boys by parents, teachers, and peers, and the different experiences in science, both in school and out of it, provided to boys and girls (Jones et al., 2000; She, 1998).
Achievement and Science-Related Decisions
A study of Australian students using data collected as part of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) revealed that attitudes toward science have a strong effect on achievement (Webster & Fisher, 2000). Attitudes were found not to predict physics achievement (Willson, Ackerman, & Malave, 2000) and to be related directly to the science achievement of American students (Singh, Granville, & Dika, 2002). The narrow interpretation of attitude applied in many studies might explain the weak relationships found between attitude and achievement (Rennie & Punch, 1991), as might the narrow definitions of achievement. Research in this area still tends to corroborate Fraser's (1982) position that improving science attitudes will not necessarily lead to science achievement gains.
The influence of attitudes on students’ decisions such as enrolling in elective science courses and pursuing careers in science was also examined in recent studies. The attractiveness of careers in science and higher education courses, the relevance of courses for future study and careers, self-confidence in science, and science interests are among the factors found to influence students’ science course-taking and career decisions (Robertson, 2000; Woolnough & Guo, 1997). Based on a review of earlier studies that produced similar findings, Shrigley (1990) concluded that only under certain conditions should attitudes be expected to predict learners’ science-related decisions. These conditions include: (a) when attitude and the decision are measured at the same level of specificity; (b) when social context and individual differences, including cognitive ones, are considered; and (c) when the person's intentions regarding the decision are known. Each of Shrigley's conditions was addressed in Butler's (1999) study, in which he sought to identify the determinants of students’ intentions to perform both laboratory and non-laboratory science learning tasks in grades 4 through 8. Butler found that the students’ attitudes toward the behavior were better predictors of their intentions to perform both laboratory and non-laboratory science learning tasks than either attitudes toward science or subjective norm, the element of Ajzen and Fishbein's (1980) model that measures social support for engaging in the behavior. A limitation of Butler's study was that the students’ actual behaviors were not observed.
Attitude Change Interventions
Activity-based practical work (Thompson & Soyibo, 2002), learning cycle classes (Cavallo & Laubach, 2001), formally teaching ethical issues (Choi & Cho, 2002), jigsaw cooperative learning groups (De Baz, 2001), student- and teacher-constructed self-teaching resources (McManus, Dunn, & Denig, 2003), video technologies (Escalada & Zollman, 1998; Harwood & McMahon, 1997), inquiry-based summer camps (Gibson & Chase, 2002), and computer-assisted instruction (Soyibo & Hudson, 2000) are among the attitude change interventions evaluated in recent years. Other interventions targeted the attitudes toward sciences of girls and minorities and their continuation in the science pipeline. These included after-school science programs and residential summer science camps as well as year-long science courses that emphasize hands-on and performance-based learning experiences (Ferreira, 2002; Freedman, 2002; Haussler & Hoffmann, 2002; Jayaratne, Thomas, & Trautmann, 2003; Jovanovic & Dreves, 1998; Phillips, Barrow, & Chandrasekhar, 2002).
Overall, the interventions were well planned and quite complex and incorporated a host of activities believed to enhance attitudes toward science and commitment to the study of science. The results of these studies point to the success of some interventions, particularly those that engage learners in hands-on science activities and that stress the relevance of science through issue-based experiences (e.g., Haussler & Hoffman, 2002; Perrier & Nsengiyumva, 2003; Siegel & Ranney, 2003).
MOTIVATION
As we turn to a discussion of the role of motivation in learning science, it is important to recognize that attitudes influence motivation, which in turn influences learning, and ultimately behavior. This sequence is relevant to investigating learning in many science contexts, although the relationships among these variables can be more complex and interactive than this basic sequence suggests.
It is also important to recognize that motivation has not been manipulated or assessed as frequently as attitudes by science education researchers, although historically science education research on learning has been significantly influenced by the theoretical orientations that researchers have adopted toward motivation. As science education researchers respond to current national initiatives to foster students’ science achievement, the emphasis placed on motivation has been increasing, as reflected in recent articles with titles such as “Skill and will: The role of motivation and cognition in the learning of college chemistry” (Zusho & Pintrich, 2003, p. 1081). Ten years ago, in the Handbook of Research on Science Teaching and Learning (Gabel, 1994), the word attitude appeared in more than 45 subject index listings and sub-listings, whereas the word motivation appeared only three times. The inclusion of motivation in the present Handbook in a chapter with attitudes attests to greater value being placed on the role that motivation plays in science learning.
A discussion of motivation should begin with a definition. Motivation is an internal state that arouses, directs, and sustains students’ behavior. The study of motivation by science education researchers attempts to explain why students strive for particular goals when learning science, how intensively they strive, how long they strive, and what feelings and emotions characterize them in this process.
In this section, we discuss the research orientations and constructs that play important roles in learning science. One feature of motivation research has been the creation of many motivational constructs. Unfortunately, the constructs are often unclear in their definitions and functions, as Schunk (2000) observed:
The field of motivation is beset with a lack of clear definition of motivational constructs and specification of their operation within larger theoretical frameworks. These problems have implications for interpretation of research results and applications to practice… . At times educational researchers—perhaps unwittingly—have behaved like Humpty Dumpty by renaming or defining motivational constructs to fit their theoretical models and research methodologies with insufficient attention paid to extant conceptualizations. (p. 116)
Our goal is to provide an overview of current motivation research in learning science that stresses the most widely accepted and empirically supported findings about student motivation. Cognizant of the conceptual clarity issue raised by Schunk and others (e.g., Pintrich, 2003), we have endeavored to describe, in as straightforward a fashion as possible, the orientations and constructs that are of particular relevance to science education researchers. The broad theoretical orientations that researchers adopt, either explicitly or implicitly, influence the assumptions they make about the more specific constructs they study. This point is important because researchers with different theoretical orientations often study the same constructs. They may even define them similarly but interpret them differently.
Historical Background and Theoretical Orientations
Historically, science education researchers have adopted four orientations to motivation when studying learning. We refer to these orientations as behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, and social. Although these orientations are described separately, it should be kept in mind that many science education researchers adopt aspects of more than one orientation when studying learning, with hybrids resulting, such as a cognitive-social orientation (Pintrich, 2003). In addition, the orientations researchers adopt often are determined by the particular topic they are studying.
Science education researchers with a behavioral orientation to motivation focus on concepts such as incentive and reinforcement. An incentive is something that makes a behavior more or less likely to occur. For example, the promise of a field trip to a quarry to study rock strata could serve as an incentive for students to perform well on a geology test. Participation in the trip itself could be the reinforcement.
Researchers have identified potential problems associated with the use of incentives and reinforcements to shape behavior in a science classroom. One major problem is that the students may not develop intrinsic motivation to learn. In some conditions, when students are offered incentives for doing tasks they naturally find motivating, their desire to perform the tasks can decrease (Cameron & Pierce, 2002; Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 1999). External incentives also can focus students’ attention on the incentives as ends in themselves, rather than serve as a kind of feedback on the progress students are making.
Science education researchers with a humanistic orientation to motivation emphasize students’ capacity for personal growth, their freedom to choose their destiny, and their desire to achieve and excel. Humanists have used various constructs to express students’ need to reach their potential. Maslow (1968, 1970) described this need as self-actualization. Maslow proposed that everyone has a hierarchy of needs: physiological, safety, love and belongingness, esteem, intellectual achievement, aesthetic appreciation, and self-actualization. When basic needs are satisfied, the motivation to fulfill them decreases and the motivation to fulfill the higher-level ones increases. Building upon Maslow's theory, humanists currently investigate students’ actualizing tendency (Rogers & Freiberg, 1994) and self-determination (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991).
When science education researchers adopt a cognitive orientation to motivation, they emphasize students’ goals, plans, expectations, and attributions (Glynn & Duit, 1995; Glynn, Yeany, & Britton, 1991; Schunk, 1996). An attribution is an explanation for the cause of a particular behavior (Weiner, 1986, 1990, 1992). When students respond to instructional events, they are viewed as responding to their attributions about these events. For example, students’ motivation to achieve in a particular college biology class could be undermined by the students’ attribution (true or false) that all students are receiving high grades because the instructor's grading criteria are lax.
Science education researchers with a social orientation to motivation emphasize students’ identities and their interpersonal relationships in the communities that exist inside and outside of school. Students’ identities are formed in their communities, and a great deal of science can be learned, both intentionally and incidentally, in them. To maintain their membership in their communities, students are motivated to learn the attitudes, values, and behaviors of those communities (Lave & Wenger, 1991). The process of modeling is central to the learning that takes place in those communities (Greeno, Collins, & Resnick, 1996). Science classrooms, museums, nature centers, aquariums, and even websites are being conceptualized as learning communities. One template for conceptualizing a science-learning community was developed by Scardamalia and Bereiter (1996), who used a computer system called Computer-Supported Intentional Learning Environment (CSILE) to prompt students to collaborate by posing questions and hypotheses and discussing findings. Brown and Campione (1996) developed another template that made innovative science research projects central to a classroom community.
Motivational Constructs
According to Brophy (1987), motivation to learn is “a student tendency to find academic activities meaningful and worthwhile and to try to derive the intended academic benefits from them” (pp. 205–206). What motivates students to learn science? We answered this question by closely examining the disparate body of research that Schunk (2000) alluded to, integrating the findings, and identifying relevant methods and instruments for the constructs. We noted that the constructs of arousal, anxiety, interest, and curiosity all have been found to play important roles, particularly in the creation of intrinsic motivation. We also noted that the extent to which science students are intrinsically motivated was found to be influenced by how self-determined they are, by their goal-directed behavior, by their self-regulation, by their self-efficacy, and by the expectations that teachers have of them.
Arousal and Anxiety
Arousal, defined as a student's level of alertness and activation (Anderson, 1990), plays an important role in initiating and regulating motivation. Arousal is a state of physical and psychological readiness for action. Too little arousal in students leads to inactivity, boredom, daydreaming, and even sleeping, and too much of it leads to anxiety, defined as a “general uneasiness, a sense of foreboding, a feeling of tension” (Hansen, 1977, p. 91). All students experience anxiety from time to time. Some anxiety is good in that it helps motivate science learning. Too little, however, debilitates performance, and so does too much (Cassady & Johnson, 2002).
Most researchers conceptualize anxiety as both a state, temporarily associated with a situation such as a science test, and a trait, enduringly associated with the individual. As measured by the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, 1983), state anxiety is defined as an unpleasant emotional arousal in response to situations that are perceived as threatening. Trait anxiety, on the other hand, implies the existence of stable individual differences in the tendency to respond with state anxiety in the anticipation of threatening situations.
Interest and Curiosity
The terms interest and curiosity are often used interchangeably in the science education literature. A student who is interested or curious about a science topic has a readiness to pursue it. A student's interest in a science topic or activity is “specific, develops over time, is relatively stable, and is associated with personal significance, positive emotions, high value, and increased knowledge” (Wade, 2001, p. 245). This particular kind of interest is known as individual or personal; it should be distinguished from situational interest that is evoked by things in the environment that create a momentary interest. When students do poorly in science and other areas, what is the most common reason? “Lack of interest” was rated highest by more than 200 middle school students studied by Vispoel and Austin (1995). In some cases, ratings of low interest can be ego-protective—students wish to attribute their poor performance to an external, uncontrollable variable. When students do well, what is the reason? Vispoel and Austin found that middle school students rated effort highest, but interest next highest, in explaining successes. These findings indicate that students perceive interest to be a very important factor in their achievement.
According to Pintrich and Schunk (1996), interest or curiosity is “elicited by activities that present students with information or ideas that are discrepant from their present knowledge or beliefs and that appear surprising or incongruous” (p. 277). This does not mean, however, that the more discrepant the better. Researchers have found that students are most interested in science concepts and phenomena that are moderately novel to them and moderately complex (Berlyne, 1966). When students are very familiar with something, they may ignore it, and when they are unfamiliar with something, particularly if it is complex, they may not find it relevant or meaningful.
One of the most effective means of making science concepts relevant and meaningful to students is the use of analogies during instruction (Glynn & Takahashi, 1998). For example, Paris and Glynn (2004) found that elaborate analogies increased students’ interest in the concepts covered in science texts, as well as their understanding of those concepts. This finding suggests that elaborate analogies can play an important role in strategically regulating students’ motivation. The analogies likely do this by establishing in students a sense of self-relevancy, or personal involvement. In the Paris and Glynn study, most of the students indicated that a text with analogies was interesting because it compared an abstract science concept to something more familiar to them. A typical comment was: “I know about photography, so it was more interesting when the eye was compared to a camera.”
Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation
Motivation to perform an activity for its own sake is intrinsic, whereas motivation to perform it as a means to an end is extrinsic (Pintrich & Schunk, 1996). Intrinsic motivation derives from arousal, interest, and curiosity. Intrinsic motivation taps into the natural human tendency to pursue interests and exercise capabilities (Deci, 1996; Reeve, 1996; Ryan & Deci, 2000). Typically, students who are intrinsically motivated to learn a science concept do not require physical rewards, because the process itself is inherently motivating. On the other hand, when students learn concepts only to earn grades or avoid detention, their motivation is primarily external (Mazlo et al., 2002). Students who are intrinsically motivated to perform a task often experience flow, a feeling of enjoyment that occurs when they have developed a sense of mastery and are concentrating intensely on the task at hand (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). For example, flow describes the preoccupation that some students develop with a science fair project to the exclusion of other activities in their lives.
The distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is difficult to make in some instances. When studying motivational patterns in sixth-grade science classrooms, Lee and Brophy (1996) found it useful to distinguish among students’ motives in multiple ways. Students are often motivated to perform tasks for both intrinsic and extrinsic reasons. The student who constructs the science fair project may enjoy the process, particularly because the student selected the topic, but may also be motivated by the prospect of receiving a prize, an award ribbon, or entry into a higher-level science fair.
Self-Determination
Self-determination is the ability to have choices and some degree of control in what we do and how we do it (Deci et al., 1991; Reeve, Hamm, & Nix, 2003). Most people strive to be in charge of their own behavior—to be captains of their own ships. Most people are unhappy when they feel they have lost control, either to another person or to the environment. Deci (1996), in his theory of self-determination, suggested that students in particular need to feel competent and independent. He explained that intrinsically motivated activities promote feelings of competence and independence, whereas extrinsically motivated activities can undermine these feelings. Deci has found that students with self-determined motivation are more likely to achieve at a high level and to be well adjusted emotionally.
When science students have the opportunity to help design their educational activities, they are more likely to benefit from them. According to Garner (1998), “It is through this self determination, measured though it might be, that wise teachers allow each of their students to guide them to what the students find particularly enjoyable and worth learning” (p. 236). This advice is based on studies such as that by Rainey (1965), who found that high school science students who were allowed to organize their own experiments exhibited greater interest and diligence than students who were required to follow rote directions.
When students lack self-determination, it is difficult for them to feel intrinsically motivated. When they come to believe that their performance in science is mostly uncontrollable, they have developed a failure syndrome or learned helplessness (Seligman, 1975). Students who develop learned helplessness are reluctant to engage in science learning. They believe they will fail, so they do not even try. Because they believe they will fail, these students do not practice and improve their science skills and abilities, so they develop cognitive deficiencies. Students with learned helplessness also have emotional problems such as depression and anxiety.
Goal-Directed Behavior
A science objective or outcome that students pursue is a goal, and the process of pursuing it is referred to as goal-directed behavior, an important component of goal theory (Pintrich & Schunk, 1996). Goal theory builds upon an earlier expectancy-value theory of achievement motivation (Atkinson & Raynor, 1978), which posited that behavior is determined by how much students value a particular goal and their expectation of attaining that goal as a result of performing certain behaviors. When students endeavor to identify a substance as the objective of a chemistry lab, they are engaged in goal-directed behavior. Researchers have found that the very act of setting a goal is beneficial to students because it helps them to focus their attention, organize their efforts, persist longer, and develop new strategies (Covington, 2000; Linnenbrink & Pintrich, 2002; Locke & Latham, 1990, 2002; Midgley, Kaplan, & Middleton, 2001; Wentzel, 2000). In classrooms where students and teachers share the goals of student understanding and independent thinking, rather than the memorization and rote recall of science facts, students have higher motivation to learn (Glynn, Muth, & Britton, 1990; Nolen, 2003; Nolen & Haladyna, 1990). Recognizing this, Nicholls (1992) recommends that students be viewed as educational theorists who actively interpret and influence the classroom environment.
Science education researchers often distinguish between learning goals (also known as mastery goals or task goals) and performance goals (also known as ego goals). Students with learning goals focus on the challenge and mastery of a science task (Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988). They are not concerned about how many mistakes they make or how they appear to others. These students are primarily interested in mastering the task and task-related strategies. They view mistakes as learning opportunities and do not hesitate to ask others for feedback and help. They are not afraid of failing, because failing does not threaten their sense of self-esteem. As a result, they set reasonably challenging goals, they take risks, and they respond to failure appropriately. When they succeed, they generally attribute it to their own effort. They assume responsibility for learning. They generally perform well in competitive situations, learn fast, and exhibit self-confidence and enthusiasm. They want to acquire mastery, often in an apprenticeship relationship. Students with learning goals are more likely to trust their teachers and adopt the goals set by their teachers as their own. They are also likely to work harder.
Meece et al. (1988) found that students with learning goals were more actively involved in science activities than students with performance goals because the latter were preoccupied with gaining social status, pleasing teachers, and avoiding extra work. Students with performance goals frequently compare their grades with others and choose tasks that are easy for them so they can maximize their grade. They work hard only on graded tasks and are often reluctant to help others achieve (Stipek, 1996). Their self-esteem is based on the external evaluation of their performance, so their esteem can be as fleeting as their last grade on a biology test. They take very few risks and restrict themselves to those skills with which they are most comfortable. If they do not receive positive external evaluations, they often develop ego-protective mechanisms such as procrastination or apathy.
In a study that examined more than 200 middle school students’ motivation goals, Meece and Jones (1994) found students tended to feel greater confidence and mastery when science lessons were taught in small groups rather than in large ones. They also found that boys reported greater confidence in their science abilities than girls. More recent studies with middle school and high school students (Britner & Pajares, 2002; DeBacker & Nelson, 1999; Stake & Mares, 2001) suggest that the confidence of girls relative to that of boys is influenced by how science is being taught.
Self-Regulation
Goal setting is an important aspect of self-regulated learning (Schunk & Zimmerman, 1997). Students who are self-regulating know what they want to accomplish when they learn science—they bring appropriate strategies to bear and continually monitor their progress toward their goals. According to Neber and Schommer-Aikins (2002), self-regulated learning can be thought of as a cognitive activity consisting of two components, regulatory strategy use (for planning and monitoring) and cognitive strategy use (for organizing and elaborating). These components are often measured by subscales of the Motivated Learning Strategies Questionnaire (Pintrich & De-Groot, 1990), with items such as In class, I ask myself questions to make sure I know what I have been studying and When I am studying a topic, I try to make the material fit together.
Students’ perceptions of control are relevant to their self-regulation and motivation to learn science. When students feel they are in control of their learning, they select more challenging tasks, they expend more effort, and they work longer on assignments (Anderman & Young, 1994; Schunk, 1996; Weiner, 1992). Students who feel they are in control are more likely to pick themselves up when they fail, attributing their failure to controllable, internal causes such as a lack of preparation. These students are adaptive and will adopt strategies to increase the likelihood of their success in the future. In contrast, students who typically feel that they are not in control of their learning focus increasingly on their own limitations and become apathetic about learning science.
Self-Efficacy
Before defining self-efficacy, it is easier to define what it is not. It is not self-concept, nor is it self-esteem (Bong & Clark, 1999). Self-concept is a more general construct that includes self-efficacy. Self-concept refers to global ideas about one's identity and one's role relations to others. According to Bong and Skaalvik (2003), “self-efficacy acts as an active precursor of self-concept development” and “self-concept is colloquially defined as a composite view of oneself” (pp. 1–2). Self-esteem is also a more general construct, and self-efficacy contributes to it. Self-esteem refers to the value one places on himself or herself. In contrast, self-efficacy is not a general personality trait or quality. It makes no sense to speak of a generally “self-efficacious” student.
Bandura (1997) defined self-efficacy as “beliefs in one's capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments” (p. 3). When science teachers use the term, they refer to the evaluation that a student makes about his or her personal competence to succeed in a field of science. For example, a student may have high self-efficacy with respect to knowledge and skills in biology, but low self-efficacy with respect to knowledge and skills in physics. In other words, self-efficacy is domain specific—and potentially task specific in a domain. Students’ judgments of their self-efficacy in particular areas of science have been found to predict their performance in these areas. For example, Zusho and Pintrich (2003) found that students’ self-efficacy was found to be the best predictor of grades in an introductory college chemistry course, even after controlling for prior achievement. Similarly, Joo, Bong, and Choi (2000) found that students’ self-efficacy predicted their written test performance in a biology course. In their study, self-efficacy was assessed with questionnaire items similar to this one: “What grade (A through F) do you anticipate earning at the end of the term in biology?” Other questionnaires, such as the Perceptions of Science Classes Survey (Kardash & Wallace, 2001, p. 202), have been designed to assess self-efficacy for general science, with items such as “I have a good understanding of basic concepts in science.” Given the domain-specific nature of self-efficacy, it may be that questionnaires that address a particular field of science will prove more useful than ones that address science in general.
According to Bandura (1997), a student's sense of self-efficacy is derived from sources such as mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, and social persuasion. Mastery experiences are students’ actual experiences, and these have the greatest impact on their sense of efficacy in an area. Successes increase efficacy, and failures lower it. Vicarious experiences, according to Bandura, are those associated with the observation of others (“models“) such as teachers, parents, peers, or characters in films (such as “Indiana Jones, archeologist“). The more that students identify with the model, the greater the model's influence on them. Social persuasion, particularly when it comes from a source that students respect, can also influence students and induce them to try harder in science. Social persuasion can reinforce students’ self-efficacy in science when they have suffered a temporary setback.
Expectations and Strategies
The effect of teachers’ expectations on student performance is called the Pygmalion effect (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1968), named after a mythological king who created a statue and then made it come to life. Research findings on the Pygmalion effect have been mixed but generally support the view that the effect does occur and that teachers’ expectations can influence student performance in science and other areas (Smith, Jussim, & Eccles, 1999). Science teachers’ expectations of students, and the strategies based on these expectations, play an important role in increasing or reducing students’ motivation. Researchers have found that teachers who have high expectations of students give cues and prompts that communicate to them their belief that the students can perform well (Good & Brophy, 1997; Rop, 2003). If teachers have high expectations of students, they are less likely to accept poor answers from them, and they are more likely to praise them for good answers. Teachers with low expectations of students are more likely to provide them with inconsistent feedback, sometimes praising inadequate answers, sometimes criticizing them, and sometimes ignoring them (Good & Brophy, 1997). Sometimes, if many teachers in a school adopt low expectations of the students there, a culture of low expectations can permeate the school (Weinstein, Madison, & Kuklinski, 1995).
RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The role of attitudes and motivation in learning science is a rich area for future research. As views of learning become increasingly constructivistic, it is more important than ever that researchers adopt a comprehensive view of learners that includes affective characteristics. The research reviewed in this chapter clearly shows that science learning cannot be explained solely by examination of cognitive factors. Learners’ attitudes and motivation should be taken into account in explanations of science learning. Theoretical orientations and models describing meaningful relationships among affective constructs and cognition are becoming more evident in the research on science learning (Glynn & Koballa, 2007).
The research indicates that the principal means for assessing students’ attitudes continues to be scales that produce quantitative scores. Instrument reliability and validity should be considered when one is choosing or modifying scales for use. We recommend that quantitative data gathered with the use of attitude scales be coupled with other forms of data, such as that collected via individual and group interviews, student drawings, log books, and photographs, to provide a more informed understanding of students’ attitudes. Equally important, researchers should not be overly concerned with definitions of attitude and related constructs, but strive to seek common agreement for terms useful in their own studies. We found Teixeira dos Santos and Mortimer's (2003) use of personal posture, gesture, and voice intonation as evidence of emotion to be innovative and encourage further exploration of other physiological indicators of attitude. Building on this work, future research may include the examination of facial muscle patterns detectable through electromyographic recordings as evidence of learners’ science-related attitudes (see Cacioppo & Petty, 1979).
Theoretical frameworks have not always guided attitude research in science education (Ramsden, 1998). Prominent in past research are the guiding frameworks of Hovland's learning theory approach and Fishbein and Ajzen's theories of reasoned action and planned behavior (Simpson et al., 1994). More recent attitude research has found theoretical grounding in Damasio's (1994) work on emotion and feeling and the psychotherapy of trauma recovery (Winnicott, 1970), which emphasizes the importance of play and community as elements of the learning process. These frameworks will provide guidance for continued research into the design of interventions to affect attitudes. In addition, psychologists’ work on implicit attitudes (see Dovidio, Kawakami, & Beach, 2001) and the differentiated role of beliefs and attitudes in guiding behavior (called the mismatch model; see Millar & Tesser, 1992) may also contribute to the theoretical foundations for future attitude research in science education. It is clear from the research we have reviewed that diversity in theoretical orientation will lead to the use of more and different methodological approaches to investigate learners’ science-related attitudes.
With respect to the role of motivation in learning science, a future direction for research is to investigate how different theoretical orientations and constructs relate to one another, rather than create new orientations and constructs simply to be innovative. Synthesis and integration should be the keywords of future motivational research in science learning (Pintrich, 2003). There is great need to clarify this area of research by examining the similar roles that orientations and constructs can play in fostering science learning (Glynn & Koballa, 2007).
We recommend that motivation researchers avoid simple categorizations such as high versus low anxiety, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, and learning versus performance goals. Instead, they should adopt broader perspectives that serve to synthesize orientations and constructs. For example, rather than conceptualize students as having either learning goals or performance, researchers should conceptualize students as having a variety of goals, depending upon the context, and endeavor to explain the relationship between students’ goals and other motivational constructs such as self-determination and self-efficacy.
IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY AND PRACTICE
Although there are certainly positive consequences of current federal initiatives designed to promote student achievement in science and other areas, there are negative ones as well. Because of an increased and often inappropriate emphasis on standardized testing, students are at increased risk of developing poor attitudes and low motivation in the area of science. Science education policy makers must come to understand that although high-stakes testing may serve to inspire some students to achieve at high levels, it serves as a deterrent to learning for many more. They are encouraged to adopt a view of learning in which “affect surrounds cognition,” recognizing that “if children are not comfortable or joyful they will not learn, irrespective of how well pedagogical practices are designed” (Alsop & Watts, 2003, p. 1046). Acting from this informed view of science learning, policy makers should press state departments of education and local schools to specifically address affective elements of learning in their science curricula and associated assessment programs. Science learning experiences that are fun and personally fulfilling are likely to foster positive attitudes and heightened motivation toward science learning and lead to improved achievement. Attention to student attitudes and motivation in science curricula will prompt policy makers to become advocates for assessing affective outcomes of learning. Professional learning opportunities should be provided for teachers that will help prepare them to encourage unmotivated science students.
The research on science-related attitudes also has implications for professional practice. Teachers should consider strategies for improving students’ attitudes as possible ways to increase enrollment in noncompulsory science courses and enhancing science achievement (Osborne, Simon, & Collins, 2003). Approaches to positively affecting student attitudes include instruction that emphasizes active learning and the relevance of science to daily life. When endeavoring to improve students’ attitudes, teachers should consider their own cultural expectations. For example, teachers may unwittingly contribute to the persistent attitudinal differences between boys and girls. Teachers should recognize that students’ enjoyment of science may be as important an outcome of school science in the long run as their scores on standardized tests.
Numerous instruments are available to assess the influence of instruction on students’ science-related attitudes. When using an available measure, we recommend that teachers recognize that learners are not always willing and able to divulge their true feelings. We also encourage teachers to use interviews, photographs, and student drawings as alternatives to the use of scales and to supplement data gathered with the use of scales.
The research on motivational constructs also has many implications for practice in science education. Some of the most important of these involve the construct of self-determination, because science teachers wish to help students become independent, life-long learners. Science teachers can promote students’ self-determination by providing them with appropriate challenges and feedback, by giving them leadership opportunities, by fostering students’ relationships with peers and their parents, by creating a positive classroom environment, and by providing them with a role in classroom governance. The result will be greater student interest, sense of competence, creativity, learning, and preference for challenges (Matthews, 1991; Ryan & Grolnick, 1986; Williams, Wiener, Markakis, Reeve, & Deci, 1993).
Effective science teachers know students’ self-determination leads to successful learning only when it is accompanied by high self-efficacy. If students have high self-efficacy in science, they will set higher goals, persist longer, expend greater effort, and endeavor to find increasingly better strategies. If students have low efficacy, they will tend to give up easily when science learning becomes difficult (Zimmerman, 2000). Students will increase their self-efficacy and improve their achievement if they adopt short-term goals to judge their progress, use specific learning strategies such as summarizing to help them focus their attention, and receive rewards based on their performance and not just their participation.
In conclusion, in this chapter we have examined the attitudinal and motivational constructs that influence science learning. We have reviewed the research conducted on these constructs, emphasizing the methods and instruments used, and the theoretical orientations in which the constructs are embedded. In addition, we have made specific recommendations for future research on these constructs and drawn implications for policy and practice.
We strongly encourage new and seasoned researchers to advance what is known about how attitudes influence motivation and how motivation influences science learning, and ultimately behavior. Ideally, all students of science should develop positive attitudes that motivate them to achieve at high levels. Their achievement should be reflected not only in their understanding of science and their development of scientific skills, but in their appreciation of the world around them. Ideally, students of science should learn to use their knowledge and skills to become caretakers of the world, preserving it and enhancing it for generations to come. We encourage science educators, who wish to help students achieve such goals, to embark on programs of research that focus upon how to best foster the growth of students’ positive attitudes and their intrinsic motivation to learn science.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks to Thomas Andre, Frank Crawley, and Linda Winter, who reviewed this chapter.
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