LA CIENCIA ESCOLAR VISTA POR LOS ESTUDIANTES

Abstract

This study shows the attitude of upper secondary students toward school science. The students’ attitude is intermediate, displaying a slightly negative global tendency. The desire of becoming scientist or technologist and the contribution of school science to make more critical and more sceptical students display the most negative attitudes; the most positive attitudes are centred in the utility of the school science, its interest, and the fact that students like school science more than other subjects and school science increases curiosity. The differences of attitude according to gender, science election or the amount of books at home show that the second variable is the most important because it generates more significant differences than the others do. The psychometric structure of the questionnaire shows a dominant main factor and three emergent factors, which display simple interpretation and good reliability. The implications for the scientific education are interpreted and discussed.