New Perspectives in Science Education

According to the current science education, the authenticity of the learning subjects and of the assessment questions is essential for an effective teaching of science. These ideas belong to the large framework of context-based science education (CBSE; Bennett et al, 2007), which underlines the important role of authenticity for both motivation and cognitive activation of learners. In the same line, the 2006 science PISA report insists on the “relevance to students’ interests and lives” of the chosen PISA units (OECD, 2007, p36) to assess young people scientific literacy. Although the “factual” authenticity of the PISA science units (i.e. the existence of real-life links) is undoubtable, the assumption that they are authentic and relevant to learners (in particular of secondary level I) - and to teachers - is more arguable.

This contribution reports about an empirical study of pupils perceptions of the authenticity and other motivational variables as science related interest and self-belief of published PISA science units related to the physical sciences. Moreover, teachers were also surveyed on their assumptions on the pupils’ authenticity perception and expressed interest. The motivational variables in question were studied on the basis of well-established instruments, within a sample of 150 pupils of secondary level I (14-15 years) and 20 physics teachers. For pupils, covariates such as gender, age and educational level were taken into account, and the results analyzed with ANCOVA.

Results show that, for the available PISA units, pupils perceive interest and even more authenticity as relatively low, contrary to the basic assumption of PISA, and that there is a large gap (often by factors > 1½ on the used questionnaire) to the perceptions by teachers. Furthermore, a gap is also present between teachers’ assumptions on pupils’ perceptions and expressed pupils’ perceptions. Some possible influences (units’ subjects, subject covariates) are discussed, as well as some implications of these findings for both practice and research.