Stimulating Science andTechnology Competences

Through Innovative Means forTeaching and Learning

www.stimula-project.eu

Josu WaliñoElhuyar Foundation

j.walino@elhuyar.com

• STIMULA aims to develop innovative methodologies to foster aspirations towards S&T careers among pupils in secondary level education, using as a strategy the active involvement of the world of work (universities, research & innovation centres, and research & development companies) in educational activities.

• The main objective of this project is to foster the S&T vocation among the European young students (12 to 18 years old). According to PISA 2006, the interest and enjoyment of S&T is positively associated with better performance, so it is expected that the increase in the motivation towards S&T will also contribute to the improvement and development of key competences in S&T among the European young students, and to their scientific literacy.

About Stimula

Title: STIMULA. Stimulating Science and Technology competences through innovative means for teaching and learningCall: LIFELONG LEARNING PROGRAMME Centralized / COMENIUS Multilateral projects / EAC/49/2010 (European Commission,EACEA)Start: 01/11/2011Duration: 24 monthsCoordination: Elhuyar Foundation (j.walino@elhuyar.com)

• This project is managed and coordinated by the Elhuyar Foundation. Partners of the project are St. Mary’s University College, University of Zaragoza, Steinbeis, Phaenovum and Colegiul National Nicolae Titulescu.

• There are also 12 associated partners involved in the project. 12 schools from 5 different countries are participating in STIMULA: Elorrioko Institutua and Fray Juan de Zumarraga – Durango BHI from Spain, Bernat Etxepare Lizeoa and Ziburuko Kolegioa from France, St. Dominics Grammar School Belfast, Loreto College, St Michal’s Grammar School and St. Paul’s Junior High School Lurgan from the United Kindom, Freie Evangelische Schule Lörrach and Hans-Thoma Gymnasium from Germany and Colegiul National Nicolae Titulescu and Colegiul National Stefan Velovan from Romania.

Partners

• STIMULA project strategy will be to bring S&T closer to the young students and at the same time the students closer to S&T, through bidirectional collaborative initiatives between schools and agents of the world of work. The project will:

• Bring S&T to schools, through the proposal and practical implementation of curriculum extending S&T educational initiatives (in the form of live experiments and competitions based on problems). They will be carried out in the classrooms and will additionally promote team work, creativity and ICT skills.

• Take schools to S&T, through the definition of collaboration strategies, models and programmes of the schools with agents of the world of work (universities, R&D centres and companies) will be defined, in which the school students will collaborate with these external organisations in different activities (research activities, for example).

• Additionally, the project will propose specific teacher training methods and programmes, addressed to current and future S&T technology teachers, so that they can contribute to effectively foster the S&T vocation on young students.

Strategy

Methodology

Methodology

• Design of an ad hoc questionnaire, focused in perception, interest and vocations of S&T.

• 12-18 years old students

• Translated to local languages

• Different kind of items

• The questionnaires were filled by pupils in 51 classrooms of 13schools from France, Germany, Romania, Spain, and United Kingdom (1127 pupils from the five countries).

RESULTS OF THE PROJECT: FIRST QUESTIONNAIRE

Example NI questionnaires

Code Activity Questionnaire AgeNumber of questionnaires

E1Contest First questionnaire,

experimental group 11-12 y.o.33

C1Contest First questionnaire,

control group 11-12 y.o.32

E2Contest Second questionnaire,

experimental group 12-13 y.o.33

C2Contest Second questionnaire,

control group 12-13 y.o.38

E1Experiments First questionnaire,

experimental group 12-13 y.o.38

C1Experiments First questionnaire,

control group 12-13 y.o.36

E2Experiments Second questionnaire,

experimental group 13-1438

C2Experiments Second questionnaire,

control group 13-1440

E1Visit to RC First questionnaire,

experimental group 14-1526

C1Visit to RC First questionnaire,

control group 14-1531

E2Visit to RC Second questionnaire,

experimental group 15-1626

C2Visit to RC Second questionnaire,

control group 15-1628

51 groups

1795 total questionnaires

More than 1000 students of five countries

Methodology

RESULTS OF THE PROJECT: PUBLISHED REPORTS

• Teacher’s training : Competence profile, pedagogical approach and key areas of initial teacher education in post-primary science and technology

• S&T Cooperation Guideline between schools and agents of world of work

• Taking Science and Technology into schools (design of contest and experiments).

Contest• 12-14 y.o. students• Worked in teams• Each team chose one problem/topic to solve• Different topics based in local curriculum and characteristics• Prepared one work in digital format (ppt, video..)• They have four weeks to finish the work• Evaluation criteria based in

• Ability to reflect about the topic and take out conclusions • The content is appropriate and complete • Creativity, originality

• The winners received some prizes

DESIGN OF ACTIVITIES

Experiments• 14-16 y.o. students• Some experiments were proposed and the teacher chose one/some

• Black box• Rube Goldberg machine• Building a hydro-electric turbine

DESIGN OF ACTIVITIES

Visit to Research centre• 16-18 y.o. students• One day visit • The students talked with researchers

DESIGN OF ACTIVITIES

http://stimula-project.eu/results/

RESULTS

Overall conclusions

• Differences related to language, cultural background, academic curricula and others appear.

• We do not consider that the groups are representative of local, regional or national populations.

• Nevertheless, we could describe our results as rather homogeneous.

PERCEPTION ABOUT S&T

• Perception of usefulness of learning about S&T subjects is quite positive and critic.

Overall conclusions

Strongly agree, %

Agree, %

Undecided, %

Disagree, %

Strongly disagree, %

S&T should be used properly to avoid danger

25 27 31 8 2

S&T present serious risks to the world

12 8 38 25 12

Strongly agree, %

Agree, %

Undecided, %

Disagree, %

Strongly disagree, %

S&T provide the best ways to understand our world

13 50 21 13 3

S&T are increasingly complicated 13 29 29 26 3S&T make life enjoyable 24 32 32 5 3

Basque Country (French System), 13-14 years old

Northern Ireland (UK system), 12-13 years old

Level of agreement (percentage) of pupils with the following statements

Level of agreement (percentage) of pupils with the following statements

PERCEPTION ABOUT S&T

• Although many typical stereotypes about people working in S&T (“men”, “boring”, “strange”) are rejected, some of them related with “difficulty” are in some sense accepted (“hard-working”, “competitive”, “addicted to work”, “very vocational”).

Overall conclusions

Strongly agree, %

Agree, %

Undecided, %

Disagree, %

Strongly disagree, %

are typically boring 0 10 34 24 31are typically men 10 21 28 31 10are typically creative 21 38 24 10 0typically work in a laboratory 7 34 28 28 3are typically competitive 3 14 34 21 28are typically hard-working 10 48 41 0 0are typically strange 3 21 24 31 21are typically addicted to their work 7 21 34 28 10

Germany, 14-15 years old

Level of agreement of pupils with the following statements: “People who have a career in S&T…”

PERCEPTION ABOUT S&T

• Although many typical stereotypes about people working in S&T (“men”, “boring”, “strange”) are rejected, some of them related with “difficulty” are in some sense accepted (“hard-working”, “competitive”, “addicted to work”, “very vocational”).

Overall conclusions

Basque Country (Spanish system), 14-15 years old

% “True”Earn a lot of money 33Think it is worthwhile 89Enjoyed studying it 78Believe others think it is worthwhile 67Can become famous 0Get the opportunity to travel 11

Percentage of pupils who believe that people choose S&T as a career for the following reasons

INTEREST IN S&T

• Pupils are both interested in S&T related issues in their life and in studying S&T subjects.

Overall conclusions

Very interested, %

Fairly interested, %

Not very interested, %

Disinterested, % (no.)

Food/consumer issues 8 19 48 19Science/technology 52 40 8 0Movies 10 42 33 6Art/culture 6 63 17 8Sports 23 27 33 10Economy/business 10 46 29 8Education 65 21 8 2Medicine/health 71 21 6 0Environment 44 38 10 4Politics 4 2 44 50Famous people 8 23 46 19

Level of interest (percentage) of pupils in the following areas of life

Romania, 16-17 years old

INTEREST IN S&T

• Pupils like S&T school activities as experiments, projects and trips. Others as competitions or speakers are usually interesting just for a minority.

Overall conclusions

Germany, 13-14 years old

Yes, %Competitions 12Experiments 67Research projects 45Speakers 20Trips 53Assemblies 4Displays 27

Percentage of pupils who are interested in the following S&T activities at school

INTEREST IN S&T

• Although pupils usually get information from teachers and parents about those items, many of them get that kind of information from television, Google and YouTube too.

Overall conclusions

Northern Ireland (UK system), 14-15 years old

Use (percentage of all pupils) of the following methods for getting information on S&T

Always, % Sometimes, % Never, %7.a Television 38 62 07.b Radio 0 69 317.f Encyclopaedias 31 38 317.g Educational software programmes 38 50 127.i Teachers 65 35 07.j Parent/guardian 42 50 87.k Blogs/on-line discussion forums 12 42 467.m Twitter 8 23 697.n Facebook 19 31 507.o Google 38 54 87.p YouTube 19 58 237.q Other 4 69 27

VOCATIONS

Overall conclusions

Very interested, %

Fairly interested, %

Not very interested, %

Disinterested, % (no.)

Food/consumer issues 8 19 48 19Science/technology 52 40 8 0Movies 10 42 33 6Art/culture 6 63 17 8Sports 23 27 33 10Economy/business 10 46 29 8Education 65 21 8 2Medicine/health 71 21 6 0Environment 44 38 10 4Politics 4 2 44 50Famous people 8 23 46 19

Level of interest (percentage) of pupils in the following areas of life

Romania, 16-17 years old

Yes, %Doctor 69Researcher 31Engineer 17Judge 27Lawyer 27Sports person 15Artist 19Journalist 15Business person 54Teacher 8Politician 10Inventor 23Designer 27Other 38

Percentage of pupils who are interested in the following future careers

GENDER CONSIDERATIONS

• In general, the gender influence is small, and perceptions, interest and vocations related with S&T of male and female pupils are very homogeneous.

• In some cases female pupils show more interest towards issues related with art/culture and health, towards the biology as an academic subject, and less interest towards Electronics and Engineering.

• These tendencies are small and for many groups don’t apply.

Overall conclusions

EFFECT OF THE STIMULA ACTIVITIES

• For all the regions, all the activities and all the ages, the effects of the STIMULA activities on the survey results are minor.

• Interest previous to the activity was already medium/high

• Duration of the pilots

• This does not mean short-term activities are “useless”

• Previous experiences of partners indicate that long term activities has actual effect

Overall conclusions

MOST INTERESTING RESULTS

• There is a pretty nice correlation between interest towards S&T and perception of the usefulness of S&T.

• More interest doesn’t imply more vocations.• Why more interest seems not to be connected with more

vocations? • Can additional school activities contribute to increase

vocations? If it is so, how?• Design of activities to increase interest or to foster

vocations should be different?

• “Difficulty” of S&T subjects scare the pupils off?

Overall conclusions

SOME SUGGESTIONS…

• Change the message that studying S&T will only be useful for developing a career in S&T.

• Post-Secondary studies in S&T areas are a very nice general preparation for any job.

• Additional S&T school activities should include a wider view of S&T subjects as one of the best ways to be prepared, not only for S&T careers, but for any career in a world that is increasingly depending on S&T.

Overall conclusions

Josu Waliño j.walino@elhuyar.comDanel Solabarrieta d.solabarrieta@elhuyar.com

Jesús I. Martinez jimartin@unizar.es

www.stimula-project.eu

Josu WaliñoElhuyar Foundation

j.walino@elhuyar.com