Students ditching science in droves (1 Viewer)

[Rafy]

http://www.smh.com.au/national/educ...students-studying-science-20111220-1p3z4.html

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...cience-in-droves/story-e6frg8y6-1226227095267

THE proportion of students studying science in Year 12 has almost halved in the past two decades, with a report from the Australian Academy of Science saying teenagers find the subject boring.
The report says more than 90 per cent of Year 12 students studied science in the early 1990s, but by last year the participation rate had dropped to about 50 per cent.​

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Any theories?

 

[michaeljennings]

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...cience-in-droves/story-e6frg8y6-1226227095267

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Any theories?

wow lol thats interesting haha. For me I never liked science because it made me think of scientists who wear white coats and run tests and shit which seemed kinda boring. But I do like the scientist by coldplay

 

[Phoenix Fury]

Apathy plus general carelessness for education and worldly understanding probably.

 

[brent012]

Well besides the fact there is a far greater amount of subjects to chose from nowadays it could be because junior science focusses too much on biology. If there were more physics/chemistry topics people might be more likely to pick them for 11/12. The science subjects have a reputation among a lot of people as being difficult and to some "physics" sounds a lot harder or boring than it actually is lol.

 

[JennaJameson]

i loved science

twas the best

 

[kaz1]

Yeah people are too scared to give Physics and Chemistry a go. They're really not that bad.

 

[Phoenix Fury]

I love physics theory, went shit in it though cos the maths was beyond my capabilities.

 

[brent012]

I love physics theory, went shit in it though cos the maths was beyond my capabilities.

Maths in physics is really not that bad, makes up a small part of the syllabus - according to my teacher this wasnt the case awhile ago. If you can pass 2 unit mathematics, maths in physics is no problem. Some general people have difficulties with it though, tbh i think it's sad that people can get band 6s in "math" but not have the common sense to realise 1/infinity = ~0 or the ability to solve a quadratic without the calculator doing it for them.

 

[RivalryofTroll]

How is this possible? There's like 6 different sciences that are available - Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Senior Science, Earth & Environmental Science and Agriculture.
What are the statistics for History and Social Science?

 

[Phoenix Fury]

Maths in physics is really not that bad, makes up a small part of the syllabus - according to my teacher this wasnt the case awhile ago. If you can pass 2 unit mathematics, maths in physics is no problem. Some general people have difficulties with it though, tbh i think it's sad that people can get band 6s in "math" but not have the common sense to realise 1/infinity = ~0 or the ability to solve a quadratic without the calculator doing it for them.

No joke, I bet anything and everything I ever have had and may have in the future I got less than 20/120 raw in 2u maths exam 2009.
My internal mark was somewhere around 50% (that said I was ranked like 11/23 overall lol (at least 8 (maybe more) of the ten people who beat me were doing 3u).

 

[brent012]

How is this possible? There's like 6 different sciences that are available - Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Senior Science, Earth & Environmental Science and Agriculture.
What are the statistics for History and Social Science?

Are they including Ag in this though?

Btw i think the data is slightly biased. Idk for sure but how many students in the 90s had multiple science subjects? I wouldn't be surprised if there has been a shift from almost everyone feeling they need at least one science subject to a a number of people voluntarily picking a few. The stats included doesn't seem to account for how many different science subjects people are doing.

No joke, I bet anything and everything I ever have had and may have in the future I got less than 20/120 raw in 2u maths exam 2009.
My internal mark was somewhere around 50% (that said I was ranked like 11/23 overall lol (at least 8 (maybe more) of the ten people who beat me were doing 3u).

Haha dw, i got 50% average internal mark in 2u as well. Think i got 40-55% raw too. Need to brush up on my maths for uni though - literally put in no effort.

 

[Rixon]

- government forces all the dickheads to stick around for the hsc

- science subjects seem too smart or nerdy or uncool for them...
- they decide to take more artsy subjects or vet courses etc

eg. the year below ours. even all our science, maths and english teachers (as well as their own year coordinator) believe that their year is the start of more "trade" subjects that teach life or job skills (pretty much most vet courses) rather than the traditional subjects of science and maths

 

[Riproot]

i loved science

twas the best

This.

Also, maybe it's because people are getting dumber.

 

[someth1ng]

It's probably from the notion that the Sciences are extremely hard - atleast the ones that are offered at most schools (Physics, Chemistry and Biology). Also, I think it's also due to the dislike of Science in Year 7-10.

 

[Bored_of_HSC]

This.

Also, maybe it's because people are getting dumber.

Sorta this, but more that we're getting lazy as shit.

 

[smik11]

The science teachers may be shit ... like at my school

 

[Nerdygirl]

Its a viscious cycle: slightly less kids do science, school decides to reduce or cut funding for courses that are less popular, science courses become unable to keep students interest due to an inability to provide resourses especially for the often more intersting practicals, students get annoyed, tell other students not to do science and the cycle repeats its self. Too it can be seen that often in lower ranking schools science students recieve the raw end of the deal when it comes to atars with low scoring cohorts causing higher scoring students to suffer, whereas social science and humanities are often seen to be easier to do well in therefore atar bosting causing the shift away from science.

 

[LoveHateSchool]

Kids aren't really encouraged to do a science anymore. Only the people wanting to do something at uni with science do it, and often these people are passionate enough to do two or three. People are discouraged from doing it unless they are really good at science, because of the perceived difficulty of Phys/Chem especially.

Also in lower rank schools, science tends to be a neglected department, with rarely any good results.

See Eng is compulsory, maths is still quite encouraged (although not as much as it used to be) but sciences are not. Kids tend to fill up the rest of their courses with humanities, VETs or artsy subjects.

 

[Amaranth_]

I think its because they don't offer Biochemistry in Years 11-12.

Biochemistry as in a complete course, not something you do on your own time in year12 as a sub elective..

 

[Carrotsticks]

Similar to NerdyGirl, I agree that there's a vicious negative spiral in the Education system.

1. There are fewer people doing Sciences and hence less science/maths teachers.

2. Since there are less science/maths teachers, the BOS (real one lol) has to compensate by lowering the standards, and even hiring overseas teachers. Some of these teachers are excellent, whereas the majority have poor English skills and fail to inspire students.

3. Due to the lowered standard for teachers, we have more and more teachers who just think of their job as a way of making money, and have no intention of interesting to their students or inspiring them to take Science into tertiary education.

4. As a result of #4, students have a poor opinion of the sciences and think "wtf this is crap, I'm not going to become a teacher"

5. Students graduate and do other subjects apart from sciences. Very few go into Education.

6. Back to step #1.

This cycle is also facilitated by the fact that teachers make fairly low salaries compared to other industries. In other countries with excellent Education systems like Switzerland, teachers are very well respected and their salaries are higher (although they pay much higher taxes than in Australia).

If more money were put into teachers salaries, then perhaps it would attract more people, and hence reverse this cycle. If there were some way to make the Education system competitive, and salaries are dependent on teaching abilities, then this would most certainly reverse the cycle. However, this also raises the issue of Education in schools such as Birrong Boys vs James Ruse and how grading the teachers in both schools cannot be done equally etc.

Every time there is a potential solution, there is always a big problem that arises from it.

tl;dr Increase teacher salaries, attract more people to do education, we get good teachers, good teachers make good students, good students go back into education and science, rinse and repeat infinitely.