Year 10 Students' Expressions of Scientific Literacy

Abstract

The aim of this project was to investigate how scientific literacy is expressed by New Zealand students in a secondary school. Using an interpretive research methodology framework, data was gathered in two stages. Firstly 95 Year 10 students completed a two question literacy activity then, 10 of these students and all of their science teachers were interviewed using semi-structured techniques. The student interviews added depth of understanding during analysis of the literacy activity which was designed to explore how the indicators of scientific literacy are expressed in student responses. The science teachers were interviewed to investigate how they used relevancy to encourage the development of scientific literacy in their Year 10 students. During this project a significant, yet indirect finding was the development of a unique analysis matrix. This matrix used descriptive indicators and enabled a fine-grained analysis of both group and individual student expressions of scientific literacy. Analysis of student responses, using two widely different contexts revealed levels of expression of scientific literacy. It was found that students express scientific literacy in complex ways and that they can exhibit multiple levels simultaneously, both within and between contexts. Factors which appeared to encourage the development of student expressions of scientific literacy were the incorporation of general literacy skills and the use of relevancy by their teachers, in science lessons.