Boring science
Terry Lyons from the University of New England, Australia has looked at studies of secondary students' attitudes towards science to find out what makes school science boring.
Each of the studies was prompted by declining applications to university science degree courses. The data from each country were gathered through student interviews, which covered the same issues and were done with comparable groups of students.
Lyons' analysis of the data showed that the experiences of students in the three countries were remarkably similar. He identified three major themes that contribute to their discontentment with science. The first is the method of teaching, which the studies showed to be predominantly submissive with students listening to the teacher and filling in gaps in workbooks.
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