Journal of Science Education and Technology, Vol. 15, No. 1, March 2006 ( C 2006) DOI: 10.1007/s10956-006-0355-6

Factors Affecting Junior High School Students’ Interest in Physics1
Ricardo Trumper2,3

We report the results of a study on students’ interest in physics at the end of their compulsory schooling in Israel carried out in the framework of the ROSE Project. Factors studied were their opinions about science classes, their out-of-school experiences in physics, and their attitudes toward science and technology. Students’ overall interest in physics was “neutral” (neither positive nor negative), with boys showing a higher interest than girls. We found a strong correlation between students’ “neutral” interest in physics and their negative opinions about science classes. These findings raise serious questions about the implementation of changes made in the Israeli science curriculum in primary and junior high school, especially if the goal is to prepare the young generation for life in a scientific-technological era. A more in-depth analysis of the results led us to formulate curricular, behavioral, and organizational changes needed to reach this goal.
KEY WORDS: interest; junior high school students; physics.

INTRODUCTION As noted by Osborne et al. (2003), “the investigation of students’ attitudes towards studying science has been a substantive feature of the work of the science education research community for the past 30–40 years” (p. 1049). Its importance is emphasized by a persistent decline in post-compulsory high school science enrollment over the last two decades which has generated concern in many countries, including the UK (Smithers and Robinson, 1988), Australia (Dekkers and DeLaeter, 2001), Canada (Bordt et al., 2001), India (Garg and Gupta, 2003), Japan (Goto, 2001), the United States (National Sci1 ROSE

(The Relevance of Science Education)