ABSTRACT
Student attitudes toward science have received constant research attention for a number of decades, for reasons that have changed over time. Science curriculum outcomes have for many years included attitudinal outcomes alongside knowledge and skills. Curriculum innovations and activities are often premised on evoking student interest or making science “fun” (see Appelbaum & Clark, 2001, for a critique of this construct). Yet no such concern for attitudes is evident in English or history, for example. The particular interest in attitudes toward science can be traced to the challenge for science education of fulfilling two distinct roles (Millar & Osborne, 1998). Firstly, under recent and current rubrics of “science for all” (Fensham, 1985) or scientific literacy, school science is charged with preparing future citizens to engage with science in their lives, involving an appreciation of the nature of science as a distinctive and powerful way of looking at the world. This aim has inevitable dispositional implications. On the other hand, school science is charged with preparing the next generation of scientists. These dual mandates have often been taken to be in conflict—the first involving engaging students who may not necessarily be “science disposed” in activities that attract them to science and offering a perspective on how science works in the world (Ryder, 2001). The second emphasizes serious attention to foundational concepts in the science disciplines and the enlistment of students presumed science enthusiastic to future science studies and work. But are these roles fundamentally in conflict? To what extent do they imply different framings of the curriculum and, importantly for this review, different perspectives on the role of attitudes in supporting and promoting learning? From an attitudinal perspective, the two roles might be taken to imply different emphases in terms of the target of attention to attitudes, whether this relates primarily to improving learning, promoting scientific ways of looking at the world, designing activities to maximize engagement, or enlisting students to science over the longer term.
