The different typologies describing the interest of Brazilian youth in Science

Abstract

It is essential understanding students’ interests to help improving the teaching-learning process. Therefore, investigations aimed at understanding how young people think and feel about Science and Technology have emerged. One of these initiatives lies on the project called Barômetro Brasil, which is a 4-point Likert scale questionnaire comprising 96 questions that investigate the interest of young people in Science and Technology, among other things. The current study used data generated through the application of Barômetro Brasil to 2,404 students in the age group 15 years in 2014; thus, these students were used as a representative sample of the Brazilian young population in this age group. Four (4) different typologies of Brazilian students were found based on the k-means clustering method: Reluctant, Enthusiast, Unselective Undecided, Selective Undecided. Furthermore , the interest of each typology was analyzed based on six different topics such as Health, Mystery, Scientific innovations, Agriculture, Science and Scientists, and Technology, which were determined based on the hierarchical clustering method. It was possible concluding that topics such as Mystery and Scientific innovations presented the greatest potential to boost students’ intrinsic motivation, since they were the ones recording above average interest rates in all four typologies.

Keywords

• interesse em ciências
• motivação intriseca
• tipologia de estudantes
• barômetro brasil