Individual, Vocational, and Societal Dimensions of Relevance of Science Education

Abstract

The relevance of science education and its individual, societal, and vocational dimensions is important issues for the modern learning and teaching process in many countries. These dimensions are considered based on the data obtained from 1541 Georgian students. The study was conducted within the frames of the international ROSES project. The structure analysis of the ROSES questionnaire was conducted to define scales and individual items, which then were processed accordingly and relevant conclusions were drawn. The study findings reveal that Georgian students from basic and secondary schools demonstrate motivation and interest in learning science, participate in extracurricular activities, use social media for study aims, are concerned about environmental problems, and consider science classes interesting. However, the levels of interest, motivation, and positive attitudes are not high and the correlations between them are weak. The study shows that the vocational and societal dimensions of the relevance of science education are relatively better represented in our sample, but the individual dimension lags behind. Both structural and content findings might serve educators from similar contexts.

Keywords

• relevance in science education; basic and secondary school students; interest
• experience
• attitude to science