Una evaluación de las actitudes relacionadas con la ciencia

Resum

A taxonomy of science related attitudes with four basic dimensions (global image, social aspects, school aspects, and science characteristics) has been assessed by means of a questionnaire, made independently of the taxonomy. The aim is to show how the use of the taxonomy allows us to overcome the méthodologie and conceptual difficulties in the measurement of attitudes. Applied to a representative sample of secondary and university students, the results show a moderately positive attitude and some significant attitudinal differences among the taxonomy’s dimensions. The image of science dimension has the best attitudinal mean score, while the social aspect dimension has the worst score. Attitudes towards school aspects of science and the characteristics of scientific knowledge elicit intermediate attitudinal scores. Science teachers can find in this paper some patterns and instruments to assess the students’ science related attitudes.