Successful students' perceptions of secondary school science

School Science and Mathematics, Mar 1997 by John Eichinger

Method

The sample consisted of 201 students from two highly selective undergraduate institutions (two of the six Claremont Colleges, located in Claremont, California: Harvey Mudd College and Pomona College, respectively abbreviated HMC and PC). One of the colleges (HMC) specializes in the sciences and related fields, and the other (PC) is a liberal arts institution offering a variety of majors, including science. One hundred fourteen subjects were science majors (i.e., majoring in, or planning to major in any of the natural sciences, engineering, or mathematics; abbreviated SM), and 87 subjects were nonscience majors (i.e., majoring in, or planning to major in, any other field of study; abbreviated NSM). Because of the scientific specialization of HMC, SMs were drawn from both colleges (80 from HMC and 34 from PC), whereas NSMs were drawn only from PC. Subjects ranged in age from 16 to 21 years, with a mean of 18.4 years. The most frequently encountered class level was first year (n = 120), followed by sophomores (n = 45), juniors (n = 34), and seniors (n = 1). (One class level response was left blank.) The sample included 110 male subjects (SM = 80) and 91 female subjects (SM = 30).

The academic success of the participants is demonstrated by the following: (1) the extremely selective admission processes at their colleges; (2) 182 (90.5%) reported maintaining an "A" level grade-point average in high school; (3) 186 (92.5%) reported graduating in the top quartile of their high school class; (4) the mean Scholastic Aptitude Test score for the sample was 1320, with a standard deviation of 112.1; and (5) although college grade-point averages were not yet available for the many lst-year students, 95% of the older subjects reported "A" or "B" averages.

The questionnaire was developed by the investigator and in its entirety consisted of 90 items, with many of the items requesting responses for both the junior high school (JHS) and high school (HS) levels. Thus, the survey generated data on 206 closed-format variables and on one final, in-depth, open-ended item (copies of the survey questions are available from the author). Development of the questionnaire was based upon an extensive review of pertinent literature, related surveys (National Assessment of Educational Progress,1978; Yager & Penick,1986), discourse with colleagues and students, personal experience, a pretest (Kidder & Judd, 1986), and a pilot study (Eichinger, 1992). Retrospective studies have been successfully conducted by previous investigators (Bloom, 1985; Yager & Bonnstetter, 1984; Yager & Penick, 1986), and in this study the potentially deleterious effects of faulty memory were mitigated by the young ages of the subjects and the self-selecting method of survey distribution. In addition, analysis revealed few significant differences between the responses of the various classes (1 st-year through senior).

The survey was distributed during the fall semester of 1989 on a self-selecting basis through lst-year rhetoric courses at HMC and campus mail at PC (venues recommended by the two college administrations). Follow-up requests were made on both campuses, yielding acombined return rate of 70%. Questions of generalizability arising from the nonrandom nature of the survey methodology are offset by the respectable sample size and return rate (Ary, Jacobs, & Razavieh, 1972).