ISEN-ASTC-L is a service of the Association of Science-Technology Centers
Incorporated, a worldwide network of science museums and related institutions.
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Dear all,

 

I recently sent out information about the following study.  The
Association of Science-Technology Centers distributed this summary,
which has more statistics in it.  I thought you would enjoy seeing more
of the details.

 

Dennis 

 

 

SCIENCE CAREER PREDICTOR-One question asked of U.S. eighth graders when
the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) was launched in 1988
was "What kind of work do you expect to be doing when you are 30?" A
team from the University of Virginia's science education department has
analyzed data from the initial and the 2000 NELS surveys, looking for
correlation between expressed work preference and ultimate college
degree. In the May 26 issue
<http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/educationforum/>  of Science (free to
AAAS members), assistant professor Robert Tai and colleagues report that
among a random sample of 3,359 NELS participants who finished college,
those who expected at 13 to have a science career were two times more
likely to have graduated with a degree in a life science (29% vs. 18%)
and three times more likely to have a degree in the physical
sciences/engineering (34% vs. 10%) than those with other career
expectations. Math achievement, a focus of today's high-stakes testing,
was not as strong a predictor: High math scores showed no correlation
with life science degrees for either group, and for physical
sciences/engineering, the probability that a high math achiever with a
nonscience career expectation would take a degree was 19% (vs. 34% for
science-interested students with average math ability). Tai's
conclusion: "We should pay close attention to children's early exposure
to science at the middle and even younger grades." - This summary is
from ASTC's SCAN Publication

 

"Work hard to find something that fascinates you. When you find it you
will know your lifework" -- Richard Feynman

Dennis Schatz, Vice President for Education

Pacific Science Center, 200 Second Ave. No., Seattle, WA 98109

Phone - 206-443-2867; Fax - 206-443-3631

Pacific Science Center

A non-profit bringing science and kids together

in every county of Washington State

 

 


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