Pupils' attitudes towards biology, chemistry and physics in Croatian elementary education: a story of differences

The present research, a small part of which is presented in this paper, aimed to explore the nature of, and underlying factors influencing, pupils’ attitudes towards Biology, Chemistry and Physics in Croatian elementary education (Jokić, 2008). The research employed a sequential mixed model design using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. It explored the perspective and attitudes of 13-14 year old pupils, in the 7th and 8th grade, during a period in which the science curriculum differentiates into three science disciplines. For the purpose of this paper, only quantitative results will be reported and discussed. In particular, the focus of the paper is an exploration of the size of the difference in pupils’ attitudes towards the three science subjects on the dimensions of interest, comprehensibility, usefulness for present life and importance to future life. Pupils’ evaluations are characterised by a heterogeneous attitudinal scheme for the three science subjects. Analyses indicated that biology is perceived most positively, chemistry unanimously evokes negative attitudes amongst most pupils, while physics falls somewhere in between, thus confirming the general findings from international literature. The results suggest a critical need for significant change to some of the subjects’ contents as well as the consideration of a structural change to approaches to the teaching and learning of science in Croatian elementary education