Study of scientific workshops for students conducted in the context of a school-university partnership

International audienceThis work focuses on the development of a tool that aims to better understand how scientific workshops conducted by university researchers are helping to provide a scientific literacy to students between 10 and 17 years old. This study presents firstly a methodology for developing an inquiry, and also focuses on the first data analysis. It is based on a questionnaire of 91 assertions, associated with four choices (referring to a Likert scale) to test students' opinions on scientific research on an epistemological, social and personal level. This inquiry was distributed to 227 students (aged 14 to 17) and internal consistency of the questions was checked. We present here the most significant results according the three levels of analysis: epistemological, socio-economy and personal. On the epistemological level, students acknowledge science as a human construction in permanent evolution. However, the ideas of challenges and dynamics of research obtained more mixed answers. About social level, students recognize that science is conducted in connection with the needs of society, but they have an elitist view of science. Concerning the result about divulgation of science, the students say the public is not sufficiently informed, because researchers don't make enough effort to popularize their work. As expected, personal level obtained the most negative responses, the majority of students have a disaffection for science and do not intend to follow a career in science. Finally, this work reflects the importance of a school-university partnership, because it is a possible way to develop students' ideas about the nature of science and scientific work