Written evidence submitted to the Science Communication Inquiry of the Science and Technology Committee, by Professor Louise Archer & Dr. Julie Moote, ASPIRES 2 Project, King’s College London

Executive summary

1.      This submission presents new analyses from the ASPIRES 2 project’s national survey of 13,421 Year 11 students (age 15/16 years old). It details our findings on young people’s views of STEM and the factors shaping student choices of post-16 STEM, to inform the Committee’s understanding of this area.

2.      Specifically, this written evidence addresses the Committee’s call for evidence on: the communication strategies being taken to encourage young people to study STEM subjects in higher and further education and to encourage those young people into STEM careers[i].

3.      Key findings:

• Many existing communication strategies are missing the point: Our findings suggest that some of the most popular science communication efforts aimed at encouraging young people to continue into post-16 STEM (e.g. ‘making science fun/ interesting’, ‘meeting scientists’) may be missing the main factors that influence STEM participation.
• Lack of interest in science is not a key factor driving student choices: Most young people, from primary through secondary, find school science interesting and most students express positive views of scientists.
• But - interest in science and positive views of scientists do not translate into post-16 participation and careers. Indeed, our surveys show that science and engineering aspirations are less popular than, for instance, ‘business’, ‘design’ and ‘celebrity’.
• Most young people have a limited view of where science can lead: many struggle to name any careers (beyond ‘scientist’ or ‘doctor’) that science qualifications might lead to. Yet, analysis shows that young people who see science as useful for their future are over fourteen times more likely to plan to study that science at A level.
• Communication efforts may be improving young people’s views of engineering careers in general – but not with respect to gender. Engineering is one of the few careers that seems to gain in popularity from age 11-16 however, the profile of students aspiring to engineering remains overwhelmingly male
• Science – but particularly Physics – is still being communicated as elite and only for the ‘brainy’ few – a message that is conveyed across popular media and through the education system. This impacts particularly negatively on girls, working-class and some minority ethnic students.

4.      Key recommendations:

• Science communication efforts should foreground transferability messages – efforts need to convey to young people and parents that ‘science is useful for any career’.
• Science communication efforts should explicitly challenge the ‘brainy’ image of science, especially Physics.
• Science communication efforts could usefully seek to build young people’s ‘science capital’.
• More needs to be done still with regard to challenging the white, male, middle-class image of science.
• Science communication is only part of the issue: change also needs to be made to the education system and to STEM cultures if we are to support more (and more diverse) young people into post-16 science education and careers.

Introduction – the ASPIRES 2 research project

5.      The ASPIRES 2 project is the second phase of a major national longitudinal research project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (REF: ES/L002841/1), investigating young people’s science aspirations and career choices age 10-19. ASPIRES 2 is the second phase of the study, extending the tracking of the cohort from 14-19.

6.      Findings from the first phase of the study, focusing on children from age 10-14, can be found via the following link: www.bit.ly/ASPIRESReport

7.      ASPIRES 2 commenced in February 2014 and will complete in 2019.

8.      The project is led by Professor Louise Archer (Professor of Sociology of Education) and the project team comprises: Dr Julie Moote (project research associate), Prof. Becky Francis (KCL), Dr. Jennifer DeWitt (KCL), Prof. Jonathan Osborne (Stanford, USA), Ms. Emily MacLeod (administrator) and Ms. Lucy Yeomans (PhD student)

9.      The project involves large national surveys of the student cohort (over 32,000 surveys to date) and in-depth longitudinal interviews with a tracked subsample of students and parents. This submission of evidence is based on findings from the most recent survey of 13,000+ Year 11 students (age 15/16, GCSE year) and interview data, which covered students’ views of careers education and work experience.

Evidence Base

10.  Aspire2 survey samples: Our Aspires projects are part of a ten year, longitudinal tracking of a cohort of students in England from age 10 (Year 6) to age 18 (Year 13), with surveys conducted in Years 6, 8, 9, 11 and 13 with over 30,000 students to date. The data reported in this submission primarily relates to the most recent survey which was conducted with students in Year 11 (age 15/16 years) in academic year 2014/15. Surveys were completed by 13,421[ii] students who were recruited from 340 secondary schools in England (296 state schools and 44 independent). This sample represented all regions of the country and was roughly proportional to the overall national distribution of schools in England as measured by attainment and proportion of students eligible for free school meals.

11.  Aspires2 interview sample: The reported interview data pertains to 132 interviews which were conducted with 70 students and 62 parents (all of who had been previously tracked and re-interviewed at regular intervals since students were at primary school, age 10/11). The most recent interviews were conducted with students in Year 11 (aged 15/16)

12.  On the survey, students were asked questions about: (1) aspirations; (2) attitudes toward school science; (3) images of scientists; (4) self-concept in science; (5) participation in science-related activities; (6) parental attitudes to science; (7) peer attitudes; (8) subject preferences; (9) careers education and work experience.

Key Findings

13.  Many existing communication strategies are missing the point: A mapping of STEM interventions, conducted by the Targeted Initiative on Science and Mathematics Education (TISME)[iii], identified the main approaches for encouraging young people to continue with STEM as being: ‘making science fun/ interesting’, ‘meeting scientists’ and ‘broadening horizons’. However, as detailed next, our evidence suggests that many such approaches may be missing the main factors that influence STEM participation.

14.  Lack of interest in science is not a key factor driving student choices: Data from over 30,000 young people across the four Aspires surveys show a fairly consistent pattern from primary through secondary school, with the majority of young people agreeing that they find school science interesting (e.g. 74% in Year 6, 58% in Y11).

15.  Negative views of scientists are not widespread: Our survey evidence shows that only a small proportion of students express negative stereotypical views about scientists. For instance, the Y11 survey data shows that:

• Only 20% agree that scientists are geeks
• 20% agree that scientists spend most of the time working alone
• 19% agree that scientists are usually men
• 14% agree that scientists don’t have many other interests
• 13% agree that scientists are odd

16.  Most young people express positive views of scientists: For instance, the Y11 survey data shows that:

• 77% of students think that scientists make a difference in the world
• 75% think scientists do valuable work
• 56% think scientists are respected in this country
• 54% think scientists make a lot of money

17.  But - interest in science and positive views of scientists do not follow through into post-16 participation and careers: Our findings might suggest that existing science communication strategies are ‘working’ in that most young people are finding science interesting and hold positive views of scientists. However, they do not seem to be impacting on progression into post-16 science and STEM careers.

18.  Few young people aspire to a career in science: Despite high interest and positive views of scientists, few young people aspire to become a scientist – a figure which stays remarkably constant from age 10 (16.7%) to age 16 (13.7%).

19.  Science aspirations are less popular than other areas: We asked students for their aspirations in a range of ways, including their views on different career areas. Of the thirteen job areas that we specifically asked about, ‘scientist’ (13.7%) was the second least popular (just ahead of hair and beauty, 12.7%). The most popular area was business, which 58.7% of Y11 students agreed that they would like to do. This was followed by design (33.6%) and celebrity (32.5%). More encouragingly, 28.7% of 15/16 year olds agreed that they would like to become an engineer – although this latter group was overwhelmingly comprised of boys.

• Most young people have a limited view of where science can lead: There are numerous and varied communication efforts directed at informing young people where STEM qualifications can lead and the range of STEM careers that are available (‘broadening horizons’ approaches). However, our data suggest that most young people struggle to name any careers (beyond ‘scientist’ and careers in medicine) that science qualifications might lead to. As two of our interviewees put it:
• “I don’t know what people with Physics do for a living, honestly.” (Clay, 16 year old boy)
• “I mean when everybody thinks of Science they pretty much think of oh you’re going to be a scientist or a science teacher.” (Lucy, 16 year old girl)

20.  The importance of communicating the ‘transferable’ nature of science qualifications: Our data show that most young people do not understand the transferability of science qualifications. For instance, young people commonly feel that it is only worth taking science post-16 if you want to be a scientist or doctor and most struggle to name jobs that science can lead to beyond these fields. In comparison, analysis of our survey data shows that those young people who see science as useful for their future are much more likely to plan to study that science at A level: for instance, students who agree that studying Physics can help them in the future are 14 times more likely to intend to study Physics at A-levels (this increases to 15 times more likely in the case of Biology and 17 times more likely in the case of Chemistry). We interpret these findings as suggesting that while communications have informed young people more broadly (and in positive ways) about scientists and their work, the new challenge is to flag the transferability of science skills and qualifications for a wider range of careers – both in and beyond STEM.

21.  Keeping options open is important for many young people: About a third of our interviewees explicitly talked about wanting to choose subjects that keep their options open. As Isabel (16 year old girl) explained regarding her GCSE and A level choices: “I’m trying to keep my options open now”.

22.  Communication efforts may be improving young people’s views of engineering careers in general – but not with respect to gender. Data from our surveys suggests that engineering is one of the few careers that seems to gain in popularity over time (e.g. 25.6% of Year 9 students and 28.7% of Y11 students agreed that they would like to work in this field). However, increasing levels of interest in engineering do not reflect a widening of interest in this areas, with the profile of students aspiring to engineering-related careers remaining overwhelmingly male (with a large effect size of .86 – a figure that far outweighs the small gender effect size for science aspirations, .16).

23.  Science – but particularly Physics – is still being communicated as elite and only for the ‘brainy’ few: Science (especially Physics) is routinely communicated (and seen by young people) as being for the ‘brainy’ few:

• The majority of young people (e.g. 80% of Y6-Y9 students and 76% of Y11 students) agree that scientists are ‘brainy’. As one of our interviewees put it: “Yeah I think there’s definitely this idea that you can only do Physics if you’re like super, super clever” (Kate, 16 year old girl).
• Young people identified pervasive representations of science/ scientists as ‘brainy’, including in the media (e.g. popular TV shows like The Big Bang Theory; representations of TV celebrity scientists, like Professor Brian Cox) and the education system (e.g. educational practices such as the ‘streaming’ of students into different science routes – such as Double or Triple award science at KS4; grade severity in Physics at A level). Many other forms of science communication (e.g. competitions, promotional materials, interventions and outreach work) also reinforce the message that science and scientists are closely associated with ‘cleverness’. The problem with this widely communicated and held view is that it leads the majority of young people to see science as something that is ‘interesting- but not for me’, being only the preserve of the ‘brainiest’ few.
• Moreover, girls and students from working-class and some minority ethnic backgrounds are among those who are least likely to self-identify as ‘brainy’, irrespective of their actual levels of attainment. Significantly more boys than girls aspire to science careers – a pattern that increases with age.

Conclusions and Recommendations:  What should science communication focus on to improve STEM participation?

24.  Focus on transferability messages – convey to young people and parents that ‘science is useful for any career’: Our data suggest that efforts could be usefully further broadened, to better convey the transferability of STEM qualifications for careers beyond STEM. For instance, rather than primarily focusing on conveying messages about jobs in science, STEM communication should also convey the ways in which these qualifications (and the skills associated with these areas) ‘keep options open’ and are ‘useful for any job’.

25.  Challenge the ‘brainy’ image of science, especially Physics: the ‘brainy’ image of science puts many young people off and could usefully be opened up by science communication, to enable a broader cross-section of students to see science as potentially something that they could do and could benefit from studying. However, communication efforts alone will not be sufficient and need to be accompanied by changes in educational policy to enable wider participation in post-16 science (e.g. addressing the stratification of students at Key Stage 4 through double/ triple science routes and addressing grade severity in A Level Physics).

26.  Focus communication on building young people’s ‘science capital’: Our Aspires study evidence suggests that a young person with high levels of ‘science capital’[iv] (science-related knowledge, understanding, attitudes, behaviours and social contacts) is much more likely to plan to continue with at least one science post-16. Findings from a national survey conducted by our Enterprising Science sister project shows that 5% of 11-15 year olds have high science capital and a worryingly large 27% have low science capital. The Enterprising Science project is currently developing and trialling approaches for teachers and educators to help them to build young people’s science capital[v].

27.  Continue to challenge the white, male, middle-class image of science: Our findings suggest that more still needs to be done to democratise the culture and image of science.

28.  Recognise that communication is only part of the issue: Arguably, there is little point in investing significant time and effort into encouraging more young people to continue with science when the educational system remains highly selective and continues to ‘stream’ the majority of students out of science from age 13/14[vi]. In this respect, we suggest that those with an interest in science communication may wish to consider the critiques of the current system that are being discussed within STEM education circles. Likewise, if communication efforts are to attract a broader base of young people into science then STEM organisations and cultures will need to become more equitable and inclusive.

Author contact details:

Professor Louise Archer, Department of Education and Professional Studies, King’s College London, SE1 9NH. Email: louise.archer@kcl.ac.uk

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