Nuffield Curriculum Centre

Science issues

The ROSE project

www.ils.uio.no

The ROSE project has been exploring pupils' attitudes to science and has come up with some striking results.

ROSE project logoThe papers that you can download from the English publications section of the ROSE web site are interesting, particularly the one called How do learners in different cultures relate to science and technology? Results and perspectives from the project ROSE (the Relevance of Science Education).

The sample results in this paper show in some instances a near perfect (-0.92) negative correlation between young people's attitudes to aspects of science and the human development index (HDI) in the country where they live.

One of the remarkable things about ROSE is the worldwide participation. The findings raise a number of issues:

• To what extent should findings of ROSE be taken into account alongside TIMSS and PISA?


• How far should the voice of the learner (as revealed by ROSE) be taken into account in curriculum design?


• Do findings of ROSE suggest that attempts by curriculum projects to improve attitudes to science are likely to be doomed to failure?




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