Making Science Make Sense

Bayer Facts of Science Education Survey

Challenges To Learning Science and Math

• While parents are quite confident their children have what it takes to succeed in science, math and engineering in school, many also believe there are challenges to learning science. When asked about such possible challenges, parents identify "boring or uninteresting science classes" as the top challenge for both their sons (51 percent) and their daughters (58 percent).
  
  In addition, parents see more challenges for their daughters than they do for their sons. More than half of the parents indicate the following are challenges ("big" or "somewhat") for their daughters:
  
  

  Challenge	Daughters	Sons
  Science classes are boring or uninteresting	58%	51%
  Teachers who are poorly qualified to teach science	57%	47%
  Few good science role models or mentors for them	56%	45%
  Science is a difficult subject to learn	54%	43%

  
  
  Issues many parents believe pose either "little" or "no challenge" for their children:
  
  

  Little or No Challenge	Daughters	Sons
  Science is not a cool subject	64%	67%
  Teachers who hold the view that their sons and daughters don't belong in science	69%	75%
  Learning science when English is not their first language	69%	70%

  
  
  *Although the details varied, under-represented minority parents also saw more challenges for their daughters than their sons. Science is a difficult subject to learn is seen as more of a challenge for daughters than sons by African-American parents (63 percent and 29 percent, respectively), Native American parents (66 percent and 51 percent, respectively) and Hispanic parents (54 percent and 27 percent, respectively).

Unless otherwise indicated, these findings refer to the national sample of 1,000 parents. In general, the responses of the under-represented minority parents were similar. Notable differences are indicated in italics where applicable.


 Back to Facts of Science XI