Learning Science: What's Curiosity Got To Do With It?

尽管对科学家和工程师的需求比以往任何时候都多，但很少有学生渴望从事这些职业，相反，他们认为学校的科学太“聪明”或“适合其他人”。教师们经常被鼓励把科学作为一种知识体系来学习，而不是探索世界的一种方式。那些做得好的学生是那些最善于积累事实的人。如果有另一种学习科学的方法呢？如果学校强调对新事物的渴望，对探索的渴望，会怎么样？我的研究旨在研究好奇心在学习科学中所起的作用。如何衡量好奇心？它会随着时间的推移而改变吗？是什么让学生对科学充满好奇？它能帮助学生在学校里学好科学吗？这些就是我想回答的问题。我的研究将在英国的一所中学进行，并将使用问卷数据和访谈相结合的方法来发现好奇心是否有助于学生在一年的时间里在科学方面取得进步。我会发现一年后他们在问卷上的分数是否有变化，同时也会采访他们，看看课堂上发生了什么让他们产生好奇心。如果我们能发现是什么让学生产生好奇心，我们就可以开始改变我们向年轻人展示科学的方式。

While there is more demand than ever for scientists and engineers, few schoolstudents aspire to those careers, instead seeing school science as too 'brainy' or 'forother people'. Teachers are often encouraged to present science as a body ofknowledge to learn rather than a way of exploring the world. Those students who dowell are those who are best at accumulating the facts.What if there was another way to learn science? What if schools emphasised ahunger to find out something new, a desire to explore?My research sets out to look at the role that curiosity plays in learning science. Howcan we measure curiosity? Does it change over time? What makes students curiousabout science? Does it help students to do well in science at school? These are thequestions I want to answer.My study will take place in a secondary school in England, and will use acombination of questionnaire data and interviews to find out if being curious helpsstudents to make progress in science over the course of a year. I'll find out if theirscores on the questionnaire a year later change, as well as interviewing them to findout what happens in lessons to make them curious.If we can discover what makes students curious, we can start to change the way wepresent science to young people.