1997 Fiscal Year Final Research Report Summary

Research for women's roles at home and school in the science field

Research Project

Project/Area Number	07680208
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Section	一般
Research Field	Science education
Research Institution	Japan Women's University
Principal Investigator	SHIMOMURA Kyoko Japan Women's University, Fac.of Science, Assistant, 理学部, 助手 (20257067)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	KODATE Kashiko Japan Women's University, Fac.of Science, Professor, 理学部, 教授 (20060668)
Project Period (FY)	1995 – 1997
Keywords	education in the science and technology / course-taking / home, school and society / womens' success in the society
Research Abstract	We carried out investigations by questionnaire on awareness of technology and unpopularity of science as one's special field throughtout three years since the Heisei 7th academic year. The results show that mothers' awareness and environment have a great impact on their children's decision-making for their courses. Thus it is proved that education for women is highly essential for bringing up the future capable persons in the science field. In addition, women play the important roles in the school education. In the science field, especially in the physical one, it is desired that there should be more woman teachers as models. Furthemore in the Heisei 9th academic year, we made an analysis of this reserach theme and the results are shown as follows. 1) Following the Heisei 7th and 8th year, we made the same questionnaires on awareness of technology and unpopularity of science from July to August, 1997. This study was targeted at 100 students in the faculty of Science, Japan Women's Univer … More sity and 150 students under the correspondence course. The collecting rate was 97%. 2) Having taken the previous outcomes, which show that students tend to dislike science since the primary school age, into consideration, we made inquiry about the present conditions of science education at prrimary schools. 3) Simultaneously, we furthered this research by interviewing primary school teachers. The tendency is shown that students at the schools under investigation start to dislike science from the 8th grades. At the same time it is ensured that this trend greatly affects their decisions not to take further course. 4) By inputting the data into the computer, we obtained the visualized outcomes, adding the interpretations. 5) We concluded that home, school and society have mutually interconnected in terms with influences over students wishing to go on to science courses. Women are assumed to have a key role in science and technology education in these following fields, i.e.examination of curriculum arrangements and teaching of various sorts of experiments, knowledge of women's improved position in the society, promotion of the opportunities for experiencing the real science and enhancement of mothers' awareness at home. 6) As shown above, the outcome for the Heisei 9th investigation was partly presented at the 58th Applied Optics Annual Conference. Less