Donna Farland-Smith

How does culture shape students’ perceptions of scientists? Cross-national comparative study of American and Chinese elementary students

For decades, researchers have been convinced that one stereotypic image of scientists existed among children worldwide (Chambers, 1983; Chiang & Guo, 1996; Fung, 2002; Maoldomhnaigh & Hunt, 1988; Newton & Newton, 1992, 1998; She, 1998; Song, Pak, & Jang, 1992). This study, however, moves beyond that stereotypic image and examines students’ perceptions of scientists. The purpose of this study is to illustrate that students are influenced not only by the personal images they hold of scientists, but also by cultural impressions and the style of the science courses they experience in school. By combining a contemporary perspective and a creative method of analyzing student perceptions, a theoretical understanding of how students interpret scientists and their work was developed. Elementary school children (N=1,350) in the United States and China were enrolled in this study, and drawing exercises were utilized to provide new evidence and a fresh perspective regarding the way students perceive scientists. Based on the findings of this research, more American students included the traditional image of a science laboratory with chemicals in their pictorial depictions of scientists, while Chinese students included robots in their drawings. While students in both countries demonstrated misconceptions about scientists, this study identifies those misconceptions as significantly different, yet inherently related, to students’ individual cultures, contrary to previous studies. This study also demonstrates that a child’s environment can be influenced by their existing culture, and thus learning, or perceiving the role of scientists, can be directly influenced since each classroom is a culture of its own. Finally, this study demonstrates that a child’s sense of who can be a scientist, where scientists work, and what scientists do is influenced by cultural experiences. Today, with fewer students pursuing science careers, these findings are especially noteworthy.

An Investigation of Media Influences on Elementary Students Representations of Scientists

Even long before children are able to verbalize which careers may be interesting to them, they collect and store ideas about scientists. For these reasons, asking children to Draw-A-Scientist has become an accepted method to provide a glimpse into how children represent and identify with those in the science fields. Years later these representations may translate into student’s career choice. Since 1995, children’s illustrations of scientists have been assessed by the Draw-A-Scientist Checklist (DAST-C). The checklist was created from the common aspects or features found in illustrations from previous studies and were based initially on the scientists, broken down into “stereotypical” and “alternative” images shown in the drawings. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development, field test and reliability of the modified Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST) and The Draw-A-Scientist Rubric designed as an improvement of the DAST-C to provide a more appropriate method of assessing students’ drawings of scientists. The combination of the modified DAST and the DAST Rubric brings more refinement as it enables clarities to emerge and subsequently increased detail to what one could ascertain from students about their mental images of scientists.

The Evolution of the Analysis of the Draw-a-Scientist Test

Asking students to “draw a picture of a scientist” has been a popular method for those wishing to engage in Draw-A-Scientist Test research (Chambers, 1983; Chiang & Guo, 1996; Fung, 2002; Maoldomhnaigh & Hunt, 1988; Newton & Newton, 1992, 1998; Song, Pak, & Jang; 1992; She, 1998). While the majority of DAST research concentrated on students’ stereotypical images and their perceptions of scientists, the manner in which data derived from these studies have been analyzed has often been limited to such things as the reporting of frequencies and the computation of simple t-tests.