Investigating and Assessing Student Beliefs about Scientists within the Social Sciences and Humanities

• Applicant: Dr. Valentina Nachtigall
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 497500402

Results of my prior work suggest that school students’ beliefs about the work and characteristics of scientists within the social sciences and humanities are related to their study interest. An association between school students’ (often inadequate) beliefs about natural scientists and their (rather low) interest in studying natural sciences has been empirically confirmed. Therefore, since the 1950s, research on science education has extensively investigated school students’ beliefs about the work and characteristics of natural scientists. Moreover, interventions for fostering more adequate beliefs about natural scientists have been developed and tested. On the contrary, research has not yet investigated student beliefs about the work and characteristics of scientists within the social sciences and humanities. Addressing this research gap appears highly necessary as it has been hypothesized that school students hold inadequate beliefs about the work of scientists within these disciplines, and that these inadequate beliefs are associated with their inaccurate expectations related to studying social sciences and humanities and with the fact that especially the humanities – at least in Germany – suffer from a high drop-out rate of university students. Against this background it has been called for interventions that foster adequate beliefs about the work and characteristics of scientists within the social sciences and humanities in school students already. Results of my prior work also support this need, as they offer first empirical evidence on school students’ inadequate beliefs about scientists within the social sciences and humanities. Therefore, the present proposal aims at deeply investigating school students’ beliefs related to the work and characteristics of scientists within the social sciences and humanities by conducting interviews in the first project phase (Aim 1). Based on these data, the second project phase focuses on developing and testing a standardized questionnaire for assessing student beliefs about the work and characteristics of scientists within the social sciences and humanities by conducting a validation study (Aim 2). So far, comparable questionnaires have only been developed and tested within the context of the natural sciences. A further goal of both project phases is to investigate the relationship between students’ beliefs about scientists within the social sciences and humanities and their study interest (Aim 3). The findings of the proposed project could be used (for instance in a follow-up project) for developing and testing interventions for fostering adequate student beliefs about the work and characteristics of scientists within the social sciences and humanities.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants