Relationships between Attitudes to Science and Television Viewing among Pupils Aged 10 to 13 +

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Abstract
This paper reports on two complementary studies which together looked at factors affecting pupils’ attitudes to science between the ages of 10+ and 13 +. The first study, using primary school children, used several measures of attitude, the first of these found two factors, ‘space’ and ‘nature study’, which correlated with attitudes to science and a second measure found an additional factor‐‐called the ‘Tomorrow's World’ factor, since the television programme of this name featured in the scale. These factors led to the conclusion that television must play a potent part in shaping children's attitudes to science. The second study investigated the relationship between television watching and science liking with a slightly older sample‐‐aged 12+ to 13+. It was found that the sci‐fi/space programmes were the most popular at 13+ for both boys and girls and that some TV programmes related significantly with a liking for science. From these findings it is hypothesised that the use of space programmes and other fantastic aspects of science could be used to improve the attitudes of children towards science at an early stage.

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