Attitudes of secondary school students

towards doing research and design

activities

Research Article Summary

Christian Ned A. Mejia

X – Joule
S.Y. 2020 – 2021
Research Problem
The research study aimed to investigate and focus on the attitudes towards doing research
and design activities among students from secondary school, specifically 8th grade students (ages
13-14) and 11th grade students (ages 16-17). The students seem to have various viewpoints in the
aforementioned subjects.
Significantly, we aim to answer the following research questions:
1. What are the attitudes of secondary school students towards doing research and design
activities in general?
2. Are there differences in student attitudes between doing research activities and doing design
activities?
3. Are there differences in attitudes between students taking the subject O&O and students who
do not take this subject?
4. Are there differences in student attitudes between lower (8th Grade) and upper (11th Grade)
grades in secondary school, as attitudes have been known to decline when students proceed in
secondary school (Barmby et al., 2008)?
5. Are there differences in student attitudes between boys and girls, as technology and science
related careers are still more often pursued by men than by women (Corbett & Hill, 2015; Van
Langen & Dekkers, 2005)?

Hypotheses
Are there differences in student attitudes between doing research activities and doing design
activities?
Null Hypothesis One (H01): There is no significant difference in the attitudes between doing
research activities and doing design activities.
Alternative Hypothesis One (H1): There is a significant difference in the attitudes between
doing research activities and doing design activities.
Are there differences in attitudes between students taking the subject O&O and students who
do not take this subject?
Null Hypothesis Two (H02): There is no significant difference in attitudes between students
taking the subject O&O and students who do not take this subject.
Alternative Hypothesis Two (H2): There is a significant difference in attitudes between
students taking the subject O&O and students who do not take this subject.
Are there differences in student attitudes between lower (8th Grade) and upper (11th Grade)
grades in secondary school, as attitudes have been known to decline when students proceed in
secondary school (Barmby et al., 2008)?
Null Hypothesis Three (H03): There is no significant difference in student attitudes between
lower (8th Grade) and upper (11th Grade) grades in secondary school, as attitudes have been
known to decline when students proceed in secondary school (Barmby et al., 2008).
Alternative Hypothesis Three (H3): There is a significant difference in student attitudes
between lower (8th Grade) and upper (11th Grade) grades in secondary school, as attitudes have
been known to decline when students proceed in secondary school (Barmby et al., 2008).
Null Hypothesis Four (H04): There is no significant difference in student attitudes between
boys and girls, as technology and science related careers are still more often pursued by men
than by women (Corbett & Hill, 2015; Van Langen & Dekkers, 2005).
Alternative Hypothesis Four (H4): There is a significant difference in student attitudes between
boys and girls, as technology and science related careers are still more often pursued by men
than by women (Corbett & Hill, 2015; Van Langen & Dekkers, 2005).

Review of Related Literature

Teaching and learning about research and design have become important focus points in
international science curricula (NGSS, 2013; NRC, 2012).1 Learning to conduct research and
design activities can increase student knowledge, skills and awareness about science and
engineering practices, enhancing their worldview on possible future professions as well as
understanding the development of science and the links between research and design (NRC,
2012). In this study, student attitudes towards doing research and design activities are
investigated, instead of students’ attitudes towards science in general, which has already often
been the focus of previous research (Osborne, Simon, & Collins, 2003). For instance, these
studies have shown that students perceive the science domain as irrelevant, boring, too hard, and
disconnected from the ‘real world’ (Aschbacher, Li, & Roth, 2010; Barmby, Kind, & Jones,
2008; Lyons, 2006; Potvin & Hasni, 2014). It has even been reported that students might view
high-level science as one of the most useless things they learn in school (Kadlec, Friedman, &
Ott, 2007). When using the active verb ‘engineering’, students’ attitudes have been found to be
fairly positive (Ara, Chunawala, & Natarajan, 2011). One's attitude informs one's behavioral
intention, and consequently, can positively or negatively influence one's behavior (Ajzen &
Fishbein, 2005), for example, making a certain career or study choice. In this paper we focus on
students’ attitudes towards doing research and design activities. Attitude includes one’s
knowledge, values, feelings, motivation and self-esteem shaping an individual’s personal outlook
on a certain subject (Kind, Jones, & Barmby, 2007; Van Aalderen-Smeets, Walma van der
Molen, & Asma, 2012) and can be described within three components: a cognitive, an affective
and a behavioral component (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993). For example, one’s attitude towards
science includes: one’s knowledge about what science actually involves (cognition), how one
feels about science (affect), and how one would be willing to display certain behavior towards
science (for example: taking a science course, or becoming a member of a science club). Van
Aalderen-Smeets et al. (2012) constructed a framework to define attitude towards science in the
context of primary school teachers. They adapted the traditional, tripartite model of attitude
(Eagly & Chaiken, 1993) and added a new main category: that of perceived control, with
subcategories self-efficacy and context dependency (Figure 1). Their review of existing studies
on attitude showed that, apart from cognition, affect and behavior, the belief that one can succeed
in doing a particular task (self-efficacy; Bandura, 1997) and the influence of context factors such
as availability of teaching material and time (context dependency) also played a role in the
construction of teachers’ attitudes towards teaching science. In this study, we use the attitude
model of Van Aalderen-Smeets et al. (2012) in the context of secondary school students’
attitudes towards doing research and design activities. This model fitted the goals of our study,
because of the inclusion of one’s self-efficacy in this model. Previous research on the subject of
mathematics has shown that students’ self-efficacy influences their attitude (Marchis, 2011).
Self-efficacy is the belief that one can succeed in doing a particular task (Bandura, 1997). It has
been shown that self-efficacy can be an important mediator in career choice (Pajares, 1997);
students with a low self-efficacy regarding a subject will be less likely to pursue courses or a
career related to this subject.
Research and design often go hand in hand, yet can still be seen as two separate practices with
separate goals and histories (Williams, Eames, Hume, & Lockley, 2012). Research is often
employed to explain, explore or compare certain situations by collecting and analyzing data
(Creswell, 2008). Design activities are used for developing or improving products or services
(De Vries, 2005). Research and design have in common that they both are concerned with
challenging, ill-structured problems or questions (Hathcock, Dickerson, Eckhoff, & Katsioloudis,
2015), and both are iterative practices. While many models are described in literature (for
example see Kolodner, Gray, & Fasse, 2003; Willison & O’Regan, 2008), the research process
generally consists of these phases: orientation on research question; generate hypotheses; plan
research; collect data; organize and analyze data; conclude and discuss; communicate and
present. The design process too can be captured in different models (Kolodner et al., 2003;
Mehalik, Doppelt, & Schuun, 2008), however, it generally consists of the following phases:
clarify problem; assemble programme of requirements; plan design; construct prototype; test
prototype; repeat steps to optimize prototype; analyze product; communicate and present.
Teachers often employ versions of these models when their students conduct research or design
projects.
In educational policy documents like the NRC Framework (2012) and NGSS (2013),
research and design activities are mentioned as important focal points in K-12 science and
engineering education. These research and design practices are described as (1) Asking questions
(for science) and defining problems (for engineering); (2) Developing and using models; (3)
Planning and carrying out investigations; (4) Analyzing and interpreting data; (5) Using
mathematics and computational thinking; (6) Constructing explanations (for science) and
designing solutions (for engineering); (7) Engaging in argument from evidence; (8) Obtaining,
evaluating, and communicating information (NRC Framework 2012). It is noteworthy that in this
summary, science and engineering practices do not have their own separate process descriptions
but have similar phases. However, the authors distinguish between science and engineering as
two different practices with different goals: answering questions for science, and solving
problems for engineering. The objectives for research and design activities in NRC (2012) and
NGSS (2013) are similar to the learning goals of the subject O&O, which forms the context of
our study.

Research Design
The researchers utilized a questionnaire design to collect the quantitative data for this study.
To construct our Attitudes towards Doing Research and Design Activities (ADRADA)
questionnaire, we used the framework for attitudes towards (teaching) science (by Van Aalderen-
Smeets et al., 2012; see Figure 1). Van Aalderen-Smeets and Walma van der Molen (2013)
developed their own questionnaire based on this theoretical model: The Dimensions of Attitude
towards Science (DAS) questionnaire, which they used in the context of elementary school
teachers teaching science. We adapted the items of DAS to the context of students in secondary
school, and their attitudes towards doing research and design activities, instead of science.
 The DAS consists of seven subcategories: Relevance, Difficulty, Gender, Enjoyment,
Anxiety, Self-Efficacy and Context Dependency. We used all subcategories except for Gender.
Items in the Gender subcategory were focused on whether students think researching or
designing are activities more suited for boys than girls (or vice versa). Our fifth research question
focusses on differences in attitude between boys and girls, and not on if they think research or
design activities are more suitable for boys. We thus excluded this subcategory as it was not
among our main interests. We also included items on intended behavior, regarding the future of
the students (e.g. choice of study or occupation), to explore whether student’s attitudes coincide
with certain behavioral intentions. These items were not adapted from DAS, but from another
questionnaire on student attitudes by Post and Walma van der Molen (2014). Items were scored
on a 1–5 Likert scale, where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree. The complete
ADRADA questionnaire was constructed in Dutch and is available upon request.

Figure 1. Theoretical framework for attitude toward (teaching) science. Adopted from Van
Aalderen-Smeets, Walma van der Molen and Asma (2012, p. 176).

Statistical Treatment
Students from secondary schools from 8th Grade (ages 13–14) and from 11th Grade (ages
16–17) participated in our study, so we could compare student attitudes in lower and upper
secondary education. For this study, 1315 questionnaires were sent to 22 Technasium schools
offering the subject O&O, and 1164 questionnaires to the 16 schools without the subject O&O.
In total, 1864 questionnaires were returned from 34 schools (22 Technasium schools and 12
regular schools), a response rate of 75%. After manually excluding questionnaires that were
accidentally filled in by grades other than Grades 8 and 11 and questionnaires that were filled in
without serious intention, 1788 questionnaires remained. Students with missing grade were
excluded (n = 10), as well as 11th Grade students that were not enrolled in the Nature profiles we
selected for in our research (n = 18). Some 8th Graders were excluded due to inconsistency (n =
93): they stated they took a specific science subject that is officially only taught in higher
secondary education (from 10th Grade and up). Students that did not indicate whether or not they
(had) taken the subject O&O, were also excluded (n = 42). In total, 1625 students were included
in further analyses.
Table 1 shows the number of boys and girls in the sample population, the number of students per
grade level and the mean age of the students per grade level.
Table 1. Basic characteristics of participants.

Table 2. Cronbach's alpha for the scales for student attitudes towards doing research and
design activities.

Notes: Total number of students was n = 1625. α = Cronbach's alpha, M = mean, SD = standard deviation, SE = 

standard error. Note that due to the algorithm for Cronbach's alpha, all students with missing values were excluded
from the analysis of each subcategory (unlike our forthcoming analyses, where we do include students with missing
values).

Results and Discussion

 The subheadings in this section correspond to the research questions of this study. A detailed
overview of all aims and research questions was mentioned in the last paragraph of the
Introduction.
General attitude towards doing research and design activities
In the research component of the ADRADA questionnaire, students scored highest on the 1–5
Likert scale on items in the subcategories Relevance, Context and Self-efficacy (Table 3). This
means students see doing research as a relevant activity to learn at school, and they find
themselves reasonably capable to complete such tasks. The lowest scoring subcategories were
Anxiety, indicating students do not feel all that anxious when performing a research task, and
Future, which indicates students are not overly enthusiastic to continue in a research career.

Notes: Total n = 1625, however due to incidental missings n is different for every category, varying
between 1496 and 1613.

For attitudes towards doing design activities, students scored highest on the subcategories
Self-efficacy and Enjoyment (Table 3) on the 1–5 Likert scale. This indicates students enjoy
doing design projects and find themselves capable to carry out design projects. The lowest
scoring subcategories are Anxiety and Difficulty, meaning students do not find design tasks that
hard to do and are not so anxious while doing them. In general, students had a significantly more
positive attitude towards doing design activities than towards doing research activities, and
experienced less anxiety and difficulty when performing design tasks.
Difference between O&O and non-O&O students
 Students taking the subject O&O in Technasium schools scored significantly higher on the
subcategories Relevance of doing research activities, Self-efficacy when performing research

projects and Context that enables them to do research, than students who did not attend
Technasium schools and who did not follow the O&O course (Table 4). O&O students
furthermore showed significantly less anxiety towards doing research tasks than non-O&O
students. O&O students generally had a more positive attitude towards design, experienced less
anxiety and found designing less difficult to do. This shows that students who followed the
subject O&O had a significantly more positive attitude towards doing design activities than
towards doing research activities, except on the subcategory Relevance (Table 4). Students who
did not follow the O&O subject only showed significant differences between their attitudes
towards doing research activities and towards doing design activities on the subcategories
Relevance, Difficulty and Self-efficacy (Table 4).
Notes: For O&O students, total n = 924, and for non O&O students, total n = 701, however due to
incidental missings n is different for every category or comparison. Significant p-values are indicated in
bold.

Difference between lower and upper secondary education

When we split up the complete group of students in O&O and non-O&O students again, we
see some differences between lower and upper secondary education in the O&O group versus
lower and upper secondary education in the non-O&O group. O&O students in upper secondary
education scored significantly higher on items in the Self-efficacy component for both doing
research and design activities than students in lower secondary education, unlike students who
did not follow the O&O course (Tables 5 and 6). In both groups of students (O&O and non-
O&O), 11th graders scored higher on the subcategory Difficulty of doing research activities, and
lower on the Context component of doing research activities than 8th graders. Furthermore, in
the non-O&O group, students in upper secondary education scored significantly higher on the
subcategories Relevance of doing research activities and Future intentions to pursue in a research
related study or career, unlike the O&O group. Also unlike the O&O group, upper secondary
students of the non-O&O group scored higher on the Anxiety component than students in the
lower secondary grade. It would seem that regular students’ anxiety towards doing research and
design activities increases from 8th to 11th Grade, while in students following O&O, this is not
the case.
Notes: The actual number of students included per category can differ slightly from ntot due to
incidental missings in the data. Significant p-values are indicated in bold.

Notes: The actual number of students included per category can differ slightly from ntot due to
incidental missings in the data. Significant p-values are indicated in bold.

Difference between boys and girls

In the complete group of participating students, 947 boys filled in the questionnaire, and 672
girls. The boys scored items within the main category Control significantly higher than girls.
Girls scored significantly higher on the Anxiety component in attitude towards doing research
activities, and significantly lower on items in the components Relevance and Future of doing
design activities. In both O&O and non-O&O students, boys scored significantly higher on the
subcategory Self-efficacy of doing research activities, and also on the main category of Control
within attitude towards doing design activities. Girls within the non-O&O group scored
significantly higher on Anxiety and Difficulty in doing research activities than boys. We can see
that students who took the subject O&O, both boys and girls, had a significantly more positive
attitude towards doing design activities than towards doing research activities, except on the
subcategory Relevance. Students who did not follow the O&O subject also seemed to have a
somewhat more positive attitude towards design compared to research as both boys and girls
scored significantly higher on Difficulty regarding research activities, and higher on Self-
efficacy for doing design activities.
 Notes: The actual number of students included per category can differ slightly from ntot due to
incidental missings in the data. Significant p-values are indicated in bold.

Notes: The actual number of students included per category can differ slightly from n tot due to
incidental missings in the data. Significant p-values are indicated in bold.
Conclusion and Recommendation
On the basis of our results in respect to the first research question, we can conclude that
students in secondary education had neutral to slightly positive attitudes towards doing research
activities and somewhat more positive attitudes towards doing design activities, which on
average, they viewed as less difficult. Results of this study show that students taking the subject
O&O had significantly more positive attitudes towards doing design activities than non-O&O
students on all components, and on some components towards doing research activities. Results
on the third research question show that students in lower secondary education scored higher on
context factors, this might suggest that they experienced sufficient time, recourses and help when
conducting research and design projects. Students who took the subject O&O showed higher
self-efficacy in 11th Grade than in 8th Grade. In general, boys scored higher on the control
component of attitude towards doing research and design activities, indicating that boys seem
more confident and feel better enabled than girls to conduct research and design projects. Girls
showed significantly lower self-efficacy on doing research activities than boys, although these
results should be interpreted carefully as this scale had a lower internal consistency. Boys
seemed to value design activities as more relevant and as a more interesting study or career path
than girls, however, this difference is not found anymore when we look separately at students in
the O&O group and students in the non-O&O group.
In conclusion, this study shows that students taking the subject O&O – a context-based,
student-centered subject with applied research and design tasks – had more positive attitudes
towards doing research and design activities than students in regular classes. The results of this
study strongly suggest that a project and context based subject like O&O could possibly enhance
students’ attitudes towards doing research and design activities. The results of this study provide
implications for teachers as well as teacher educators. Teachers can use the information of this
study to become more aware of the existing attitudes of students. Teachers as well as researchers
could explore how to enhance students' self-efficacy or general attitudes in research projects.
Also, science teachers at non-O&O schools could benefit from knowing that students’ anxiety
appears to increase from 8th to 11th Grade, so they can take appropriate measures to enhance
students’ confidence and self-efficacy, for example by letting their students gain more
experience in conducting authentic research and design projects
This study provides encouraging results which are worthy to follow up on. For example, a
study on the attitudes of teachers towards guiding research and design projects has been
conducted by the authors to gain more insight in the existing attitudes of teachers towards this
subject (Vossen, Henze, Rippe, Van Driel & De Vries, in submission). International STEM
subjects could possibly also use the ADRADA questionnaire to elicit attitudes towards doing
research and design activities in students who are enrolled in different STEM subjects.