Practice with Interview Data

Practice with Interview Data

These are portions of an interview with a fifth grader, seventh grader, and tenth grader. The purpose of the interview was to determine student attitudes toward science as a classroom subject.

Read through the sections and practice using the coding category technique to analyze these transcripts. What are the major themes you see emerging across all grade levels? Are there any that appear to be specific to one grade level? If this was your data set, what would you hypothesize about why students like or dislike school science? If you were this researcher, how would you improve your questioning?

Portion of Fifth Grade Interview

I: Do you like science?

S: I like science.

I: Have you studied a lot of science.

S: Not really

I: What have you studied

S: plants, electricity, and batteries, and to tear apart engines. I like doing experiments. My grandfather

is a scientist.

I: Did that influence you?

S: yeah

I: Anyone else?

S: my brother

I: What is it about science that you like

S: It’s fun

I: What’s fun?

S: It’s more exciting than just sitting and writing. I like when you mix stuff and stuff blows up.

I: It is important for you to like science class?

S: yeah

I: Why

S: Science is (pause) there is a lot of stuff happening with science like nuclear war. It’s better to know science than not.

I: Have you always liked science?

S: Yeah

I: What is the first experience with science you remember

S: In kindergarten, we drew our body

I: Can you tell me about a day you liked science

S: We were doing some experiments with—I’m not sure what we used—but we poured it in a cup and it fizzed up.

I: Did you have to explain it

S: No, just see if it worked. That was fun

I: Can you tell me about a day you didn’t like science class?

S: No

I: Is there a way I could change how you feel about science

S: Probably not

I: What if I took all your labs away

S: I’d do it at home

I: Do you watch any science videos at home

S:No

I: Is there anything about labs you don’t like—things you don’t want to do

S: dissect things. We dissected a worm and that was gross.

I: What was gross

S: cutting it open was the worse. It had really loose skin.

I: Do you do much reading in science class

S: No

I: What about on your own?

S: I read about chemicals and stuff and food rotting. That’s what my granpa looks at I like (inaudible) and molding. You can tell if that’s what’s in your refrigerator o if it’s ok. That’s what I like.

I: Have you looked at that stuff under a microscope?

S: Yeah, I went with my grandpa up to the college that he works at and I got to look at avocado rot and stuff like that

I: Do you think that what you’re learning in science class is practical

S: Yeah, it’s practical

I: If you could do anything to change your science class, what would you do

S: I would have more tools for the whole class so that everybody could try it. So that everybody gets the same chances that I do

Portion of Seventh Grade Interview

I: Do you like science?

S: Yes, it’s a pretty easy class for me

I: What do you learn?

S: Right now we’re studying about ways to help preserve the sockeye salmon in the Columbia River. to determine more ways that they can get through all the dams that are along the river and its tributaries to the spawning areas.

I: Do you go fishing?

S: Um, the first time I went fishing I think I was in fourth grade and we went up to um let’s see, I was in first grade, around first, second grade the first time I went fishing. Me and my dad and a couple of his friends. We had an exchange student at that time. She had never seen it, snow, and I tried to convince my dad to make her come and he wouldn’t and the day, the next day after we were there it was snowing. And he thought kind of thought he should have listened to me that time.

I: Did you always like science class?

S: Yes

I: How come?

S: Well, I’m pretty interested in things related to science.

I: What kinds of things?

S: All sorts of things, astronomy, medical sciences, a lot of things.

I: What do you want to do when you grow up?

S: I’m not sure. I’m thinking of being an electronics technician.

I: Do you think anybody wants you to like science

S: No one that would want me to like it any more than I do now.

I: Is there anyone you think would not want you to like science?

S: No one that I can like of

I: Can you think of a time you really liked being in science class?

S: It was probably last year when we started out studying fossils and later (that was the beginning of the year) at the end of that year we went off to Camp Hancock in Fossil and we collected a few fossils that they allowed us to keep. I keep some of those in my bedroom.

I: What kind of fossils did you find

S: They’re plant fossils. I have one that looks like a couple of leaves that were overlaid together and I’ll be sending that back down there to give to one of the counselors that works there so she can show it to her students. It was a type of fossil that, a fossil like that she had never seen up there before. But she’s only been working there…she just started that year, so. But a lot of the other people too that have been working there for several years were surprised at seeing that type of fossil, so.

I: Are they going to send it back to you or keep it?

S: I’ll probably let them keep it.

I: Can you think of a time you didn’t like science class?

S: Probably, um, recently when we had a lot of things we have to do. I really don’t like, hate, to do things that are a little hard to get done.

I: What kinds of things?

S: We had to do notebooks for every science section, enrichment during every quarter of the year. We need to have at least 200 points of enrichment for the entire year. that’s probably about the maximum that most people get.

I: What do you do for enrichment?

S: We do like book reports or in this quarter we’re having an invention convention and what we do is worth 50 points of enrichment.

I: You don’t like doing that stuff?

S: What we’re doing right now is pretty, um, involving the um a lot of people will probably be doing stuff involving the sockeye salmon so I probably will be doing something about preserving them.

I: What would you change about science class?

S: I can’t think of anything I would change. It’s a pretty good class.

I: Are you happy with your grades?

S: Yeah. Not everyone is, but it’s going up slowly.

I: Do you watch movies in science class?

S: Occasionally, when there’s some reason for studying something that the teacher wants us to watch a movie about it then he’ll get one and we’ll usually be able to watch it.

I: Do you like them?

S: Yeah, they’re pretty interesting. Of course with the TV he’s been using every time he’s tried to start a movie, something happened and we have to wait until the next day.

I: Do you watch science shows at home?

S: Yeah, almost every week I go through the newspaper television listings looking for science programs. I’m always kind of surprised I do that.

I: Do you like to do labs in science class?

S: We haven’t done much of that yet, we’ve only done two of them, but they’re pretty interesting.

I: What do you like about them?

S: the last one we did, we were studying a microscope and we had to do different things, like we’d take small letters out of the newspaper articles and stuff and look and see the difference between on one level of magnification and another. And it wasn’t hard, even on low magnification you could see the fibers of the newsprint and news page. A lot of the kids liked it.

I: What don’t you like about doing labs?

S: Nothing.

I: Do you read in science class?

S: Yeah, that’s probably one of the main requirements.

I: Do you read at school or home?

S: Both

I: Do you like it?

S: It’s ok.

I: Do you think you’ll use what you learn in science outside of school?

S: As far as I know.

I: Where?

S: Probably with a career that I plan to take. I’ll definitely need science.

Portion of Tenth Grade Interview

I: Tell me about science class

S: I think it’s hard. I don’t like it. Some of the stuff I mean there are a couple of topics, y9ou know like a week here and a week there that. I mean some of the things are pretty interesting. It is interesting, but ooh, most of it’s boring. I’m not a science person.

I: Have you ever liked science

S: Last year it was kind of cool when we did experiments that really had a reaction but some of the things are so minute, you know, with the experiments and stuff. And I don’t like the reading and all that kind of stuff about it. Only the experiments.

I: Do you remember having any science in elementary school

S: Laughs. I don’t remember it really well. All we did was read about plants and animals and stuff and what they were. But that’s about it. Not very much.

I: Were you excited about taking science in middle school

S: No

I: Did you not want to take it

S: I didn’t really not what it would be. I didn’t exactly . I never had anything like that so I didn’t pay much attention.

I: Has your attitude toward science class changed since the beginning of the year

S: Not really, it’s just. This year is a lot harder. I knew it would be.

I: Can you tell me about a day you really liked science class?

S: Laugh. Well, I don’t know. I don’t like it unless you apply it like a lot, like to yourself, or you know, you look at things on you and kind of figure out why it’s there or whatever.

I: Can you think about a day you didn’t like science class?

S: Like four days in a row, she gave us notes on the same. I mean it was like uh, oh. It’s informational, that’s so boring. I mean the stuff is so (pause). I don’t like it. I mean the stuff we learn, it’s just like. I don’t know. It just doesn’t attract me. It was like that when it ‘s just so boring, when you just hear people talk or when we have to like read something. It just drives me crazy.

I: How would you teach it

S: Do as much stuff as possible with hands on, you know

I: Would you ever lecture?

S: I would try not to.

I: What do you think of science videos

S: I haven’t seen too many this year. In 7th and 8th grade we saw stupid ones. I haven’t seen very many. They’re boring, I think. I usually fall asleep.

I: Do you watch any science shows at home.

S: Noooo.

I: How often would you like to do labs? Everyday?

S: No, not that much because you have to clean up. Really, some of them are really dumb, but, I mean, you get like this lab (inaudible). It’s fun. I like that. I mean the PH papers, if its really colorful and you know what you’re talking about. But the dumb ones I don’t even like to do.

I: Can you give me an example of a dumb one

S: I don’t know. There was like, it was supposed to turn a color, this was, and it just barely even turns the color. I mean that’s kind of a stupid example. But the reaction just is barely in there.

I: Do you think learning science is useful?

S: It doesn’t seem like it unless I was gonna do something like that. I mean be a scientist or something.

I: Is anything you learn in science important?

S: It’s important, yeah, I guess. Some of it seems, I mean, it is important you know that we know it, that people are aware of it in the world and stuff. But I don’t see why I have to know about it.

I: Do you like field trips?

S: I think that would be fun if we could do things like that

I: How do you feel about math?

S: It’s pretty easy this year. I don’t know. It seems really pointless. I mean, everybody learns it and stuff, you know. There must be some point, but I’m still trying to figure out what it is. I mean it’s required and stuff, but I don’t know. I’m not bad at it or anything. It’s not really hard or anything like that. I just don‘t see the point.