Student opinion in England about science and technology

An earlier paper in this Journal (Jenkins & Nelson, 2005) drew upon the findings of the Relevance of Science Education Project (ROSE) to report the attitudes of students in England towards their secondary school science education. The present paper draws upon the same project to explore what the same students, almost all in their penultimate year of compulsory schooling, think about science and technology. It suggests that several basic research questions need to be addressed and answered if the present widespread decline in the industrialised world in the popularity of the physical sciences as subjects of advanced study is to be halted.