Secondary school students’ attitudes to practical work in biology, chemistry and physics in England

607 students, Years 7-10 (ages 11-15), 3 English state-maintained secondary schools

English secondary school students, ages 11-15; three schools broadly representative on GCSE outcomes, value-added and socio-economic area.

Cross-sectional mixed-methods survey — questionnaires, lesson observations and focus groups — with no comparison condition and no achievement outcome. Attitudes are analysed with an affective/behavioural/cognitive (ABC) framework. Purely descriptive: it establishes WHAT students like about practical work, not whether liking it produces anything. Published online 2019, in the 2020 volume.

The best available direct evidence on the MOTIVATION function of practical work in schools, and it is more equivocal than the folk case assumes. Across 607 English secondary students, fewer than 40% reported interest in the parts of practical work that are supposed to carry the epistemic payload — testing hypotheses and predictions, taking measurements — while more of them enjoyed setting up equipment and recording observations. Students enjoy the doing, not the thinking, which is precisely the split Abrahams & Millar 2008 found on the learning side from the opposite direction. Combined with the Cerini finding that students rank experiments third for enjoyment but BELOW class discussion and note-taking for usefulness, the motivational case for labs turns out to rest on enjoyment of manual activity rather than on engagement with science. Grade D: cross-sectional self-report, three schools, no outcome.

High for any attitude-attainment link, which this study does not attempt. As a description of stated preferences, not applicable.

Consistent with the Cerini et al. 2003 survey of ~1,450 English students reported in Dillon 2008: 71% named 'doing a science experiment in class' among the three most ENJOYABLE ways to learn science, but only 38% named it among the three most USEFUL AND EFFECTIVE — behind class discussion (48%) and taking notes from the teacher (45%).