Reflections of middle school students by gender and race/ethnicity on obtaining a successful science education

Sixty-five eighth grade students responded to a science beliefs survey during a science-inquiry lab unit in an action research project to assess whether gender has an effect on how the students perceive their science classes. The survey was given to eighth grade students during the first week of school. Student results were categorized by gender and by race/ethnicity. The middle school where the study took place is fairly diverse with 540 total students of which 48% of them are White, 42% are Black, and 10% are Hispanic. Six female science teachers are employed at the middle school, two per grade. The first unit that is taught in science is inquiry skills, the basics of all science such as graphing, laboratory tools, safety, etc. This unit is taught in 6 th, 7th, and 8th grades, as a part of our standards. Inquiry test results for 8th graders are also given in this thesis, and are categorized again by gender and race/ethnicity. The results of the surveys and the assessment show a gap in the way students think about and complete activities in science. It was exciting to see that the female students scored better overall than male students on an inquiry-based summative assessment, while white students overall scored better than Black and Hispanic students. White males tended to rank science as the class they enjoyed the most of all core classes and thought science was easier than all the other data demographics. The conclusion found was stunning, in that the true gap in student's beliefs about science lies within the different races/ethnicities, rather than just gender alone.