Attitude toward informal science in the early years and development of Leisure Time in Science (LeTiS), a pictographic scale

Attitude toward science has been recognized as highly influential in students' engagement with science and future career choices. Science is important in our everyday lives as well, in a society demanding more scientific vocations and higher levels of scientific literacy. There is little research on how attitudes develop and evolve at early ages, which may be due to a lack of appropriate measurement tools. The objective of this study is to design and validate a tool to measure attitude toward informal science in 5 to 6-year-old children, who are not yet familiarized with "formal science." Rather, these children are constantly interacting and learning about their surrounding world. These early experiences are important for future science engagement. The Leisure Time in Science (LeTiS) scale consists of eight pictures representing science learning activities in informal environments. Children's intentions of performing the activities shown in the LeTiS pictures are measured by comparing them with other leisure nonscientific activities. We also analyze parents' views on their children's leisure interests for comparison. The relationship among attitudes, intentions, and interests is also analyzed as part of this study involving 387 children and 188 parents. LeTiS is a pictographic scale, which is easy to interpret, with reliable psychometric properties, O omega = .88, and a unidimensional factorial structure. The results show that participants, aged 5-6, have a very positive attitude, with no gender-based differences. Nevertheless, their intentions to perform the activities are less promising, as nonscientific activities are consistently the first choice. Although parents' views report considerable science interest in their children, there is a low correlation with attitudes and intentions. The findings may offer clues on the relationship between children's attitudes toward science and their actual behavior. The study may also contribute to planning science curriculum in the early educational years.