Students' self-regulation and teachers' influences in science: interplay between ethnicity and gender

The purpose of this study is to explore students' self-regulation and teachers' influence in science and to examine interplay between ethnicity and gender. Analysis of data from seven Oslo schools (1112 sampled students in the first year of high school) shows that the ethnic minority students reported using learning strategies in science more intensively than ethnic majority students and they had a stronger motivation to learn science. Ethnic majority students are defined here as students who were born in Norway and have at least one parent born in Norway. The study also shows that minority students generally evaluate their science teacher's influence on their learning more positively than the majority. The strongest interplay effects between gender and ethnicity are found in students' perceptions of the relevance of science, as well as their degree of negative responses to the pressure to learn science.