Abstract:

Advanced societies recognize that science is the pillar of the knowledge society and the one that drives technological advancement and the welfare state, with a broad consensus around the role they play as the engine of progress. Furthermore, European society is particularly characterized by having high expectations regarding science and technology. However, the reality in secondary school classrooms is quite different. It is a fact that one of the biggest problems that teachers of scientific subjects in compulsory secondary education face on a daily basis is the general lack of motivation towards the study of this type of subjects, and especially towards the subject of Physics and Chemistry, a subject whose weight in the scientific education of the individual is indisputable.

In the so-called first world countries, this disaffection has already become an old and recurring problem that, years after its identification, has not yet been solved. A situation that many experts attribute in large part to the way science is taught in schools and that ends up leading to a constant decline in the percentage of students who end up pursuing university science degrees.

At this point, a change in strategy seems necessary, which involves starting to listen to what our students have to say about the teaching-learning process of science in school.

The main goal of this cross-sectional field study, carried out during the 2014/15 school year, was to know the students’ opinion regarding the teaching-learning process of the Physics and Chemistry subject in secondary compulsory education and their willingness to use new ICT and TAC tools, technologies that, according to many authors, are still underused and underdeveloped.

With a total of 173 valid questionnaires, of which 157 were students and 16 were teachers, the opinions of these two educational actors were collected, shedding light on the serious disaffection situation existing among our unmotivated students, who show a negative perception on the subject and a poor degree of understanding. The data collected, clearly bring out the characteristics of the most difficult topics for them and how traditional resources are not capable anymore of connecting with our adolescents, if they were ever able to connect with them. Likewise, the study collects the students’ opinion about the importance of the new technologies as educational tools, and the characteristics that these should have to guarantee educational success.

Keywords:

Student's opinion, questionnaires, ICT, TAC, new technologies.