Students Drop Their Stereotypes of Science When They ‘Meet the Scientist’

Young people who may have thought that scientists were ‘boring’ and ‘nerdy’ changed their minds after having an opportunity to ‘Meet the Scientist’ face-to-face.

That’s one of the key findings of a study published in the International Journal of Science Education by experts from the University of Southampton’s LifeLab project into student-scientist engagement.

Young people who may have thought that scientists were ‘boring’ and ‘nerdy’ changed their minds after having an opportunity to ‘Meet the Scientist’ face-to-face.

That’s one of the key findings of a study published in the International Journal of Science Education by experts from the University of Southampton’s LifeLab project into student-scientist engagement.

The ‘Meet the Scientist’ sessions are part of a wider initiative at the authors’ institution to promote health literacy through science education (Grace et al 2012). The LifeLab project is an innovative educational intervention which actively engages with young people, teachers and researchers. The aim is to introduce the science that explains how lifestyle choices at an early age can drastically affect young people’s health and the health of their future children. As part of the hands-on practical day, students take part in ‘Meet the Scientist’ sessions where they have the opportunity to meet and talk to scientists, from both academic and clinical backgrounds.

Scientists from different areas (bioengineering, genetics, cancer, asthma, nutrition and cardiovascular research) led small group discussions with school students aged 13-15years. Feedback from the school students showed that these short informal interactions changed the students’ expectations of what scientists are like.

In their post-session feedback, students pointed out that the scientists they met were not as expected because they thought ‘of a stereotypical scientist [as] a nutty professor’ or because they thought that they would be ‘mad and posh’. Instead, the students found the scientists to be ‘normal and chatty’. As one student noted, ‘I thought they would be quite boring but actually they were quite interesting’.

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