Trust in science and scientists among secondary school students in two out-of-school learning activities

Figures & data

Table 1. Overview of the two interventions.

	Outreach activity I	Outreach activity II
Location	School	Student laboratory
Thematic issue	Ocean acidification and impacts on calcifying organisms	Four anthropogenic changes of the Baltic Sea and impacts on ecosystem and societal level
Duration	1.5 hours	5 hours
Participants	N = 443	N = 333
	Grade 10–13	Grade 10–13
	Mean age: 17.58	Mean age: 17.02
Learning methods	Experiments or simulation	1^st Experiments + 2^nd Simulation or
		1^st Simulation + 2^nd Experiments

Table 2. Items loading on Factor 2 with corresponding factor load.

Variable		Load
10	We should trust that scientists are being honest in their work.	.903
11	We should trust that scientists are being ethical in their work.	.840
9	We should trust the work of scientists.	.751
7	I trust that the work of scientists to make life better for people.	.395
12	Scientific theories are trustworthy.	.344

Table 3. Overview of the participants of the two interventions. All data are based on the students’ own statements in the pre-test. Marks are reported on a scale of 1 = very good to 6 = inadequate. Interest was assessed on a four-level Likert scale (1 = low interest to 4 = high interest).

	Outreach activity I	Outreach activity II
Number of participants	443	367
Average age in years	17.58 (SD = 1.41)	17.02 (SD = 1.20)
Gender	57 % female and 43 % male	54 % female and 46 % male
Chosen courses (science-related or non-science-related)	45.1% science courses; 54.9% non-science courses	54.8% science courses; 45.2% non-science courses
Average marks science subjects	2.55 (SD = 0.84)	3.0 (SD = 1.07);
Mean interest in biology	2.91 (SD = 0.72)	2.95 (SD = 0.65)
Mean interest in chemistry	2.31 (SD = 0.79)	2.47 (SD = 0.68)

Table 4. Mean value comparison of the pre- and post-test results for trust in science.

Intervention	Pre-test	Post-test	df	T	p
	Mean (SD)	Mean (SD)
I	3.52 (0.60)	3.51 (0.64)	416	.190	.849
II	3.48 (0.63)	3.51 (0.66)	332	−1.036	.301

Figure 1. Change of mean trust in science through the outreach activity according to different pre-levels of trust in science for Intervention I (High-trustors N = 63; Low-trustors N = 55).

Figure 2. Change of mean trust in science through the outreach activity according to different pre-levels of trust in science for Intervention II (High-trustors N = 60; Low-trustors N  = 39).

Table 5. Descriptive information of the mean trust level of high-/low-trustors in pre-/post-test.

		Pre-test	Post-test
Intervention I	High-trustors (N = 63)	4.37 (0.21)	4.14 (0.44)
	Low-trustors (N = 55)	2.43 (0.44)	2.61 (0.65)
Intervention II	High-trustors (N = 60)	4.32 (0.22)	4.04 (0.63)
	Low-trustors (N = 39)	2.27 (0.42)	2.87 (0.7)

Table 6. Learning success depending on the pre-test trust level: Mean value comparison of knowledge success between high-trustors (+1SD) and low-trustors (−1SD).

Intervention	High trust	Low trust	df	t	p	d
	Mean scores (SD)	Mean scores (SD)
I	9.3 (2.44)	8.0 (3.77)	116	2.253	.026	0.42
II	13.89 (4.50)	10.49 (3.52)	98	3.998	< .001	0.82

Table

Variable	Mean M (SD)	Mean F (SD)	df	t	p
Gender Intervention I	3.53 (0.54)	3.49 (0.67)	436	0.771	.441
Gender Intervention II	3.44 (0.66)	3.53 (0.55)	355	−1.475	.141

Table

Variable	Mean S (SD)	Mean N-S (SD)	df	t	p
Subject focus Intervention I	3.50 (0.63)	3.52 (0.57)	432	−0.255	.799
Subject focus Intervention II	3.49 (0.69)	3.44 (0.56)	364	0.705	.481

Table

Variable	r	p
Age Study I	−.064	.182
Age Study II	−.089	.089
Grade Study I	−.068	.154
Grade Study II	−.084	.110
Marks Study I	.101	.039
Marks Study II	.116	.027
Interest Study I	.218	< .001
Interest Study II	.231	< .001