The Perception of Physics in Secondary School Students near Milan.

An analysis related
to "Tracks", a Physics Show for Secondary School
Marina Carpineti1, Michela Cavinato1, Marco Giliberti1,2, Nicola Ludwig1,
Laura Perini1,2 and Elena Veronesi3
1 Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit degli Studi di Milano, via Celoria 16, 20133 Milan, Italy
2 INFN-Sezione di Milano, via Celoria 16, 20133 Milan, Italy
3 University Student in Mathematics

e-mail: marco.giliberti@unimi.it

Abstract
The SAT (Science At Theatre) Laboratory of the Physics Department of the University of
Milano has been researching for six years on the opportunities given by theatrical techniques
to improve public perception of Physics. In these six years, four shows have been written and
performed by the authors of this paper with the help of different theatre directors. The shows
are addressed to students of different age so as to cover the whole age spectrum: from Primary
School to University.
"Tracks", in particular, is addressed to the last years of Secondary Schools and University.
The script deals with three physicists travelling to a Conference where they are going to
present the results of their research. Each of them carries his baggage of experiments, books
and personal experiences while the journey becomes a symbol of the research.
The aim of the show is to create fascination and increase the motivation for the study of
Physics. The main guidelines in the construction of the show have been: 1) no popularization
(i.e. so no simplified explanations) and 2) large use of emotions in making the story, in order
to transmit a strong imaginary reference for Physics. One of the most striking features of this
show (as well as of all the others) is the realization of real physics experiments on stage.
In this paper we will report on the results of an analysis on the perception of Physics in
Secondary School Students before and after the vision of the show "Tracks". It is based on the
answers to an anonymous questionnaire given to nearly thousand students before and after the
vision of the show and to another one distributed to their teachers.
1. Introduction
The OECD Program for International Student Assessment PISA (2003-2006) [1] has put in
evidence the deep lack of basic scientific and mathematical competencies of Italian students.
Italy, among 57 participating countries, turned out to be in the 33rd place for reading
competences, in the 36th for scientific culture and in 38th for mathematics one. Furthermore, as
many as 25.3% of Italian students result below the baseline of sufficient level, while less than
5% of them reach the two higher levels for science competences (against an average, across
OECD countries, of 8.8%).
Unfortunately the OECD-PISA research does not reveal anything about the image that
students have of science and of scientists. A survey made by Eurobarometer (European
Commission 2001) [2] has linked the lack of attraction of science for young people mainly to
the perceived difficulties of science lessons and to the too low profits earned by researchers.
Nevertheless a survey, carried out by IRPPS-CNR [3] on 800 Italian students, puts the
profession of scientist in the second place (27%) in the scale of social importance,
immediately after the profession of entrepreneur (28%).
In 2004 the Physics Department of the University of Milano gave birth to the SAT (Science
At Theatre) laboratory [4-6]. The idea to promote Science, and more properly Physics with
theatre stemmed from both previous data and the observation that most adults perceive it as a
difficult and alien subject, studied by strange people.

From here the desire to promote physics and its wonders, starting from a certainty: physics
is fascinating and surprising.
The main intentions of SAT are:
to promote actions for exploring new ways of Physics communication (mainly through
Theatre) which are propaedeutic to Physics Education and effective in both increasing
students' motivation, intended as a personal attitude that supports "virtuous" behavior,
and encouraging the study of Physics;
to study a possible synergy between formal and informal activities which can facilitate
the learning of disciplinary skills in students;
to search for pre-service and in-service teachers training materials devoted to link
formal and informal education in order to promote curricular development of physics
themes presented in informal activities.
The main guidelines followed by SAT in the construction of shows can be easily summarized
in the following statements:
1) performances must not be lessons: they should communicate charm, not explanations;
2) performances must not concern biographies of scientists: the leading character of the
shows must be Physics;
3) performances must avoid popularization: physics is complicated, but precisely in its
complexity there is richness and fecundity. Simplified concepts do not reach the heart
as the strength of the ideas.
Up to now SAT has realized four Theatre Shows and a Show-Lecture about Physics addressed
to nearly the whole spectrum of students ages (8-19).
A description of the performances, which have involved (from Primary School to University
students and to a generic public) an audience of about 80.000 people among which about
6.000 teachers, can be found in [4].
2. Research, instruments and methods
In order to better understand the public we were addressing the shows, we planned a research
with about 1000 Secondary School Students in occasion of the vision of the show "Tracks"
that was especially performed for schools by three of the authors (Carpineti, Giliberti,
Ludwig) in a theatre in the neighborhood of Milano.
The research questions were the following: what is the image of science in Milan high-school
students? Does it change with age? What is, in student's mind, the connection between
physics and culture, physics and theatre and physics and society? What do students think that
to be a physicist consists of?
Two months before the cycle of performances of the show, an anonymous questionnaire,
called "IS" (Image of Science) questionnaire, has been given to about 1000 students. The
same questions, mixed with the ones of a new "SM" (Students Motivation) questionnaire, has
been given again to the students after the vision of the show [7].
The proposed IS questionnaire is the following:

Question 1)
Underline among the listed disciplines those that in your opinion are experimental
sciences: Biology, Mathematics, Astrology, Psychology, Paintings, Chemistry,
Astronomy, History, Gastronomy, Medicine, Physics, Informatics, Architecture,
Philosophy, Philology. (This order of the disciplines has been drawn by lot).

Question 2)
Describe in 3 lines the way you imagine the work done by a physicist.

Question 3)

Physics is (choose and underline three of the following attributes): Exact, Poetic,
Creative, Concrete, Rigorous, Fascinating, Tedious, Useless, Verifiable, Abstract,
Difficult.

Question 4)
Express, giving a mark from 1 to 10, your agreement or disagreement about these
statements (1=complete disagreement and 10=complete agreement)
Physics gives an important contribution to society
Physics gives an important contribution to the way of thinking in general
Physics is too specialist in order to be understood by most of people
I'm not interested in Physics and I do not see why I should be
It is important that young people have basic notions of Physics

Question 5)
Which relationship do you think there is, or there might be, between Physics and
Theatre? (Underline your answer/answers)
No relationship
Both give a representation of the world
By theatre, lives of famous scientists can be represented
Both deal with topics that generate passion
A theatre show can represent physics experiments and the job of a physicist
Sometimes science is spectacular

3. Data Analysis
The students involved were not selected in any particular way (they were just those coming to
see "Tracks") so they were not a representative sample of Lombard students population.
Nonetheless, as they were more than 1000 students, coming from six different kinds of school
(from technical art school to classic or scientific high school) and with age range of five
years, it was well worth trying the study.
The analysis we briefly report on regards the answers given to the IS questionnaire before and
after the vision of "Tracks".
The first interesting feature is that the answers given by students in the pre-show
questionnaire are on average the same in quality and quantity as those given more than two
months later, after the vision of the show. So the answers seem to be nearly "stable" in time
(for instance, they could have changed after the study of some new topics, or the vision of
some TV programs, or even of our shows...) and therefore we believe they are meaningful.
This means that we believe that the emerging image of Physics is almost reliable. The data we
are going to report in the following refer to the pre-show IS questionnaire.
We pinpoint that we will not report here, instead, on the effectiveness of the show "Tracks" in
modifying students' motivations towards Physics, as it is documented by the answers given to
the SM questionnaire after the vision of the show.
3.1 Analysis of the answers to question 1
The percentage of underlined disciplines permits to put them in the following order: History
3%, Philosophy 6%, Philology 7%, Paintings 9%, Architecture 9%, Psychology 13%,
Informatics 21%, Astrology 22%, Gastronomy 23%, Mathematics 32%, Astronomy 45%,
Medicine 72%, Biology 78%, Chemistry 89%, Physics 91%.
It is interesting to stress the ranking of Astrology and Gastronomy which are considered
experimental sciences by more than 20% of the students. On the contrary it is well clear that
Medicine, Biology (more than 70%), Chemistry and Physics (about 90%) belong to
experimental sciences.

To better understand how many students could really distinguish between experimental
sciences and other disciplines, we divided the students into "Charmed" and "Uncharmed";
Charmed students were those who underlined Physics and Chemistry and at least one between
Biology and Astronomy and who underlined neither Astrology nor Painting.
We could see that the percentage of Charmed students grows with the class attended (from
44% in the first two classes to 63% in the fifth class) and changes with the type of School
(from 40% in Art Institutes to 58% in Scientific High School and 59% in Classic High
School).
3.2 Analysis of the answers to question 2
The "free" answers given by students have been divided into the following categories: a
physicist
makes experiments in the lab (ex. " I believe that he mainly works in the lab, as his
work constantly needs hypothesis and experiments")
makes observations on reality (ex. " He is able to observe with concrete realism the
world around")
does a theoretical study (ex. "I think that a theory is developed and studied").
demonstrates and verifies physical laws (ex. " With the help of physical laws he/she
discovers other important laws")
teaches (ex. "... if he is not lucky he teaches at school")
makes a beautiful but difficult job (ex. " It's a very fascinating work to try to
understand nature. It 's difficult but beautiful")
I do not know
other
no answer
The result of the previous categorization is that the work done by a physicist is seen mostly as
an experimental activity, since more than 50% of answers must be included in the category
makes experiments in the lab and 45% of them in the category makes observation on
reality. On the contrary, less than 25% of students thinks that the job done by a physics is a
theoretical study and less than 3% thinks that a physicist makes a beautiful but difficult job.
Obviously the sum of the percentages exceeds 100% as each answer can belong to more than
one of the listed categories.
3.3 Analysis of the answers to question 3
The attributes of Physics can be listed in the following way: Poetic 3%, Useless 4%, Abstract
8%, Creative 11%, Tedious 13%, Exact 27%, Fascinating 31%, Difficult 43%, Rigorous 43%,
Concrete 59%, Verifiable 78%.
In the answer "Difficult" we can see the only meaningful difference between male and female.
Physics is difficult for 32% of males and for 54% of females.
3.4 Analysis of the answers to question 4
Physics gives an important contribution to society: the average mark is 7.4/10.
Physics gives an important contribution to the way of thinking in general: the average
mark is 5.8/10.
Physics is too specialist in order to be understood by most of the people: the answer is
Yes for 64% of females and 54.4% of males.
I'm not interested in Physics and I do not see why I should be: the answer is No with
a percentage of 78%.
It is important that young people have basic notions of Physics: the answer is Yes
for 87% of students.

3.5 Analysis of the answers to question 5

On the average, two answers have been underlined. More than 50% of students think that both
Physics and Theatre give a representation of the world and more than 40% underline that a
theatre show can represent physics experiments and the job of a physicist.
Even if it could be an obvious answer especially for who has never seen a representation
similar to Tracks, only 20% of respondents think that by theatre, lives of famous scientists
can be represented. The fact that both Physics and Theatre deal with topics that generate
passion is thought by 10% of students and the answer regarding the spectacularity of science
reaches a percentage of about 35%.
Conclusions
In this paper we have analyzed only the answers to the pre-show questionnaire. Since the
results referring to the same questions of the post-show questionnaire seem to be nearly the
same as those of the pre-show questionnaire, we are confident that they can be a reliable
snapshot of the inquired situation.
We can thus conclude that nearly half of our students is unable to distinguish between
experimental sciences and other disciplines.
Physics is considered an experimental science (91%).
Physics is difficult for 32% of males and for 54% of females, it is a concrete discipline (6065%), it is very important for society (82%) and very linked to reality.
The cultural aspects of Physics do not reach a sufficient mark (5.8/10) and the abstract and
theoretical aspects are even less put in evidence (<25%) as well as the creative ones (15%).
On the other hand, few students think physics is tedious (10%) or useless, and 87% of
students believe that it is important that young people have basic notions of Physics.
Moreover, for more than 30% of the students Physics is even fascinating.
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