The relationship between science enjoyment and science performance in high-performing Eastern and Western economies

• In Event: Digital Transitions in Education: Resilience, Gender Dynamics, and Technological Impacts

Proposal

Analyses from PISA 2006 indicate a positive correlation between students’ enjoyment of science and science performance (OECD, 2007). However, in East Asia, science competence is not linked to enjoyment in science or estimating one's ability in science (Yu, 2012). Meyer and Schiller (2013) identify two distinct patterns among high-performing countries: a Western "individualistic" pattern, including Finland, Canada, and Australia, and an Eastern "paternalistic" pattern, represented by Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and China. This study seeks to examine whether enjoyment of science is higher in Western or Eastern economies and how the relationship between enjoyment and performance varies at different performance levels.

According to Webster (1983), paternalism is described as the principle or system of governing in a way that resembles a father’s relationship with his children. In contrast, cultures in North America, as well as Western and Northern Europe, tend to be characterized by greater egalitarianism and individualism (Aycan, 2006).

In Canada, it was found that enjoying science was a significant factor associated with academic success (Yu et al., 2021). Furthermore, the relationship between science performance and science enjoyment was most pronounced among students who were high achievers (Perez & Cromley, 2009). However, despite the fact that enjoyment of learning is clearly associated with performance in Hong Kong, China, Canada, and Finland, students in Hong Kong and China exhibit lower self-efficacy than the students in Canada and Finland, only close to the OECD mean (K.-C. Lau & Ho, 2022).

Data and method

This study utilizes data from PISA 2015. Based on the research results of Western “individualistic” pattern and Eastern “paternalistic” pattern (Meyer and Schiller, 2013), this analysis covers the same seven economies: Finland (N = 5,882), Canada (N = 20,058), Australia (N = 17,714), Korea (N = 5,581), Singapore (N = 6,115), Hong Kong (N = 5,362), and China (N = 9,932), with a total sample size of 70,644 participants.

You et al. (2021) utilized the averages of the 10 plausible values (imputed from students' responses) for each subscale provided by PISA as the dependent variables. In this study, I use the same method. As the independent variable, the science enjoyment subscale is assessed.

Previous studies have called attention to an array of factors associated with science performance. These include: the enjoyment of science and self-efficacy (Lam & Lau, 2014), the disciplinary climate in science classes and teacher support (Chi et al., 2018), inquiry-based science teaching (Gómez, R. & M., 2020), teacher-directed instructional practices (Liou, 2021), tailored teaching approaches (K. Lau & Lam, 2017), epistemological beliefs (Kılıç & Depren, 2020), participation in science-related activities (Hong et al., 2022; Zhang & Tang, 2017), socioeconomic factors (Sun et al., 2012; You et al., 2021; Zhang & Campbell, 2015), parental emotional support (Berger et al., 2024), and test anxiety and school performance (D’Agostino et al., 2022; Jerrim, 2023).

In this study, I employ the above variables as control variables, in addition to key home and school variables, such as cultural possessions at home (wle), home educational resources (wle), teacher behavior hindering learning (wle), and parents’ participation in school related activities. By including these control variables, the study provides a more nuanced and comprehensive exploration of the factors related to science performance, especially the relationship with student enjoyment of science.

Statistical models

This study utilizes non-experimental models to examine the relationship between enjoyment of science and science performance, while controlling for other known explanatory factors. Quantile regression is employed to estimate how the relationship between enjoyment and performance varies at different performance levels. Robust variance is used to review the outlier of the Eastern and Western economies to complement.

Findings

After controlling the relative variables, all coefficients for enjoyment of science are statistically significant (p < 0.001), showing that enjoyment of science consistently impacts science performance. The impact of enjoyment of science decreases from lower to higher quantiles in both regions, suggesting a stronger effect on lower-performing students. Between the 50% and 75% quantiles, the West coefficient increases slightly (from 16.19 to 16.78), whereas the East shows a more consistent decline from 17.36 to 16.90 to 14.88. It suggests that enjoyment of science plays a relatively smaller role for higher-performing students in the East.

In both Eastern and Western economies, the Pr > F values for W0, W50, and W10 are all 0.00000000, implying that there is heteroskedasticity in the joy of science across the performance groups (low, median, upper). Hong Kong students placed second out of 57 participating economies. Yet, Hong Kong's score is 14 points below the OECD average on identifying scientific issues, 7 points above the OECD average on items related to explaining scientific phenomena, and matches the OECD average on using scientific evidence (Hong Kong Centre for International Student Assessment, 2008). Based on this research, this study investigates the relationship between science enjoyment and performance using the robust variance according to the above-classified items.

This study finds a consistent pattern between the enjoyment of science and its components of scientific literature. It is apparent that there are some outliers in the median and upper groups of all Eastern economies. Only a few outliers exhibit in the upper group of the Western economies by the items of identifying scientific issues. It suggests that some students have an unusually low enjoyment of science despite being in higher performance categories in the East, while there are fewer extreme values in the West.

Conclusion

After controlling the known variables, Eastern students show a greater decline in enjoyment as students reach higher performance levels. The following robust variance displays the low enjoyment for some students in particular in the median and upper groups in the East. These insights can guide policymakers and educators in tailoring science education strategies with special attention to the median and high performers in the Eastern economies to guide students into intrinsic and true science enjoyment in science learning.

Author

• LIFEN HU, SUNY Albany