WHY GIRLS ARE LESS INTERESTED IN SCIENCE

In the recent years, there was a phenomena of declining students’ interest on science. In 1979, Whitfield (1980) conducted a research to analyze students’ favorite subjects. The result indicated that chemistry and physics became the two least preferred subject for 14-year old students. Supporting Whitfield’s findings, the analysis result of the data from the Department for Education of England and Welsh showed that the number of students enrolled in advanced levels science and mathematics only in 1993 had decreased 13% compared to their data at 1980 (Osborne et al, 2003). Furthermore, the UK examination Board and HMSO also claimed that the number of students examined in physics in 2000 were decreased almost 15000 students since 1990. All these findings showed that science is becoming less preferred by the students.