Australia’s science literacy lowering

The report ‘Science literacy in Australia’, released today, presents the results of a survey to determine Australians’ level of science literacy and how it has changed over the past three years. According to Professor Les Field of the Australian Academy of Science, (the Academy) the results can be described as “a reality check.”

The survey was conducted by Auspoll on behalf of the Academy and Science & Technology Australia (STA). It asked over 1500 respondents, from a range of different backgrounds and locations, questions about basic scientific facts. The survey had been previously conducted in July 2010.

The majority of respondents answered the survey correctly, understanding that it takes the Earth one year to orbit the Sun (59%), the fact that evolution is still occurring (70%), and that humans and dinosaurs did not coexist (73%). However, Professor Field noted that this leaves “a significant fraction of the population which doesn’t have a rudimentary understanding of the world around us and the basic sciences and technology.” 30% of respondents, for example, think it takes the Earth one day to orbit the Sun, and 27% think humans coexisted with dinosaurs. This is where the concern lies.

According to Professor Field, it was expected that the survey results would show improvement from 2010 levels - but any shifts present were subtle ones, and in some cases they had gone backwards. For example, there was a 4% reduction in the proportion of people who knew that 3% of the Earth’s water is fresh (13% down to 9%) and also in the proportion of people who believe humans are influencing the evolution of other species (77% down to 73%). And despite the fact that younger respondents were one of the groups more likely to answer questions correctly, their knowledge levels have dropped the most over the last three years.

Professor Field believes that science is very important to the Australian economy and, according to the survey, 79% of Australians agree with him. As the world becomes more technologically advanced, he said, “the average person needs a sound understanding of science to survive and contribute to the community.” Ironically though, technology was also blamed as being part of the problem, with search engines like Google being used as an alternative to knowing the principles of the world, and sophisticated special effects leaving some people with little differentiation between fantasy and reality.

The main problem though - and the solution - lies with the education system, according to Professor Field. He believes those young people who reach university are doing so with far less knowledge of the fundamentals - science, technology and mathematics - than they should. He personally thinks there should be a core curriculum which ensures students are engaged with these units from primary school through to the end of high school and beyond, because if people avoid these subjects early on, it’s hard for them to re-engage.

The survey results can be viewed at http://www.science.org.au/reports/science-literacy.html.