Scottish Government

Annex III: Pupil and teacher questionnaires

III.1 The pupil questionnaires

Four versions of the pupil questionnaire were developed for the 2007 survey and these were used across all four stages with some very slight modifications in the language used for the younger pupils. Its aim was to explore the experience of, and views on, their education of pupils within a Science context.

Sections common to all versions enquired about pupils' views of lesson activities and their attitudes to lessons on Science.

Version 1 of the questionnaire also included enquiries into pupils' activities outside school. Version 2 investigated their after school activities, views about the usefulness of Science, and, at P7 and S2, whether they cared for anybody at home. Version 3 enquired into their knowledge of and interest in various Science topics, while version 4 investigated their thoughts about Science issues in the news.

The various versions were distributed to survey schools in such a way that each would be responded to by a representative sample of pupils.

Two further questionnaires were developed to target pupils in Gaelic medium schools, at stages P5 and P7. These were a Gaelic translation of version 3 of the English questionnaire for P3, but with topics that were appropriate for the stage.

The number of questionnaires that were completed by pupils are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 : Number of pupil questionnaires returned, by version and stage

III.2 The teacher questionnaire

A single teacher questionnaire was completed by class teachers at P3, P5, P7, and S2. Slight modifications were made to reflect different structures in Primary and Secondary schools. Its aim was to explore the circumstances and nature of teaching and learning in Science at these stages.

The questionnaire comprised four sections. Section A requested information about the teacher's length of teaching experience, time in current post, time spent per week on teaching and preparation, confidence in teaching different Science topics, and professional development opportunities. Section B explored teachers' views about pupils' lesson attendance, learning motivation, and behaviour in class, teachers' use of national assessments, and their use of formative assessments and personal learning planning. Section C investigated the nature of the teacher's Science lessons by asking how often pupils were engaged in various different activities. Answer options ranged from 'during most lessons' to 'once a year or less'. Section D looked at resources for teaching, inviting teachers to indicate how often they used each type of resource in their teaching, using the same frequency categories as for lesson activities. Section E was intended for teachers at Gaelic medium schools, and asked about their use of Gaelic language when teaching Science.

The number of questionnaires that were completed by teachers at each stage is shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Number of teacher questionnaires returned, by stage taught

Copies of the questionnaires are available on Leaning and Teaching Scotland's website ( http://www.ltscotland.org.uk ).