Waikato researchers probe youth’s hopes and fears
university-of-waikato
Mon Jul 20 2009 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Waikato researchers probe youth’s hopes and fears
Monday, 20 July 2009, 2:03 pm
Press Release: University of Waikato
Waikato researchers probe young people’s hopes and fears
There aren’t many budding volcanologists who are trained in childcare and have experience in property management, but University of Waikato student Holly Goddard has proved she can turn her hand to most things.
Goddard is in her second year of an Earth Sciences degree – chosen, she says, because she’s always been fascinated by rocks and volcanoes – but found her childwrangling skills came in useful for a summer research project in science education, looking at the hopes and fears of young people for the future, with a particular focus on the environment.
“The project seemed interesting and different – it was still learning, but it made a change from Earth Sciences,” says Goddard, who secured one of 70 Summer Research Scholarships awarded by the University last year. The scholarships are worth up to $4,000 and students complete their research over the ten-week summer study break.
Supervised by Dr Kathrin Otrel-Cass of Waikato University’s Centre for Science and Technology Education Research, the youth survey project was part of an cross-country longitudinal study – the same survey has been conducted several times in Austria, Germany and Switzerland between 1988 and now – and involved 300 13- to 17-year-olds.
The study used guided fantasy stories combined with drawings to allow the young people to articulate their thoughts; in addition the project used an innovative digital recording system to capture the students’ own spoken descriptions of their drawings.
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“Holly’s job was to help us catalogue everything we collected – the drawings, transcripts and surveys for the 300 students – and enter the data for quantitative and qualitative analysis,” says Dr Otrel-Cass. “She also came along for some of the data collection – the aim was to get her engaged in as much of the research as possible.”
Goddard says the work was completely new to her, but she found it fascinating. “It’s the most I’ve ever learnt in the shortest period. Being hands-on is a great way to learn, and there was always someone around to help when I got stuck.”
The data is still being analysed, but Dr Otrel-Cass says the range of responses showed that the biggest fear for all the New Zealand young people was loss of their parents, followed closely by destruction of the natural environment. Interestingly, the same result came from the Austrian study. “It’s a shift from the European study ten years ago,” says Dr Otrel-Cass. “In that study, the number one fear was environmental destruction.”
But it wasn’t all gloom and doom – and the survey showed some interesting ideas about how young people pictured the future in 20 years time, says Goddard. “There were lots of futuristic scenarios involving hovering skateboards and robots, as well as scenarios with white picket fences and ponies.”
Dr Otrel-Cass is currently comparing the findings with those of the latest European study, and will deliver an academic paper on the topic at the European Educational Research Association conference in Vienna in September.
Goddard, who migrated to New Zealand from the UK two years ago, says she’ll be applying for another summer research scholarship this year. “I’m really enjoying university,” she says. “I haven’t looked back since I started – I love it.”
ENDS
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