An empirical analysis of the deterioration of the science related attitudes across students' age and sex is presented. The attitudinal factors embrace a group of variables on the image of science, environmental preservation and some aspects of school science and have been analyzed in a sample of students across several ages starting at the fourth grade. The decline mainly affects the attitudes toward school science, while the attitudes towards the image of science or the environmental preservation do not exhibit this deterioration. The time evolution of the students' answers demonstrates the global decrease of attitudes across age and gender: the first grades display the best attitudes, then they significantly decrease as the age increase; moreover boys and girls display different profiles of attitudinal decay across time. The implications of these results for school science education and the limitations of the study are discussed.
Science education; Attitudes related to science; Evolution across age; Gender differences
