US Teens Understand the Importance of Math & Science

American teenagers are not confident in their country’s ability to compete in math & science subjects, a new survey recently released suggests. The findings reveal that teens, as individuals, may not feel a part of what they acknowledge is a math and science problem plaguing the country -- a problem illustrated by the United States’ poor performance on global rankings.

The teens surveyed primarily attributed their minimal confidence in the national math and science abilities to a lack of hard work and discipline, but not a lack of school funding or resources. This may suggest they need to be challenged more in the classroom. Yet, the silver lining is that, contrary to perceptions that American teenagers are apathetic about math and science, students highly value the importance of these subjects and understand the role of math and science to their futures.

This survey of 1,000 American teens was commissioned by Intel Corporation to offer a student perspective on the complex issues facing American education today and to spark a debate about how best to challenge American teens to excel in math and science.


The Results:

• American teens understand the importance of math and science education.
  • 99% of teens believe it is important to be good at math and science.
  • 58% aspire to pursue a math- or science-related career.
• Despite ranking 21st out of 30 in science and 25th out of 30 in math literacy among students from developed countries, 85% of American teens are confident in their own math and science abilities.
• Despite high personal confidence, American teens are not confident in the United States’ ability to compete in math and science.
  • When asked which country is best at math and science today, 90 percent selected a choice other than the United States, with 67 percent choosing Japan or China.

• American teens primarily blame a lack of work ethic and discipline as reasons why other countries are ahead of the United States in math and science.
  • 51% of teens who are not confident in the United States’ math and science abilities believe this is because Americans do not work hard enough.
  • 44% of those who do not think the United States is the best at math and science blame a lack of discipline.
• Just a third of teens blame lack of funding or school emphasis for poor math and science abilities in the United States.

This survey of U.S. teenagers was conducted online between Sept. 24 and 28, 2010 by Penn Schoen Berland on behalf of Intel. Participants included 1,000 teenagers ages 13 to 18. Demographics were aligned as closely as possible to U.S. Census data. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent.

[Source link - Photo credit: Flickr/Woodley]