Investigation into Omani secondary school students' perceptions of scientists and their work

The purpose of this study was to investigate Omani 12^th grade students' perceptions about scientists and their work and accordingly propose some recommendations in order to encourage new generations to choose science and engineering-oriented specialisations in higher education. A 37-item questionnaire was designed to determine these perceptions and to find out if there are any differences in perception between males and females. The questionnaire was administered to 943 randomly selected students from ten schools in four Educational Governorates in the Sultanate of Oman, of which 411 were male and 532 female. The findings indicated that the four main resources used by Omani students to get information about scientists and their work are, the media, books, the internet, and the content of the school curriculum. The majority of students have clear perceptions of scientists' work, but are less clear about scientists' relationship with the society.