American Journal of Educational Research, 2013, Vol. 1, No. 9, 396-405 Available online at http://pubs.sciepub.com/education/1/9/8 © Science and Education Publishing DOI:10.12691/education-1-9-8 Changing the Image of Scientists among College Students in Israel Bar Varda 1,* , Pasit Koren 2 , Edna Rubin 3 , Anne Gail Buck 4 1 Science education department, Hebrew university of Jerusalem 2 Israel Education ministry instruction and curriculum design 3 Achava Teacher College 4 Curriculum and Instruction Department, Indiana University Bloomington *Corresponding author: barvarda@zahav.net.il Received October 22, 2013; Revised November 09, 2013; Accepted November 17, 2013 Abstract With this study, we sought to address some deficiencies in the image of scientists held by pre-service teachers in Israel. These include a few concerns for women scientists, as well as a lack of understanding about fieldwork and contemporary scientific equipment. The study was carried out with two groups of pre-service science students, mostly women. It was done through interference: following the web, meeting with experts and constructing leaning materials for pupils by the participants. Research was in the form of one strand research using qualitative methods. During the research, the image of women scientists changed considerably. Pre interference views were: there are no women scientists and physics and astrophysics are not for women. Women scientists were described as torn between family and work. In the post interference stage, a high appreciation for women scientists and their work in all domains was observed, woman scientist were portrayed as relaxed, taking part in team work, doing field work, and using specialized sophisticated equipment. Keywords: scientist image, college students, active involvement, conceptual change Cite This Article: Bar Varda, Pasit Koren, Edna Rubin, and Anne Gail Buck, “Changing the Image of Scientists among College Students in Israel.” American Journal of Educational Research 1, no. 9 (2013): 396-405. doi: 10.12691/education-1-9-8. 1. Introduction Research has revealed that women remain very poorly represented in the image of scientists held by college students in Israel. A summary of former research supports this statement [1,2,3]. In this former research, women were hardly mentioned as scientists: only about 7% of the drawings were of women and among scientists' suggested names women appear at about 7-8% of the lists. Only one or two women were mentioned for each group of about 100 undergraduate students [1,2]. Captions and free writings in several groups referred to the scientist as a man ("the white mail with the lab coat and goggles"). This information was collaborated by the reasons given for not becoming a scientist, such as "being a scientist causes harm to the family", mostly attributed to: "the woman needs to stay at home and take care of her family". Early marriage and other traditional customs in Israel were also mentioned [1]. Some of these reasons were heard mostly among participants coming from religious groups, but were also found among secular pre-service student teachers. Properties attributed to the scientist were: being intellectual (clever, wise), dedicated and diligent: "working long hours in the lab doing experiments"; lonely: "does not spend time with friends and not with his family". Other properties attributed to the scientists were remote, objective and creative. Students said that these properties are typical to males [4]. Drawing captions and essay writing gave the participants a chance to express their views freely and not as answers to forced suggestions revealed their true views. Open tools reinforced the data of the closed tools such as draw, names and properties. A survey of sources of knowledge used at school, about men and women scientists, revealed a deficiency of women names; women scientist are less mentioned than male scientists in science text books and other leaning materials used by the pupils of the future teachers [1]. There is a gap between women and men especially regarding prestigious occupation, such as leadership, command, management, science and medicine, and also concerning sport, religion and army, when the ratio of women to men is one to four. The male is characterized as outgoing, creative, taking part in many occupations among them science, and possessing the role of a leader. Women are still depicted as performing house hold chores. The positive properties attributed to men in those text books, are being strong, diligent, accurate, intelligent similar to the properties attributed to scientists [1,5]. The students noted these properties when describing why women are not willing or not able to be scientists. Limited knowledge about women's roles in science, and the lack of women role models in science, might explain the lack of motivation of women to work in science [3,5,6].