REVISITING STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS OF RESEARCH SCIENTISTS – OUTCOMES OF AN INDIRECT DRAW-A-SCIENTIST TEST (InDAST)

What is the image of research scientists in students' minds? Studies in this area have been underway for more than fifty years and suggest that scientists are perceived as bespectacled men in lab coats, working alone in rooms full of basic lab glassware. This image has been derived mainly from the analysis of drawings, known as the Draw-A-Scientist Test (DAST). However, DAST instructions are based on the word, “scientists”, the meaning of which seems too narrow for today's world and not reflecting the wide range of STEM-based research careers. Moreover, the instructions can predetermine the number and gender of people in the picture. For this reason, a new tool has been developed which provides an indirect analysis – the Indirect Draw-A-Scientist Test (InDAST). The new instrument was used in an experiment with secondary-school students (n = 851), and the resulting image of the scientist was compared with an earlier experiment that employed the original DAST instructions. The results showed that the basic attributes, appearance, and workplace of scientists are similar in both studies, but the new procedure disproved the theory that scientists are perceived as men working alone and that female students do not see themselves as scientists.