Agathi Prodromou

Profile

I come from Cyprus and I moved to UK in 2006 to complete my Undergraduate Physics degree at the University of Leeds. After the end of my degree in 2009 I have completed a Masters in Science Education in the University of Leeds. I have also completed a Masters in Environmental Engineering at Imperial College of London. After completing my PGCE in Science Education I have started working as a Science teacher in a single-sex school in London.

As I have enjoyed my time in Leeds I have returned as a research student in 2014.

What motivated me to undertake PhD study?

When I started working as a teacher I have noticed that students joined secondary school really excited about secondary science but they lose their enthusiasm fairly quickly. I started wondering what are the reasons causing this ‘dip’ in the primary-secondary interface and I decided to investigate this.

What makes me passionate about my subject?

I find students engagement to science a truly interesting and I believe that as much as we want students to achieve good grades we need to keep them excited and enthusiastic about science and its amazing aspects.

What are my plans once I have completed my PhD?

I would like to continue working as a teacher and hopefully to be able to intergrate some of the findings of my research to my teaching. At the same time I would love to continue with further research in this interesting field.

Research interests

Submission Date: October 2020

A number of studies indicate that students’ engagement in science dramatically declines as they move from primary to secondary school. While primary school students are very motivated and have very positive attitudes towards studying science in year 7 they become noticeably disengaged after they move to secondary school My research  will look at the impact of Science Open Evenings and year 7 Induction Days on students’ perceptions of science. Open Evenings are part of most secondary schools’ marketing events to attract primary school students to their school. The study aims to investigate how science is presented in science Open Evening events as well as in the year 7 Induction Days and the impacts of this presentation on students’ perceptions of secondary science.