The result: Sports, art, and English are at the top of the list. Chemistry and physics bring up the rear. And math is both one of the most popular and least popular subjects.
For the study on subject popularity, researchers from Osnabrück University surveyed 5,623 students in grades 5 through 13 at 19 secondary schools in Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Berlin, and Baden-Württemberg. The children and adolescents rated 17 school subjects using the grading scale from 1 (“very good”) to 6 (“failing”). Additional factors taken into account included grade level, gender, school type, federal state, parents’ educational attainment, and migration status. Participants included Dr. Lars Otte and Prof. Dr. Marco Beeken from the Department of Chemistry Education, as well as Prof. Dr. Christian Reintjes, Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Stebner, and Dr. Till Kaiser from the Department of Education Science.
The overall ranking is clear: After taking subject selection in high school into account, physical education received the highest rating with an average grade of 1.93, followed by art with 2.19 and English with 2.45. At the other end of the ranking are chemistry with a 3.01 and physics with a 3.06. Even as a subject group, the STEM subjects perform worse than languages, social sciences, and physical education, music, and art.
“For us as chemistry educators, this is initially a sobering finding: chemistry and physics do indeed remain among the least popular subjects. At the same time, however, the study shows that there is no general lack of interest in the natural sciences—biology, for example, is rated significantly more positively,” says Dr. Lars Otte. “So it seems that the key factor is how accessible the specific requirements of a subject are made to students.”
This becomes particularly clear when looking at the different grade levels. Almost all subjects lose popularity during lower secondary school. Chemistry, physics, and the second foreign language are particularly hard hit. In the STEM subjects, the average rating declines from 2.66 to 3.00 between grades 5 and 10. During the same period, physics drops from 2.72 to 3.37, and chemistry from 2.67 to 3.20. “You could also say: As soon as chemistry and physics become more abstract, as soon as calculations are required, the grades drop,” says Dr. Lars Otte. Furthermore, these subjects—much like the second foreign language—build heavily on one another. Students who have not taken their studies too seriously for a few months run the risk of falling behind. In biology, on the other hand, the topics are so diverse that it is easier to “get back on track.”
“Chemistry actually has everything that makes for a fascinating school subject: experiments, real-world connections, and answers to key questions about energy, the environment, or modern materials. The challenge lies in maintaining this fascination even when conceptual models, symbolic language, and mathematical requirements come into play,” explains Prof. Dr. Marco Beeken. “Our findings are therefore less a judgment on a subject than a clear mandate for subject-specific pedagogy.”
At the upper secondary level, a clear selection effect is also evident: students who continue to take a subject often rate it significantly more positively than those who have dropped it. “This shows how closely subject popularity, perceived competence, and educational decisions are linked,” says Prof. Dr. Ferdinand Stebner. “When students perceive themselves as competent in a subject and view its content as meaningful to them, this not only increases their motivation—it can also influence whether they continue to engage with that subject in the long term.”
The analyses also show that male students rate computer science, physics, mathematics, and physical education more positively, while female students prefer art, German, education, and a second foreign language. Educational background also plays a role: Students from households with higher formal educational attainment generally rate school subjects more positively. In the joint statistical model, parents’ educational attainment is the third-strongest fixed explanatory factor after the specific subject and grade level. Migration status, on the other hand, has no independent overall effect on subject popularity when the other characteristics are taken into account.
“This is an important finding for educational research: subject popularity cannot be reduced to simple categories such as gender, federal state, or migration status,” emphasizes Prof. Dr. Christian Reintjes. “At the same time, the correlation with educational background shows that family educational resources and varying prerequisites can also play a role in how accessible and meaningful school subjects are perceived.”
Finally, the direct questions about the most and least popular subjects provided a surprise. Physical education was by far the most frequently cited favorite subject, accounting for 24.7 percent of responses. Mathematics, on the other hand, polarizes opinion: 9.3 percent of respondents named mathematics as their favorite subject—yet at the same time, it was by far the most frequently cited least-liked subject, at 20.0 percent. English and German also appear relatively frequently on both sides of the spectrum.
The researchers therefore caution against interpreting the ranking as a judgment of the quality of individual school subjects. Rather, a subject’s popularity arises from the interplay of academic requirements, individual aptitudes, and specific classroom experiences. Although the study is not nationally representative, its large, cross-state sample provides a current and nuanced snapshot of students’ subject preferences.
The full study can be viewed online here or downloaded here: uos_Fachbeliebtheit_260902_II.indd.
Further information for the media:
Dr. Lars Otte, Osnabrück University
School of Biology/Chemistry
Prof. Dr. Marco Beeken, Osnabrück University
School of Biology/Chemistry
Phone: 0541 969 3378
Cell: 0151 679 602 09
marco.beeken@uni-osnabrueck.de
