Abstract
The curriculum understanding means students’cognition and awareness on the five aspects: learning process, content, others, themselves and the environment.By means of questionnaires and random sampling, this study discusses the science curriculum understanding of different backgrounds students in Taiwan. Three schools, each from the north, central, south and east are selected; while the first class from the third to sixth grade are surveyed. In sum, 12 schools (with 48 classes and 1,257 students) are taken for survey. A great number of 1,166 effective questionnaires are returned with 92.8% recorded. The main findings are as follows: understanding of science curriculumt is affected by teachers’ teaching and textbooks. Despite a good understanding of science curriculum through experiment, observation and teachers’ teaching, students still lack of exploring initiatively, thinking, questioning and discussing cooperatively. Students lack of learning confidence, positive attitude and low in self-efficacy. This is reflected by the fact that the higher grades they are the lower scores they get. A strong connection between positive attitude toward learning and better science understanding. The study suggests that students’ science learning approach should increase inquiry and discussion, improving students’ interest and positive attitude about science curriculum.