Studies have shown that various factors (the role of formal education, informal education, and community) contribute to the lack of participation in STEM and STEM careers. This research aimed to understand the multi pathways of factors contributing to the interest in STEM careers (STEM careers in physical sciences and STEM careers in life sciences). This research was a survey research which administered a questionnaire randomly to 1485 secondary school students (14 years of age). Data analysis was based on the Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach using Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) to test the hypothesized model. A model containing five constructs, namely environmental factors (learning experiences, media, social influences), self-efficacy in science, technology, engineering and mathematics respectively, perceptions of STEM careers and interest in physical sciences and life sciences STEM careers was proposed in this research. The results show that students’ interest in life sciences based careers is influence by their self-efficacy and perceptions of the career. Meanwhile, students’ interest in physical sciences based careers is influence only by their self-efficacy and not influence by their perceptions of the career. The need to improve students’ self-efficacy through STEM learning experiences is imperative to ensure continued interest in STEM careers.
Key words: environmental factors, life sciences STEM careers, perceptions of STEM careers, physical sciences STEM careers, self-efficacy, social cognitive career theory.
This study aimed to determine the impact of the integration of engineering design process (asking, imagining, planning, creating and improving) in an electrical & magnetism module to improve problem-solving skills in physics among secondary school students in Aceh, Indonesia. The quasi-experimental study was carried out with 82 form three (age 15 years old) students of a secondary school in Aceh Besar, Indonesia. The first author had randomly chosen two classes as the experimental group and two other classes as the control group. Independent samples t-test analysis was conducted to determine the difference between the physics teaching and learning module which integrated the five steps of engineering design process and the existing commonly used science "Pudak" teaching and learning module. The results of the independent samples t-test analysis showed that the use of the physics teaching and learning module which integrated the five steps of engineering design process was more effective compared to the use of the existing "Pudak" module in increasing the students' skills in solving physics problems. The findings of the study suggest that the science learning approach is appropriate to be applied in the teaching and learning of science to enhance science problem-solving skills among secondary school students. In addition, it can be used as a guide for teachers on how to implement the integration of the five steps of engineering design process in science teaching and learning practices.
The environmental education course currently does not integrate problem-solving problem skills. The purpose of this study was analyzing the results of applying integration on problem-based learning with the RMS (reading, mind mapping, and sharing) learning model. The research method was a quasi-experimental with pre-test-post-test control group design. The study was conducted on 56 students who took an environmental education course in Natural Science Education Universitas Tidar. Data analysis used an Anacova test with a pretest as its covariate. The study results stated that 1) developed learning model integrates PBL with RMS learning model consisting of identifying problems, finding relevant information about problems through reading activities, analyzing problem: group discussion through mind mapping, providing solutions, and sharing results of mind mapping. 2) The integration of PBL with the RMS learning model indicated by an average score of post-test in the integration of PBL with the RMS learning model class of 68.46, and the traditional class of 48.92. 3) the learning process that occurs in the integration of PBL with the RMS learning model class shows that learning is run well, which is indicated by students' average evaluation score of the lecturer learning process. The integration of PBL and RMS model can be utilized by teachers and lecturers in Biology learning to have thinking skills and solve daily problems.
Japan's continual excellent achievement in TIMSS has led to many research and discussions of the Japanese school system as a way of understanding the factors and system that underlie Japan's success in TIMSS. However, comparative studies have focused more on cognitive skills and less on non-cognitive skills as plausible factors for the continual success. Thus, this study aimed to examine the non-cognitive factors related to students' science achievement in TIMSS. This study adopted secondary data analysis where the analysis was carried out on TIMSS 2015 data for respondents from Malaysia and Japan. This study proposed two models for each country which contained five constructs, namely four independent variables which are science teaching practices, victims of bullying, attitude towards science, school climate, and one independent variable i.e. science achievement. From the structural model of multiple group comparison analysis, almost all non-cognitive factors in the model showed significant difference between the two countries except for the relationship between attitude towards science and science achievement in TIMSS.
This research is intended to study the characteristics of creativity in two practical-based physics learning activities which are physics practical work (PPW) and physics innovative project (PIP) among pre-service physics teacher at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). The study was conducted in one semester among 12 physics education undergraduates from the Faculty of Education, UTM. Two sets of survey questionnaires were used to collect data on characteristics of creativity in PPW and PIP respectively and the data was analyzed using descriptive analysis. The result of the study shows that six characteristics of creativity are highlighted more when the pre-service physics teachers performed PIP except openness which are the same in both activities. Based on the findings, it is found that activities like inquiry based learning such as PIP can encourage more characteristics of creativity compared to PPW that is guided by manual books. Therefore, it is suggested that activities like PIP should be delivered to the pre-service teachers as one of the exercises to generate creative teachers.
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