Factors of Decision Making in Science Stream Course in Higher Learning Education

Abstract

The declination of science interest appears to be a significant concern as becoming a global trend issue. As the government will face negative impact from this issue, the government encourage any contribution effort from the universities and industries to increase the social interest. Thus this study was conducted for the purpose of investigating the influencing aspects in students' stream choice of either physics or biology stream. 36 respondents chosen are students from third semester for 2017/2018 session of Diploma in Science from Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Perak Branch Tapah Campus. Data collection was done quantitatively from questionnaires participated by all respondents through an academic program named 'Running Physicists' which organized by the faculty. Demographic and contributing factors from family background, peer, and passion were measured as the prompting aspects in student's stream choices. Cronbach's Alpha for demographic factor is 0.815 of consistency value gives reliable value for measuring respondents' opinion. The contribution factors show significant relation on family, peer, and passion with mean value of 3.59, 2.95 and 4.32 respectively for physics respondents and mean value of 3.71, 2.71 and 4.43 correspondingly for biology respondents. The enrolment of respondents in stream choice is dominated by personal abilities and passion with the subject's background.