INTRODUCTION Education approach for students in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) has received increasing attention over the past decade (Honey, Pearson & Schweingruber, 2014). The approach is greater emphasised on these fields for improvements in the quality of curricula and instruction. In other words, STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Rather than teaching the four disciplines as separate and discrete subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications (Hom, 2014).
Several benefits of STEM education include making students become better problem solvers, self-reliant, innovators, inventors, creators, logical thinkers and technologically literate (Morrison, 2006). STEM stimulated students becoming critical thinkers. Some studies have shown that integrating mathematics and science has a positive impact on students’ attitudes and interest in school (Bragow, Gragow & Smith, 1995), their motivation to learn (Gutherie, Wigfield & VonSecker, 2000) and achievement (Hurley, 2001). Recently, another study focused on an educational strategy based on professional practices can help students make connections between mathematics, statistics, science and professional practices (Dierdorp et al., 2014). Meanwhile, the study with integrating science and technology
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Corresponding author e-mail: nadisuprapto@unesa.ac.id
Journal of Turkish Science Education July 2016, 13(Special Issue), 75-87
http://www.tused.org ISSN:1304-6020
Journal of Turkish Science Education. 13(Special Issue), 75-87
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education by applying “robotic science” indicated that the use of technology in different disciplines will contribute to the nation (Koç & Böyük, 2013). Moreover, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Research Council list fifth benefits of incorporating engineering in K-12 schools: improved achievement in mathematics and science, increased awareness of engineering, understanding and being able to do engineering design, increased technological literacy and interest in pursuing engineering as a career (Katehi, Pearson & Feder, 2009).
Regarding the importance of synergies between science, technology, engineering and mathematics, then students need to be stimulated towards a positive attitude about them at the beginning. While, there has been considerable research conducted about students’ attitudes towards science (Osborne, Simon & Collins, 2003) and mathematics (McLeod, 1994), science and mathematics (Özgün-Koca & Şen, 2011), there is less research available about students’ attitudes towards technology and engineering. Various categorisations had been developed to capture the attitudes towards STEM which can usefully be applied to students (see, for example, Tyler-Wood, Knezek & Christensen, 2010; Tseng, Chang & Lou, 2011; Faber et al., 2013; Guzey, Harwell & Moore, 2014). However, most of the studies conducted in the US, Europe, Taiwan, Turkey and others and rarely heard from developing countries like Indonesia. As Faber et al (2013) reported that the United States remains a world leader in discovery and innovation today because of STEM education already widespread. Therefore, it is important for a country to improve their creativity and competitiveness through STEM education.
In particular, the concept of STEM in Indonesia became popular in recent years, especially in higher education level. It can be said that the concept is gradually developing in Indonesia. Some researches and events were turned to this concept, such as an innovation strategy to build students’ disaster literacy through STEM-D (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Disaster) Education (Sampurno, Sari & Wijaya, 2015); a partnership program between local schools in Riau province and Honeywell about science and technology (Honeywell, 2014); and an ongoing project between Columbia University and the Institute Pertanian Bogor to improve the teaching of STEM in Indonesian high schools (Columbia Global, 2014). However, some of these programs were more emphasised on the secondary and higher education rather than the low levels of education, such as elementary and junior high school. Bottia et al (2013) also recommended that the feasible approaches for inspiring, reinforcing and preparing more of the nation’s youth to choose a STEM pathway for their futures. Therefore, this study focused on junior high school student for primary potential integrating STEM education.
Based on the introduction and the aforementioned theoretical foundations, the purpose of the current study is to investigate the Indonesian students’ attitudes towards STEM. To this end, the aims of this study were twofold:
1. To explore the degree of attitudes towards Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics among junior high school students in Indonesia.
2. To examine the interrelationships among dimensions of attitudes towards Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
METHODOLOGY
a) Research Design
Starting from July to August 2015, the author spread out the questionnaire by traditional survey method to students in three junior high schools in East Java province, Indonesia. Survey designs are procedures in quantitative research in which investigators administer a survey to a sample to describe the attitudes, the opinion, behaviors or characteristics of
Suprapto, N. (2016). Students’ Attitudes Towards STEM Education: Voices from .… 77
population (Creswell, 2012). Specifically, the survey is a useful tool to assess efficacy of STEM education programs on students’ attitudes towards STEM and STEM careers (Guzey et al., 2014). Figure 1 depicts the process of survey design.
Figure 1. The process of survey study
b) Participants
As described in the introduction, this research focuses on the junior high school students. The participants were 260 junior high school students (aged 12–16 years) at public school in East Java Province, Indonesia. In this study, the participants consisted of 47.3% male and 52.7% female. The sample varied of demographic factors, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Summary of sample demographics (N= 260)
Background
Subtotal
n
%
Gender
Male
Female
123
137
47.31
52.69
Grade
Seventh (7)
Eight (8)
Nine (9)
Missing
83
90
86
1
31.9
34.6
33.1
0.4
Total
260
100.0
c) Instrument
The instrument used in this study was the Attitudes Towards STEM Questionnaire (AT-STEM). Derived from other attitudes questionnaires (such as Faber et al., 2013 and Guzey et al., 2014), this STEM attitudes questionnaire was examined by three experts. Originally, the instrument consisted of 27 items for AT-STEM, which used English version (see Appendix).
Selection of items
Existing items and scales were surveyed by literature review, adaptating, and developing
Conducting qualitative treatment of items were selected
Conducting quantitative treatment
of items were selected
Validation by experts
The critique and suggestion from the experts
Data collecting
EFA (Exploratory factor analysis)
To check the consistency of factor structure. Alternative ways:
 Eigen Value
 Orthogonal (varimax) rotation
 Loading factor
 Variance explained
Reliability:
 Cronbach’s alpha coefficient
Final Study
Final check the validity and reliability of the questionnaire and perform the explanation of the research question
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The instrument distributed into four crucial conceptions of STEM education, including Science (S), Mathematics (M), Technology and Engineering (T-E) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). The items were coded on a five-point-Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 3 (neutral) to 5 (strongly agree). The higher scores indicated the greater attitude towards STEM education. By translating process into Indonesian and checking the content validity, the instrument feasible to Indonesian students. Two items with low factor loading were deleted and twenty-five items remained in the questionnaire. The information of validity and reliability for the scale is shown in Table 2.
d) Procedure
The data collection of this study was accomplished with printed surveys. Invitations were first distributed to the potential participants (i.e. Junior high school students in East Java Indonesia) through email, face to face requests and science teachers’ assistance. This made sure that all the participants volunteered to take part in and to respond to the questionnaires. At the beginning of the surveys, the students were informed of the aim of this study and the purposes of the questionnaires. In the questionnaires, the author only addressed the intention to investigate students’ perspectives and confidence about attitudes towards STEM education. However, the issue about STEM education was relatively new in Indonesia. Therefore, in the first step the researcher with supporting by three science teachers introduced and demonstrated teaching and learning process by integrating STEM education as a foundation for students’ prior knowledge.
The Hydrogen fuel cell was used to integrate between formal science curricula and STEM education. The solar Hydrogen science kit guided students to invent their own clean energy applications using fuel cells and renewable hydrogen created using solar energy and water (see Figure 2). The set was equipped by a complete curriculum on renewable energy with easy experiment, manual kits and background history on the technology. The sub-topics of the experiment include: the effect of heat on solar panels, finding the solar panel’s maximum power, electrolysis mode (generating Hydrogen and O