The effect of an integrated STEM education program on secondary school students’ attitudes towards science

Abstract

There is a declining trend in students’ attitudes towards science (George, 2006; Oon & Subramaniam, 2018; Potvin & Hasni, 2014; Tytler, Osborne, Williams, Tytler, & Cripps Clark, 2008; Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2011). It brings the problem of having not enough students to study science related subjects (Osborne, Simon, & Collins, 2003) and producing not enough scientists for the future, which is one of the board aims of school science (Potvin & Hasni, 2014). Attitudes towards science are defined as general perception in science or can be perception towards particular events in science (Krapp & Prenzel, 2011). It is the affective attributes, including feelings, beliefs and values that one has towards the enterprise of science, school science and the impact of science on societies or scientists (Osborne et al., 2003). Students have positive attitudes towards a certain object will produce positive reactions towards that (Ajzen, 2001). Hence, it is believed that if students have positive attitudes towards science students may choose to study science or pursuit science related career in the future (Tytler & Osborne, 2012). Krapp and Prenzel (2011) had done a summary on researches on students’ attitudes towards science and found out that no matter which science discipline students were studying, many students had reduced interest towards learning science as schooling progressed. Hence, developing interventions to promote students’ attitudes towards science is important. Cheung (2018) indicated that local teachers would think that finishing the tight syllabus is more important than helping students to develop positive attitudes towards science. It was proposed that the use of STEM initiatives can be a solution to the problem. However, little has been done on using the integrated STEM approach at curriculum level to help students to develop positive attitudes towards science. This study is aimed to fill this research gap. 128 students studying F.2 in a local secondary school had participated in the integrated STEM programs to learn relevant science and mathematics concepts that were required to be taught in the local syllabus during regular lesson time. There were 4 science teachers, 4 mathematics and 1 computer teacher involved in this intervention. The science concepts taught in this program were about force and motions. For the mathematics part, trigonometric ratios, namely sine, cosine and tangent were taught in this program. For the computer part, basic coding was taught through the use of Micro: bit and basic input and output devices were also taught in this integrated STEM program. Pre-test and post-test were done to evaluate students’ changes in attitudes towards science before and after their participation in the integrated STEM program. Semi-structured focus-group interviews were conducted to find out how students feel about the STEM approach in comparison with the traditional teaching approach, which they normally have in their regular science lessons. Students were also asked about how the STEM program would affect their attitudes towards science. It was found that students’ attitudes towards science in the self-concept in science, enjoyment in science, learning science outside classroom and future participation in science constructs were enhanced significantly after their participation in integrated STEM program. However, students’ anxiety towards science was also enhanced. There was no significant change in students’ value of science to society and learning science in classroom after students’ participation in the STEM program.