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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 17, Issue 1, Article 3 (Jun., 2016) |
Fostering students’ 21st century skills through Project Oriented Problem Based Learning (POPBL) in integrated STEM education program
Wan Nor Fadzilah WAN HUSIN, Nurazidawati MOHAMAD ARSAD, Oziah OTHMAN, Lilia HALIM, Mohamad Sattar RASUL, Kamisah OSMAN and Zanaton IKSAN
Faculty of Education, National University of MALAYSIA
E-mail: wannor_fadzilah@yahoo.com.myReceived 1 May., 2016
Revised 28 Jun., 2016
Students nowadays need to be equipped with twenty first century skills in order to ensure their competitiveness in this era of globalization, especially in the science and technology sector. Therefore, this study aimed to identify the changes of 21st century skills among students after participating in an integrated Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education program. Project Oriented Problem Based Learning (POPBL) approach was applied in the learning activities of this program as its fundamental pedagogy. A total of 125 secondary school students of the age 13-14 namely from the rural areas were involved as respondents. This study employed one group quasi-experimental to identify the students’ 21st century skills before and after participating in the program. Data were analysed for descriptively, followed by an inferential analysis to compare the means (t-test) between the pre and post test. The findings from this study revealed that the level of 21st century skills (Digital age literacy, Inventive thinking, Effective communication and Spiritual values) among the students did increase and the increase was statistically significant. Interestingly, one of the components of the 21st century skills, namely ‘high productivity skills’ showed positive changes, from moderate to high level skills. The outcome of this study provides evidence that the application of POPBL in STEM education programs could help students to enhance their 21st century skills by learning how to solve real world problems based on authentic and real life experiences through project work.
Keywords: 21st century skills, POPBL, Integrated STEM education, Project based learning, Problem based learning, Digital age literacy, Inventive thinking, Effective communication, High productivity, Spiritual values
