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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 18, Issue 2, Article 8 (Dec., 2017) |
The role of motivation and perceptions about science laboratory environment on lower secondary students’ attitude towards science
Kah-Eng CHUA and Mageswary KARPUDEWAN
School of Educational Studies, Universiti Sains Malaysia
11800, USM Penang, MALAYSIAE-mail: kmageswary@usm.my
Received 26 Aug., 2017
Revised 29 Dec., 2017
Attitude towards learning science is a well-researched domain for more than four decades. Globally, studies on attitude still stay relevant following the decline in enrollment in science-related studies across many levels. Particularly, emergent of new sciences in this century calls for a shift in the content included in school science, to be more contemporary. Hence, there is a need to inculcate an appropriate attitude to learn the new content. Many factors contribute to the development of attitude, in particular, motivation in learning the subject and the environment constitute learning the subject are imperative. In school science, investigating science laboratory environment is essential. Following this claim, in this study, an attempt was made to articulate the relationship between lower secondary school students’ perceptions about laboratory environment, attitude, and motivation towards learning. For this purpose, in this quantitative survey, a total of 1003 lower secondary students between 13-15 years old from different schools in the Northern Region of Malaysia have participated. The result shows that motivation and perceptions of the learning environment are two factors that predict attitude towards learning science. These findings suggest that in designing teaching strategies, teachers need to consider how the teaching can affect the motivation and learning environment. Subsequently, the teaching strategies anticipated to influence students’ attitude towards learning science.
Keywords: Attitude, Lower Secondary Students, Motivation, Science Laboratory Environment
