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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 18, Issue 2, Article 8 (Dec., 2017) |
Remarkable advancements in science and technology frequently resulted in people living in this period of time equipped with various challenges. This mainly happens because contemporary scientific discoveries and advancements shape human thinking and influence the decision making either at the individual or communal level (Raved & Assaraf, 2011). The rapid development of science and technology had impacted the school science as well. It is notable that with the integration of some of the emerging new sciences teaching and learning of school science has changed its role in the 21st century. The purpose of science education has shifted from producing next-generation scientists to educate the general population on the issues and challenges impacting the world. These include issues on climate change, genetic modification, energy, diseases, medical advancement and pharmaceutical and cosmetic products derived from scientific innovations and inventions (Stewart, 2010). These contemporary issues constantly harming the world population and therefore there is an instant call to educate the people on the 21st-century science for the people to be able to make wise decisions concerning these challenging issues. For this purpose, the school science and the science classroom teaching and learning practices have to be restructured to make way for the inclusion of most current sciences and also to facilitate the development of 21st-century skills. Communication, problem-solving, and decision making are among the vital 21st-century skills. In addition to the skills the contemporary school science also should be able to inculcate desired behaviors and values among the students (Drake et. al, 2015).
Binkley, Erstad, Herman, et al. (2010) pointed out that for the new generation to success in the modern age, students must be able to communicate, share, and use the information to solve complex problems, adapt to new demands, and should be innovative in manipulating technology to create new knowledge. In order to produce technocrat students capable of handling and fulfilling the 21st-century requirements, teaching and learning in schools have to be aligned with this need. Teachers play an important role in determining the success of 21st-century philosophy through developing a positive attitude towards learning science among the students both inside and outside the school settings. The positive attitude ultimately expected to encourage students to take up science as their major subjects in future. A positive attitude towards learning science has been reported not only able to improve students’ academic achievement in science, but also in other subjects (Movahedzadeh, 2011).
Attitude towards learning science is an affective domain that has been researched for more than four decades (Aiken & Aiken, 1969; Can, 2012; Cheung, 2009, 2011; Otor & Achor, 2013; Xu, Villafane, & Lewis, 2013) and is a well-established construct that predict humans’ behaviour (Glasman & Albarracin, 2006; Kelly, 1988; Koballa, 1988). Many studies have been carried out relating attitude to other constructs such as academic achievement, (Osborne & Collins, 2000; Xu et al., 2013), preference and behaviors (Glasman & Albarracin, 2006). In other words, although attitude has been extensively studied, it will be evaluated in this study because various other researchers indicated attitude still stays relevant in today's context. One of the reason for attitude to be still relevant is due to the ability of this construct not only to predict students' achievement in class, but it covers a wider area inclusive of human behaviors (Glasman & Albarracin, 2006).
Students’ attitude towards science has been a research topic since 1980’s and it is again emphasized in the 21st century with the decline of student’s positive attitude towards science learning (Aiken & Aiken, 1969; Can, 2012; Cheung, 2009, 2011; Chua & Karpudewan, 2015; Xu et al., 2013). Studies conducted by Freedman (1997) and Weinburgh (1995) suggested that students with positive attitudes toward science have higher tendency to score better in science. As such apart from school academic achievement, attitude is another important aspect to be investigated in the academia evaluation especially in science education (Bennett, Lubben, & Hogarth, 2007).
In a study involving 11th grade (16–17 years old) 576 high school students, Salta and Tzougraki (2004) reported that there is a significantly strong correlation between students’ attitude towards chemistry and their achievement in Greece. Besides this, there are various evidence on the existence of a positive relationship between achievement and attitude (Cheung, 2009). Chua and Karpudewan (2015) reported that there was a significant interaction effect between students' grade and gender and positive attitude towards learning chemistry. Meanwhile, Cheng and Yang (1998) found that Taiwanese students showed a positive attitude towards biology and this same study also reported that gender and socioeconomic status were not significantly correlated to students’ attitude towards biology lessons. As such it could be surmised that up to this end attitude is an unresolved issue and persistently impacting the science teaching and learning.
Asabe (2013) and Wong et al. (1997) investigated the relationship between science laboratory environment and students' attitude. A review indicates that positive science laboratory environment contributes to a more positive attitude in science learning. In science laboratories, students have the opportunities to learn science by using their five senses. On the contrary, in the conventional classrooms teachers play the dominant role of lecturing the content to students. Ibrahim and Karpudewan (2013) claimed that positive laboratory learning managed to improve students’ attitude. Similarly, Piburn and Baker (1993) pointed out that in order to inculcate a positive attitude towards science among students, the interaction between students with their teacher and the interaction among the students in discussing and sharing their ideas during the laboratory is essential. Hofstein and Mamlok-Naaman (2011) suggested that when interaction takes place between students and teaching materials, students and students as well as students and their science teacher this will further lead to effective, meaningful learning and understanding of science concepts. The decline of such interaction in the class eventually leads to the decline of students’ attitude towards science. In order words, a teacher who engages the students in science laboratory work provides the students with an opportunity to question, share idea and actively engage in the learning process to have a better attitude.
Hofstein and Lunetta (1982) have pointed out that school science laboratory should provide a conducive learning environment whereby students can collaborate among themselves to investigate the scientific phenomenon. In order to provide a productive laboratory learning environment, Fraser and McRobbie (1995) had listed out some important aspects that should be taken into consideration which include students’ cohesiveness, open-endedness of the laboratory, integration of the syllabus and the science laboratory, clarity of the laboratory rules and physical setting and materials in the laboratory. These aspects suggest that to foster a great learning environment in the science laboratory, the dynamic between students’ expectation for learning, the interaction between student-student and student-teacher as well as the setting of the laboratory are essential.
Review shows that the failure of school science curriculum and classroom practices to spark the interest among the students in learning science are the factors that contribute to the low enrolment and low achievement in science subject (Osborne & Dillon, 2008; Sjøberg & Schreiner, 2010; Tytler, 2007). Boekaerts and Cascallar (2006) identify that self-regulation among students manages to influence students' engagement in the learning of science as well as school achievement. Similarly, Velayutham, Aldridge and Fraser (2011) had pointed out that students’ motivation and self-regulated science learning would be factors that could promote students’ interest in learning science and in return to have a better enrolment and achievement in science subjects. Therefore, besides perceptions on science laboratory learning environment, students’ level of motivation contributes to the positive attitude among the students in learning science (Boekaerts & Cascallar, 2006; Kaplan et al., 2009; Zimmerman, 2000). It is a big challenge for school science teachers to stimulate students’ motivation in learning science (Theobald, 2006) as motivation have been identified as internal circumstances that instigate goal-orientated behaviors (Schunk, 2004). Wu, Huang, and Wu (2006) identified science learning motivation mediated the relationship between learning environment and attitude toward science.
As it is evident that attitude is an important dimension in science teaching and learning and that science laboratory learning environment and motivation in some ways influence students' attitude towards science, this study was undertaken with the aim to investigate the predictive effect of the learning environment and motivation on attitudes towards science. As a laboratory-based instruction is an integral part of teaching and learning science in Malaysia, this study will be able to provide insights for teachers in designing laboratory lessons in a way that could inculcate positive attitude among the students. Poor performance in the TIMSS and PISA assessments and decline in the enrollment in science classes calls for investigating motivation as a predictive factor that affects the attitude.
