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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 18, Issue 2, Article 3 (Dec., 2017) |
Science Education in the 21st Century
In research from Thailand and South Korea, researchers suggest that science education and research should be community focused, with science teaching focused on inquiry and inspiration, with students going out into their communities to help solve problems (Jho, Hong, & Song, 2016; Punyain, 2017). What the students gain most are problem-solving skills and working in a team, which helps students understand about how learning takes place (Novak & Gowin, 2002). Also, using community based teaching helps relieve teachers’ anxieties, because they have peers and experts to support the new teaching strategies (Jho et al., 2016).
This is consistent with the US National Science Education Standards (1996), which has stated that the central strategy in teaching science is the inquiry into authentic questions generated from student experiences. Sadler (2004), also states that learning in the 21st Century should not focus on rigorous content, but instead focus on learning and scientific process skills (Osman, Hamid, & Hassan, 2009). Such skills help students to understand the nature of knowledge, which allows them to construct and apply knowledge through discovery, exploration, and experiment, including building up critical and rational decision-making skills (NCREL, 2003).
Thus, the advancement of science is both a social process and a public process. That is, science relies on many inter-personal processes and social phenomena (Edmonds, Gilbert, Ahrweiler, & Scharnhorst, 2011). It is also at the core of most societies in the world, not only in technical, military, and economic ways, but also in the cultural impacts it has, providing ways of thinking about ourselves, our society, and our environment (Buang, Halim, & Meerah, 2009; Guest, Livett, & Stone, 2006). Thus, it is imperative that there is a focus on the development of science learning (Project 2061, 2009; Patricio, 2010), with Kuhn (1962) emphasizing that science learning provides individuals curiosity to expand and explore new knowledge to enhance the quality of life.
The 20th constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand was officially promulgated on April 6th, 2017, although yet there is no publicly available English version. The researchers therefore, used an older version (2007), to discover constitutional guarantees for science education. In the older version, it clearly states in Article 86, the importance of science education and research, as well as the need to promote innovation and new inventions (Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2550).
In 2008, the Basic Education Core Curriculum B.E. 2551 (2008) was released which in Strand 8 under the topic of Nature of Science and Technology Science, it is stated that Thai students are to be taught the ‘application of scientific process and scientific reasoning in investigation for seeking knowledge and problem-solving, and understanding that science, technology, society and the environment are interrelated’.
These policies are also consistent with the Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (2013), in which guidance stipulates that science knowledge is derived from scientific process skills. Furthermore, focus needs to be placed on developing teachers' quality in science teaching, while developing awareness about the nature of science, contexts of science, socio-scientific issues, and the relation between science, technology, and society (Sothayapetch et al., 2013).
Current Thai Science education policy is also being guided by the new National Economic and Social Development Plan, 2017-2021 (Office of the Prime Minister, 2016), which specifically addresses science and technology, research, and innovation, within the context of a digitally empowered, knowledge-based economy. Additionally, under the six strategies in the plan, there is strong emphasis on developing human resources as well as research and innovations to improve Thailand’s competitiveness, under what is being labeled as Thailand 4.0 (Jones & Pimdee, 2017; Office of the Prime Minister, 2016). Thailand 4.0 is the conceptualization of a Thai version of Industry/Industrie 4.0 (Germany Trade and Invest, 2017; Roblek, Meško, & Krapež, 2016) and the Internet of Things (IoT).
A new 20-year Strategic Education Plan (2017 to 2036) was also announced in early 2017 (by the 21st Thai education minister in 18 years), in which focus was stated to be on ‘bestowing skills for the 21st century’ and ‘inspiring students’ (Mala, 2017a). Also, noteworthy in this new 20-year plan is the desire to increase the ratio of vocational to general students from the current 38:62 to 60:40 over the next 20 years.
Vocational Education Science Learning Problems
Global economic competition increasingly requires nations to compete on the quality of goods and services, which requires a labor force with a range of mid-level trade, technical and professional skills alongside the high-level skills associated with university education (OECD, 2011). Furthermore, according to UNESCO, technical and vocational education is going through a period of intensive change and reorientation, with a multiplicity of educational systems being developed to cope with rapid technological advances and the changing needs of the global labor market. As the needs of a society change, the educational process must change with it (Drucker, 2007) due to the continuing and rapid changes in technology.
As such, vocational education science teaching needs to be focused on the practical or applied nature of science. Applied science involves the scientific process of observing, surveying, investigating, and experimenting, with the student involved in self-discovery and the application of scientific knowledge in resolving issues at school, home, and at work (Ministry of Education, 2008). This is consistent with Asunta (1997), who studied Finnish science students and indicated that practical work and demonstrations, aiming at learning process skills, have long been accepted as an integral part of Finnish teaching and learning of science subjects.
In Thailand however, research has shown that multiple challenges exist in student science education. An often-repeated theme is that teachers remain fixated on traditional classroom methods, with the role of students being to listen and memorize content knowledge, rather than exploring knowledge through activities.
Moreover, another major problem is the lack of qualified Thai science education teachers. Reasons for this are numerous, but they include the problem that many current Thai teachers are facing retirement age, only teachers with degrees in education can obtain a Thai reaching license (efforts however are underway to change this), qualified graduates in STEM often opt for higher paying positions in industry (Mala, 2017b), and out-of-field teaching. This therefore contributes to the vicious cycle of constantly decreasing science related test scores (Boston College, 2001; Karsli, Sahln, & Ayas, 2009; Rujivanarom, 2016; Sothayapetch et al., 2013), and employer unwillingness to hire unqualified vocational student applicants (UNESCO, 2011; UNESCO Bangkok, 2011).
The science process skill is a process which scientists use to solve problems and obtain knowledge, which use the scientific approach to train students in their ability to seek knowledge, solve problems, and conduct experiments by themselves (Myers, 2006; Özgelen, 2012). Science process skills are also known as procedural skills, experimental, and investigating science habits of mind or scientific inquiry abilities (Harlen, 1999).
The scientific process skills are divided in two parts. These include:
(1) Basic science process skills contain skills including observation, classifying, measuring, calculation, using space/time relationships, communicating, inferring, and predicting (Dahsah, Seetee, & Lamainil, 2017).
(2) Integrated scientific process skills contains skills including formulating hypotheses, defining operationally, identifying, and controlling variables, experimenting, interpreting data, and making inferences (Martin, Sexton, Franklin, Gerlovich, & McElroy, 2005; Ngoh, 2009).
Training students to gain scientific process skills is an advantage since they can apply such skills to search for new knowledge and to solve problems in various situations. In addition, the scientific process emphasizes decision-making skills and problem-solving skills which are considered as significant and necessary skills in learning (Anderson, 2002; Reeve, 2014). Martin et al. (1994) add that the scientific process skills encourage students to acquire knowledge from doing.
Overall, the problem of science education of certificate vocational students requires an immediate action to elevate students’ academic performance. Thus, this research aims to study authentic and expected performance of integrated process skills and to explore its needs assessment to know what causes problem in science learning.
Kaufman, Rojas, and Mayer (1993) indicated that a needs assessment is a process used to identify needs by prioritizing essential needs. It is a systematic process for determining and addressing needs, or "gaps" between current conditions and desired conditions or "wants" (Kaufman et al., 1993; Kraisuth & Panjakajornsak, 2017). The process of needs identification includes the pre-assessment preparation (King, 2012), while the evaluation consists of data collection, data analysis, and essential needs prioritization (Watkins, Meiers, & Visser, 2012).
This is consistent with O’Reilly (2016) which indicated that conducting a needs assessment is one of the first steps in setting programmatic goals or developing strategic plans. A needs assessment is further defined as an evaluation of an organization's current environment relative to the preferred environment, with the difference between the two identified as the organization’s needs (Szuba, Rogers, & Malitz, 2005).
From educational policy directives in the US state of Colorado, the goal of the needs assessment is stated to be twofold: to ascertain existing capabilities and to determine the gap that exists, if any, between the current state and the desired end state (King, 2012). The needs assessment accomplishes more than just identifying a gap, however, the process also serves to: provide direction for programs, projects, and activities; allow staff to determine priorities and allocate limited resources to activities that will have the greatest impact; create cohesion through the alignment of goals, strategies, professional development, and desired outcomes; enable benchmarking and monitoring of implementation and impact; and assist with continuous improvement activities by helping staff identify change, which instructional and other practices are working, and the strategies associated with the greatest success.
Developing and executing the needs assessment is often the most important and time-consuming step in the process of setting related goals for a specific educational program (Szuba et al. 2005). Needs assessments can include data collection from many sources. Existing documentation, such as historical budgets, student achievement, and target population demographics, is typically available in program files. Interviews, focus groups, and environmental scans provide additional information on current practice. Surveys, however, remain the most common form of needs assessment, as they are relatively easy to administer and provide data in an accessible format (King, 2012).
Yildirim and Simsek (1997) investigated the effectiveness and efficiency of the curriculum development process in Turkish vocational schools, and indicated that a needs assessment is an important activity in identifying the required skills and knowledge in a certain area. Vocational schools need to determine the competencies required in industry and update current courses or design new ones accordingly. Therefore, to keep up with the changes in industry, vocational schools need to carry out needs assessment constantly and to search for ways to update their curriculum.
