Teachers’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards the Science, Technology and Society Approach in Science Teaching

Abstract

The industrial revolution 4.0 has a positive impact on the world of education, especially from the aspect of teacher’s pedagogy. The Science, Technology and Society (STS) approach is a more meaningful approach by involving students in solving daily life problems that is closely related to the concept of Science. The purpose of the study was to identify the perceptions and attitudes towards Science, Technology and Society (STS) approaches among science teachers. This study used survey method and a questionnaire as an instrument. It includes two parts, teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards STS approach in teaching Science with the Cronbach alpha reliability value of perception was α = 0.925 and attitude was α = 0.920. The study was conducted on 80 Science teachers respondents were selected using cluster and simple random sampling. The findings showed that teachers’ perceptions of 1) science and technology (mean = 4.33, sd = 0.441), 2) science and community (mean =4.06, sd = 0.343), 3) technology and community (mean = 4.26, sd = 0.443), 4) the role of teachers (mean = 4.15, sd = 0.384) and teachers’ attitudes towards STS approach (mean = 4.20, sd = 0.367) were at a high level. The results of the inferential analysis showed that there were significant differences based on gender for the teachers’ perceptions for technology and community. There was also a strong positive relationship between perceptions and teachers’ attitudes towards the STS approach in Science teaching. The results of this study showed that the teachers had a positive perception and attitude towards the science teaching based on the use of technology and real problems. Teachers also agree that science teaching was more meaningful by using real-life examples that happened in everyday life. The implication of this study is to increase the number of courses and partnership activities among teachers to enable them to exchange opinions on the best methods of teaching science for students in accordance with online learning.