Abstract
Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Project-Based Learning (PjBL) is increase effectiveness, create meaningful learning and influence student attitudes in future career pursuit. There are several studies in the literature reporting different aspects of STEM into a PjBL pedagogy. However, the effect of implementing STEM PjBL in terms of improving students’ skills in self-efficacy levels in physics mechanics at high school level has not been demonstrated as expected in the previous literature. This study followed a quasi-experimental research method. Bandura’s social cognitive theory is used to assess and compare the effect of STEM PjBL with conventional teaching method on students’ self-efficacy level in learning physics among over 100 high school students. The result illustrated that STEM PjBL improve students’ self-efficacy to solve physics problem. Also, the study proposes a guideline for future research.
Highlights
Students are more likely to engage in activities that they feel efficacious
The research question can be converted to the following hypothesis: H1a: There is no significant difference on post-test mean scores of self-efficacy scale in learning physics between students who follow STEM Project-Based Learning (PjBL) and conventional teaching method after the effect of pre-test mean scores is controlled
The PjBL approach can be very useful for high school students and physics teachers to solve real-world problems
Summary
Students are more likely to engage in activities that they feel efficacious. In other words, students need and like to have self-efficacy for learning material before they engage in strategic effort (Doordinejad & Afshar, 2014). Other researchers found that STEM PjBL increase effectiveness and encourages meaningful learning through student directed investigation (Blumenfeld et al, 1991; Olivarez, 2012; Tseng et al, 2013; Vega et al, 2013). Self-efficacy showed powerful correlations between academic performance and personal adjustment (Jamali et al, 2015; Samsudin et al, 2017). Varon (2015) defined that students engaged in engineering design process and other STEM related projects should develop self-efficacy. The effect of STEM PjBL on self-efficacy has still undiscovered among high-school physics students. The aim of this paper was to cover the research gap through using Bandura’s social cognitive theory to compare the effect of STEM PjBL with conventional teaching method on students’ self-efficacy level in learning physics
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