Measuring Teachers’ Perceptions to Sustain STEM Education Development

Thi To Khuyen Nguyen, Nguyen Van Bien, Pei-Ling Lin, Jing Lin and Chun-Yen Chang
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Thi To Khuyen Nguyen: Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 11677, Taiwan
Nguyen Van Bien: Faculty of Physics, Hanoi National University of Education, Hanoi 10000, Vietnam
Pei-Ling Lin: Science Education Center, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 11677, Taiwan
Jing Lin: Collaborative Innovation Center of Assessment for Basic Education Quality, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Chun-Yen Chang: Science Education Center, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei 11677, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development emphasized teachers as the cornerstone for the betterment of education. Teachers’ practices are strongly affected by teachers’ perceptions. The purpose of this study was to identify teachers’ perceptions to sustain STEM education development, regarding STEM education, STEM competencies, and difficulties in STEM implementation. We collected the data from 186 Vietnamese teachers, including STEM sub-field teachers and no STEM sub-field teachers. We used a survey method to capture teachers’ perceptions of STEM education. The one-way ANOVA was employed to examine the differences in teachers’ perceptions of STEM education in terms of the categorization of teaching experience, education background, and teaching subjects. The quantitative analysis showed that most Vietnamese teachers had positive views on STEM education. The higher educational background teachers and science teachers have the highest statistically significant scores in (1) STEM education, (2) STEM competencies, and (3) difficulties in implementation. The novice teachers have more positive views of STEM education, in terms of a better understanding of STEM education and assessing STEM competencies as being more valuable. There are no statistically significant differences in teachers’ difficulties among teaching experience groups. These results provide valuable information to design effective teacher professional development to sustain STEM education.

Keywords: teacher education; teacher difficulties; education for sustainable development; STEM education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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