Factors Influencing Technology Learning in a Bio-Sensing STEM Program: Exploring Socio-Cultural Factors for Secondary School Students
摘要
Technology is often regarded as an important skill for adolescents to learn and programming knowledge and skill is widely regarded part of technology literacy. For secondary students, the integrated STEM program has been recently promoted to increase students’ learning of science and technology, and what may contribute to their learning of technology is worth exploring. While most of the studies concern about individual factors such as past knowledge, attitude, and self-efficacy, relatively fewer studies have investigated the broader socio-cultural factors such as school academic level and family support. This study used a quasi-experimental approach that used a pre-post-test to examine gains in a one-day Arduino glucose bio-sensor STEM camp. The results of 146 secondary students showed that the students had a significant gain both on the bio-nutrition part (Part I) and the Arduino technology part (Part II). Further analysis of technology gains by breakfast location, however, found that students who ate breakfast at home (n = 17) had the highest initial and final scores; Those who ate at a convenient store (n = 75) had middle performance; And those who ate breakfast at the local dinner (n = 17) had the lowest initial score and received the least gains. Although the post-hoc ANOVA did not show significant difference among these three locations due to small sample sizes, it is still worth noticing, considering most of the students were unfamiliar with Arduino at the start of the program. The breakfast location of students signifies that the family support may play a role in students’ learning of technology.