A Comparative Analysis Of Secondary Students’ STEM Learning Attitudes

In a new round of scientific and technological revolution,STEM education is of great value to China in building an educational power,and enhancing international competitiveness.However,the scientific attitude and career interest of Chinese middle school students rank low in the PISA evaluation,and also there is a shortage of talents in the STEM field.Therefore,it is urgent to vigorously enhance the STEM learning attitude of middle school students in order to expand the size of STEM employment market in China.While,the reform experience of Sri Lanka,which emphasizes technology education and establishes a systematic STEM education system based on the national strategy,has certain implications.Therefore,the students of some secondary schools from Zhejiang Province in China and Sabaragamuwa Province in Sri Lanka were selected for this study as the research objects through a random sampling method.The S-STEM scale was borrowed to investigate the STEM learning attitudes of secondary school students in two provinces.The results showed that: 1.From the overall STEM learning attitude,secondary school students in Sabbarajamwa province performed significantly better;2.In terms of learning attitudes,secondary school students in Zhejiang Province scored higher in academic knowledge and lower in ability development and career intentions,while secondary school students in Sabaragamuwa Province were the opposite;3.From the perspective of specific dimensions details,the attitudes toward learning mathematics of secondary school students in Zhejiang Province performed better than those of secondary school students in Sabaragamuwa Province,but less well in the dimension of attitude toward learning science,engineering and technology,and 21 st century skills secondary school students in Zhejiang province perform better than secondary school students in Samabangamuwa province,but they underperform in the science,engineering and technology,and 21 st century skills learning attitude.4.In terms of gender and grade,there were significant differences in the attitudes toward STEM learning among secondary school students in Zhejiang Province,while there were no significant differences among secondary school students in Sabaragamuwa Province.Based on this,the following is a further analysis of the causes of the above differences from the perspective of environmental factors and hold that: 1.Teachers in Zhejiang Province are deficient in conducting career awareness education,implementing practical science activities,and integrating the content of engineering and technology,resulting in poor performance of Zhejiang secondary school students in STEM career intentions and attitudes towards science and engineering technology learning.2.We have a group of highly qualified mathematics teachers who are skilled in using the “mastery approach” in teaching and learning,and who effectively integrate the mathematical culture and history of mathematics,and actively carry out comprehensive and practical activities,which increased the self-confidence and participation of our secondary school students in mathematics learning,favoring a better performance of our students’ attitude towards mathematics learning;3.The Sri Lankan government and schools actively encourage females to enter STEM fields,while classroom instruction of STEM in Zhejiang Province pays insufficient attention to gender differences and favors a competitive style,resulting in differences in the performance of female secondary school students’ attitudes toward STEM learning in the two provinces;4.The difference of curriculum articulation in STEM between the two provinces,coupled with the higher academic pressure on high school students in Zhejiang Province,has led to the difference in the performance of high school students’ attitudes toward STEM learning in the two provinces.In view of this,the following suggestions are put forward to further promote STEM education and enhance secondary school students’ STEM learning attitudes in China: 1.Collaborate with all educational forces to accelerate the overall construction of STEM;2.Strengthen career awareness education to enhance students’ STEM career intentions;3.Carry out hand-on inquiry teaching to develop students’ STEM practical skills;4.Optimize engineering technology teaching to enhance students’ attitudes toward engineering learning;5.Improve classroom teaching methods to increase women’s participation in STEM fields.