THE EFFECTS OF CURRICULUM, GENDER AND STUDENTS’ FAVORITE SCIENCE SUBJECT ON INDONESIAN HIGH-SCHOOL STUDENTS’ CONCEPTIONS OF LEARNING SCIENCE

Conceptions of learning have been known as having influence on students' learning outcomes, the one of which is science learning as to be a scientifically literate person. Even, the effects of students' conceptions in learning have been known, but the contributing factors are still vague. This research aims to explore Indonesian high-school students' conceptions of learning science (COLS), to find out if gender and students' favorite science subject cause differences in their COLS, and to validate the COLS instrument by using Rasch analyses. Thirty-one items measuring six COLS were administered to 609 Indonesian high-school students. Rasch analyses, an independent sample t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and cluster analyses featuring chi-square tests of interdependence were used to answer the research questions. Based on the analyses, it was found that the COLS instrument was best fitted as six-dimensional. Gender difference was emerged in memorizing, and differences based on students' favorite science subject were also found in memorizing and calculating and practicing. Finally, the results of cluster analyses showed that Indonesian students were divided into three different classes based on their COLS, and that the clusters were significantly related to the school locations.