TY - JOUR
T1 - Sustainable development concept in the chemistry curriculum : an exploration of foundation students’ perspective
AU - Kanapathy, Suganty
AU - Lee, Khai Ern
AU - Sivapalan, Subarna
AU - Mokhtar, Mazlin
AU - Zakaria, Sharifah Zarina Syed
AU - Mohd Zahidi, Azizah
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of foundation chemistry learners concerning the sustainable development concept. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted. Atlas.ti software was used to analyse the chemistry curriculum based on selected themes and sub-themes. A survey was carried out involving 132 chemistry learners. The chemistry learners were students from a foundation programme in a local university located in Selangor, Malaysia. The collected data were analysed using SPSS 21.0 involving descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings: Document analysis on the chemistry curriculum shows that water is the theme most covered in the chemistry learners’ textbook, as compared to other themes. In general, the chemistry learners have good knowledge and attitude concerning the sustainable development concept. However, their knowledge and attitude do not reflect in their behaviour as an individual, as well as in the classroom. Moreover, their knowledge, attitude and behaviour focus more on environmental dimension, as compared to other sustainable development dimensions. Practical implications: This paper is instrumental in assisting educators to assess how chemistry learners perceive sustainable development, and this may help to bring about changes to improve chemistry teaching and learning processes towards education for sustainable development. Originality/value: This paper is an original and novel research paper which is first conducted on sustainable development concept in chemistry curriculum in Malaysia.
AB - Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the knowledge, attitude and behaviour of foundation chemistry learners concerning the sustainable development concept. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted. Atlas.ti software was used to analyse the chemistry curriculum based on selected themes and sub-themes. A survey was carried out involving 132 chemistry learners. The chemistry learners were students from a foundation programme in a local university located in Selangor, Malaysia. The collected data were analysed using SPSS 21.0 involving descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings: Document analysis on the chemistry curriculum shows that water is the theme most covered in the chemistry learners’ textbook, as compared to other themes. In general, the chemistry learners have good knowledge and attitude concerning the sustainable development concept. However, their knowledge and attitude do not reflect in their behaviour as an individual, as well as in the classroom. Moreover, their knowledge, attitude and behaviour focus more on environmental dimension, as compared to other sustainable development dimensions. Practical implications: This paper is instrumental in assisting educators to assess how chemistry learners perceive sustainable development, and this may help to bring about changes to improve chemistry teaching and learning processes towards education for sustainable development. Originality/value: This paper is an original and novel research paper which is first conducted on sustainable development concept in chemistry curriculum in Malaysia.
UR - https://hdl.handle.net/1959.7/uws:64174
U2 - 10.1108/IJSHE-04-2018-0069
DO - 10.1108/IJSHE-04-2018-0069
M3 - Article
SN - 1467-6370
VL - 20
SP - 2
EP - 22
JO - International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education
JF - International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education
IS - 1
ER -
