International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Science

p-ISSN: 2685-2330, e-ISSN: 2685-2322

Original Research Paper

A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM

Azniah Ismail1*, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain1, Harnani Mat Zin1

1
Computing Department, Faculty of Arts, Computing and Creative Industry, Universiti
Pendidikan Sultan Idris

Article History Abstract: This article reported a simple survey on diploma students’ attitudes
Received: towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)
17.09.2019 objectively to get an initial impression of students taking a STEM-related
diploma program. The targeted respondents were diploma students pursuing
Revised:
26.10.2019
computer science programs in a Malaysian public university. A quantitative
approach using a quantitative survey was used in which data were
Accepted: systematically elicited from 16 male and 17 female students using a
19.11.2019 questionnaire containing Likert-scale items. The questionnaire consists of
three constructs: attitude toward science, attitude toward technology and
*Corresponding Author: engineering, and attitude toward mathematics. All constructs use a 5-point
Azniah Ismail Likert scale for the response scale. Descriptive analysis showed that the
Email: respondents’ attitude ranged between moderately to highly positive towards
[email protected] STEM with no significance different variation between genders across the
STEM fields. Interestingly, they also had, generally, moderate consideration
for careers in STEM fields (the average values ranged between 27.2% and
42.4%) with male respondents had very low agreements (18.7%) to consider
careers related to technology and engineering fields. Such results were a bit
discouraging as the respondents were all pursuing a diploma in computer
science.Thus, more efforts are needed by the university to give more
exposures and experiences to refine the students’ attitude during their study,
to boost their confidence and interest to pursue a career suitable with their
diploma certificates.

Keyword: STEM, Attitude, Computer Science, Diploma Students.

2019 | International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences | Volume. 2 | Issue. 2 |76-88
Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

1. Introduction
STEM simply refers to the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics. The term is frequently used in many countries, including the United States and
Malaysia. Similar acronyms are used in some other countries, such as MINT (Mathematik,
Informatik, Naturwissenschaft und Technik) in Germany, and STGM (sciences, technologies, génie et
mathématiques) in the French part of Canada [1].
According to White [2], the term STEM was first introduced almost two decades ago, but the
concept was not new at that time. For example, STEM education had already flourished after the
World War II and after the launching of Sputnik. Many countries who are keeping pace with
technological or engineering developments and innovations, either to strengthen the economy as well
as to protect from threats of other countries, or to remain or become leaders in the rapidly changing
and expanding global economy, have taken steps to enrich and improve the STEM curriculum, STEM
educational policy and STEM-related workforce development [3]. Hence, numerous STEM-related
researches can be found focusing either on teachers [4], [5], [6], [7], [8] or students, in which the latter
commonly involved school students [1], [9], [10], [11] and college or university students [12], [13],
[14], [15].
Despite the urgent needs of well-built nations in STEM, Ali & Shubra [24] have noted a declining
level of interest towards STEM among many school leavers. A similar situation also happened in
Malaysia [17]. Thus, it is not surprising to find many researchers discussed heavily on academic
preparedness and students’ interest in STEM [18], as well as other supporting factors such as STEM
competitions [8], out-of-school STEM activities [19], [20] STEM pre-knowledge [1] and other
STEM-based programs [11], [21] which highly likely encourage the students’ pursuit of STEM fields
in college.
Some researches were also carried out to investigate students' or youth's attitude towards STEM
fields [10], [14], [22], Most of them reported moderately to highly positive attitudes. Moreover, there
were also researchers that relate the attitude or interest with specific gender, such as Sahin et al. [15]
who found that males were more likely to choose a STEM major in college than females, which
contradicted with Mau et al. [13] who found that female students were more likely than male students
to major in STEM field of studies. Simon et al [16] discussed more astonishing details when they
relate gender with femininity and masculinity. Nonetheless, Whelan [23] and Heaverlo [9] decided to
focus their research on females only.
In this study, we only focused on unfolding the attitude of students who were pursuing STEM-
related diploma program. We also interested to look at any possible variation of attitude between
genders. In addition, we also look briefly into these students’ consideration for careers in STEM
fields. As such, this study was carried out involving a group of Malaysian diploma students pursuing
computer science program at one of Malaysian public universities.

2. Previous Work
In this section, we presented some previous work’s research designs and findings that mostly focused
on the attitude towards STEM among school, college and university students. We summarized them
in Table 1. The following works reported moderately to highly positive attitudes towards STEM:

Xu and Lewis
Xu and Lewis [22] evaluated attitude towards the chemistry inventory subject among first year,
university students through a quantitative survey. They had learned from the study that the students’
attitudes were generally positive towards the subject. However, they did not discuss about the attitude
thoroughly. Interestingly, they evaluated on attitude-achievement and ability-achievement basis,
instead.
Their work was divided into two phases of evaluation. The first phase was more about building
and refining their survey instrument based on 914 responses they received from students taking the
general chemistry laboratory I and II courses at one of universities in the United State. With the
revised version of their instrument, they conducted the second phase of evaluation. It has eight pairs
of objectives to tap students’ attitudinal status toward chemistry in general which have been organized
in two subscales i.e. “intellectual accessibility” (items easy-hard, simple-complicated, clear-
confusing, unchallenging-challenging) and “emotional satisfaction” (items satisfying-frustrating,
pleasant-unpleasant, comfortable-uncomfortable, organized-chaotic). Both versions used a 7-point

77
Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

Likert scale. Students were instructed to answer according to their feelings toward chemistry field in
general, not toward a teacher or a course.
The refined (second) version of instrument was given to 354 participants attending general
chemistry I discussion sections during the 11th lecture week at the same institution. The data were
then used to predict the students’ achievement in general chemistry (ACS) using multiple regression
analysis as captured by ACS exam scores. Three different regression models were tested. Initially,
they used three predictors i.e. emotional satisfaction, intellectual accessibility and high school exams
(SAT or ACT) scores as students’ ability (before extended to include SAT, ACT and ACS scores
individually). The results showed that the correlation between all five variables was classified as
moderate. There was low correlation between attitude toward chemistry and mathematical ability
measured on standardized tests (either SAT or ACT). The correlation between attitude-achievement
was consistent with extensive studies and not as strong as the ability-achievement correlation.
Xu and Lewis [22] also mentioned that it is normal for: (i) low correlation between attitude toward
chemistry and mathematical ability because they are conceptually distinct, (ii) high correlation
between two components of the same concept of attitude (i.e., cognition and emotion) because they
are related but not identical, and (iii) highest correlation between SAT and Act scores because both
intended to measure mathematics ability and used for the college admission. Xu and Lewis [22]
concluded with students’ attitudes played a significant role in predicting final achievement in a
general chemistry course even when initial ability scores were considered.

Faber et al.
Faber et al. [10] reports on the development of instruments for measuring:
1. students’ attitudes towards STEM subjects,
2. students’ interest in STEM careers, and
3. 21st century skills among school children. The development was being carried out by a
team of researchers at The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina
State University. They focused on developing a systematic instrument that is suitable for
young students (the upper elementary school and middle or high school students) across
all STEM fields.

Each version of the survey contained four, validated constructs which use Likert-scale items. The
surveys have been administered to over 10,000 fourth through twelfth grade students in North
Carolina. The instrument development process was divided into four major survey administration
events:
1. development of the pilot survey,
2. pilot administration
3. middle or high school survey,
4. upper elementary school survey, and
5. final survey.

During the early development, the team looked for existing instrument and found 47-items
instrument which was designed to measure student attitudes toward STEM and interest in STEM-
related careers for middle school girls. It consists of three scales i.e. attitudes towards engineering,
attitudes towards math, and attitudes towards science. The instrument used a 5-point Likert scale for
the response scale. The team also added a fourth scale that measure student attitudes towards 21st
century skills to meet other goals of their project grants. The 7-items scale was adapted from a
comprehensive 38-items student learning conditions survey commissioned by the governor of North
Carolina and developed by the Friday Institute in 2010. It was slightly modified to become a 5-point
Likert scale items, and another nine items were added from the Friday Institute’s original pilot 21st
century skills scale. Slight changes were also done onto the items’ statements to suit their respondents.
Finally, the research team added a “Your Future” section to the survey to measure student interest in
STEM career pathways. Starting with the list of 12 STEM careers the team came up with a list of 43
STEM careers based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Outlook Handbook. This section
used 4-point Likert scale.
The research team then administered the pilot survey 109 6th to 12th graders who were
participating in various programs within the NSF-funded outreach project. They conducted factor

78
Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

analysis to make sure the construct validity. They also performed content validity analyses with three
subject matter experts. Based on the findings, further changes were done on the instrument. Some
items were revised or dropped, and career items were edited down back to 12 items. The refined
survey tool was known as S-STEM.
The research team administered the S-STEM to 9,081 6th to 12th grade students (middle or high
school). They also used the S-STEM to create a version for 4th to 5th grade (upper elementary school)
and further refined it through some cognitive interviews with the 5th-graders. From there, they
administered upper elementary S-STEM to 799 4th to 5th students. They used the findings to assess
construct validity, calculate reliability of each construct, revise to retain parallelism of instruments,
assess reading level and analyse function with gender groups. Seven middle and high school teachers
and ten upper elementary school teachers confirmed that their respective S-STEM survey tools were
at an appropriate length and difficulty for their students. With the finalized S-STEM survey tool, the
development was completed. By going through their many surveys, Faber et al. [10] summarized
some baseline findings:
1. students’ attitudes toward STEM subjects were moderately positive with slight variation
in attitude between students at different school-levels,
2. the students’ interest in STEM careers were also moderate but female students had
particularly low levels of interest in engineering, computer science, energy, and physics
careers,
3. all students highly favoured 21st century skills.

Popa and Ciascai

The Popa and Ciascai’s [14] work is an example of applied research using the attitude measurement
tools reported in Faber et al. [10] above. Popa and Ciascai [14] conducted a survey to investigate the
opinion of 110 students of different STEM field programs, different study program level (bachelor,
master and doctorate) and from different universities across Romania towards STEM.
Popa and Ciascai [14] focused on several factors including:
1. the students’ experience in STEM fields during their high school,
2. profession
3. skills related to engineering, and
4. the factors that influenced their decision to pursue degree in STEM fields.

They slightly modified the original questionnaire to suit their research objectives. The first and
second parts of questionnaire used a 5-point Likert scale, the third part used a 4-point Likert scale
(without neutral category), and the fourth part only requires 3-point Likert scale (that consists only of
yes, no and I don’t know). The questionnaire was administered online using Google Forms. The
questionnaire was first sent to students in the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in one
university with a written request to share it with students from other faculties and universities in
Romania. 110 students from different faculties and different universities had responded voluntarily to
join the study.
Popa and Ciascai’s [14] findings showed that their respondents had been interested in STEM fields
since their schooldays, which had encouraged them to continue their studies in the STEM field. Popa
and Ciascai [14] did mentioned about Romania having a more developed curriculum in sciences
compared to humanities. The high school students studied mathematics, chemistry, physics and
biology about 6 to 11 hours per week. Chemistry receives the highest number of responses showing
great interest followed by medicine, then engineering. In general, more than 80% respondents have
great interest in chemistry and almost 70% of them actually continue taking chemistry at university
level. On the other hand, the number of responses that saying they are currently studying medicine at
university level was very low despite of great interest towards medicine field. This scenario is highly
likely caused by tough admission requirements.
According to Popa and Ciascai [14], a high number of responses for positive experience with
mathematics and science during schooldays was also seen to be consistent with previous studies that
linked the positive experience with high number of people choosing STEM fields. Teachers who
taught the students STEM related subjects also become one of the factors that strongly influenced the
students in choosing their program studies. They were also convinced of the importance of engineer
profession, engineering knowledge and skills. Popa and Ciascai [14] also emphasized that there was

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Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

no question about gender difference when it comes to STEM education in Romania. More than half
responses in their study came from female students.

Table 1. Comparison among Previous Works Related To Attitude towards STEM

Researcher Research Design Their Findings Review Note

Xu & Lewis [22] Type: Quantitative survey Students’ attitudes played a Include interesting discussion
Instrument: 8-item significant role in predicting about strong ability-achievement
questionnaires (final final achievement in a relationship and they relate it to
version) general chemistry course college admission decision in the
Participant: 914 (first even when initial ability U.S. that often consider SAT or
dministration) and 354 scores were considered. ACT scores as an indication of
(second administration) However, it is not as stronger students’ ability. Their findings
first-year, university as the ability scores. may help ease the long debate
students among education stakeholders
regarding how to interpret test
scores and create education
policy. However, we did not get
an access to their instrument.
Faber et al. [10] Type: Quantitative survey Students’ attitudes toward A thorough and detailed
Instrument: 52-item STEM subjects were explanation of the attitude
questionnaire for moderately positive with measurement tool development
middle/high, 26-item slight variation in attitude process with finalized survey
questionnaire for upper between students at different tools are both included in the
elementary school-levels. paper.
Participant:
109 middle/high school
students (first phase),
9081 middle/high school
students (second phase)
799 upper elementary school
students.
Popa & Ciascai [14] Type: Quantitative survey Most responses from students Popa and Ciascai mentioned
Instrument: at all university level about no gender differences with
Participant: 110 Romanian indicating their attitude more than 69% respondent were
university students towards STEM were highly female. Further study might be
positive. The findings also required to study the ratio of
showed that the students had male students to female students
been interested in STEM at the university level. It is also
fields since their school days, good to know that Romania has
which had encouraged them implemented strong curriculum
to continue their studies in the for science at school level.
STEM field. Teachers who
taught the students STEM
related subjects have become
one of the factors that
strongly influenced them in
choosing their program
studies.

3. Materials and Method

3.1. Sample of Study
The sample of our study consisted of 33 second year diploma students of Computer Science program
during the 2017/2018 academic session.

3.2. Research Method

The study was conducted during the end of 2017/2018 short semester session. The research method
was divided into four phases as follows:
• Planning – the objectives and hypothesis were formulated. Some existing and validated
questionnaires were obtained and grinded. We chose items suitable for our research and built
our questionnaire.

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Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

• Collecting data – the questionnaire was distributed among second year diploma students and
collected back after a week.
• Analysis – appropriate statistical techniques were conducted to analyze the survey data.
• Discussion – analysis results were discussed.

3.3. Research Instrument

We found a validated survey by Faber et al. [10] that sought to measure a similar set of student
attitudes and we used portions of the instrument in our study. Our questionnaire consists of four main
parts. The first part (having 5 items) used to elicit information regarding respondents’ demographics
(namely age, gender, and academic background), their previous high school results and their future
planning to further study after pursuing the Diploma.
The second part (having 8 items) used to collect information pertaining to attitude towards science.
The third and fourth parts (having 8 items each) used to collect information about attitude towards
technology and engineering, and mathematics, respectively. See Table 2 for measured items for each
STEM field. In our study, the constructs were measured, to which the respondents were required to
indicate the level of their agreements along a 5-point Likert’s type scale using the following anchors:
(1) Strongly disagree, (2) Disagree, (3) Neutral, (4) Agree, and (5) Strongly agree.

Table 2. STEM Fields and the Measured Items

Field Measured item

Science B1 - I know I can do well in science.
B2 - I am sure of myself when I do science.
B3 - I will need science for my future work.
B4 - I expect to use science when I get out of school.
B5 - Knowing science will help me earn a living.
B6 - I would consider a career in science.
B7 -I can handle most subjects well, but I cannot do a good job with
science.
B8 - I am sure I could do advanced work in science.
Technology & C1 - I am good at building and fixing things.
Engineering C2 - I like to imagine creating new products.
C3 - I am interested in what makes machine work.
C4 - I am curious about how electronics work.
C5 -If I learn engineering, then I can improve things that people use
everyday
C6 - Knowing how to use math and science together will allow me to invent
useful things.
C7 - Designing products or structures will be important for my future work.
C8 - I believe I can be successful in a career in engineering.
Mathematics D1 - I am the type of student to do well in mathematics.
D2 - I am good at mathematics.
D3 - I can get good grades in mathematics.
D4 - Mathematics is hard for me.
D5 - Mathematics has been my worst subject.
D6 -I can handle most subjects well, but I cannot do a good job with
mathematics.
D7 - I would consider choosing a career that uses mathematics.
D8 - I am sure I could do advanced work in mathematics.
Adapted from Faber et al., [10]

3.4. Statistical Analysis

Once data were successfully collected, the responses were recorded onto a spreadsheet application
and later analyzed using R (version 3.5). We used descriptive analysis to get the frequency count, sum
and percentage. Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test was used to test whether there were different attitudes

81
Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

occur between genders. The test type was deemed appropriate because we had Likert data and
Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test is a test on populations using median. We also chose Spearman’s rank
correlation coefficient to test correlations between Likert data. We were looking for strong positive
and strong negative correlations between variables to understand a firm stand from the respondents
about their attitude towards each STEM field.
Each section of the survey data was analysed separately, i.e. the science knowledge, the
technology and engineering knowledge and the mathematics knowledge, and then the career-related
data were analysed for each field before later analysed as one whole unit.

4. Results and Discussion

4.1. Demographics of Respondents
Descriptive analysis results in Table 3 showed the sample study was consists of 16 male and 17
female diploma students. 30 students were from science background and the remaining 3 students
were from arts background. Their ages were mostly 19 years old and were not more than 21 years old.
Table 3 summarizes the demographics of the respondents in this study.

Table 3. Summary of Academic Background, Age and Gender

Gender Background Age Total

19 20 21
Male Science 11 2 1 16
Arts 1 0 1
Female Science 16 0 0 17
Arts 1 0 0
Total 29 2 2 33

Note. All the respondents were from the same institution [Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris], who were in their second year taking the same
diploma program [Diploma in Computer Science].

4.2. Respondents’ Attitude towards Science

The respondents’ responses to the second part of the questionnaire were analyzed to measure their
attitude towards science. A stacked bar chart is used to represent the results in general (see Figure 1).
Analysis results showed that the respondents had a moderate attitude towards science. The greatest
proportion of respondents indicated that they were “strongly agree” or “agree” knowing science will
help them earn a living (66.6%) and followed by “I will need science for my future work (51.5%) but
they moderately expected to use science when they get out of school (42.4%). Another moderate
proportion of respondents also indicated that they were “strongly agree” or “agree” they can do well
in science (33.3%) and “I am sure of myself when I do science” (30.3%). Meanwhile, only 18% of the
respondents were “strongly disagree” and “disagree” that they cannot do a good job in science. We
made sure only positive statement variables were left to measure the attitude using median. The
median values for all variables ranged between 3 and 4 with mostly were 3.
We had expected to see negative correlation between “I know I can do well in science” and “I can
handle most subjects well, but I cannot do a good job with science” (r = -.61, p > .001) and positive
correlation between “I will need science for my future work” and “I expect to use science when I get
out of school” (r = .40, p = .001). These results showed that the respondents were firm about their
moderate attitude towards science.
To determine any significant difference of respondents’ attitude towards science between genders
using Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test, we set our null hypothesis to be “the population medians are all
equal”. At .05 significance level, the attitude towards science between gender are identical (between p
= .50 and p = .96). Thus, we conclude that computer science diploma students’ attitude toward science
was moderately positive with no significance different variation between gender.

82
Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

Figure 1. A Stacked Bar Chart Showing Results for the Science Section of the Survey

4.3. Respondents’ Attitude towards Technology and Engineering

The respondents’ responses to the third part of the questionnaire were analyzed to measure their
attitude towards technology and engineering. Another stacked bar chart is used to represent the results
in general (see Figure 2). Analysis results showed that the respondents had quite high attitude towards
technology and engineering. The median values for all variables ranged between 3 and 4 with mostly
were 4. There was no negative statement variable to be removed before analyzing the median.

Figure 2. A Stacked Bar Chart Showing Results For the Technology and Engineering
Section of the Survey

The largest proportion of respondents indicated that they were “strongly agree” or “agree” had
curiosity about how electronics work (75.7%), followed by “knowing how to use math and science
together will allow me to invent useful things” (69.6%) and “I am interested in what makes machine
work” (66.6%). Similar large proportions of respondents agreed that “designing products or structures

83
Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

will be important for my future work (57.5%) and “if I learn engineering, then I can improve things
that people use every day” (57.5%). Astonishingly, a very small proportion of respondents agreed that
they were good at building and fixing things (21.2%).
Again, to determine any significant differences between the students’ attitude towards technology
and engineering between gender, we used Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test with similar null hypothesis.
We conclude that attitude towards the technology and engineering between gender are identical
(between p = .19 and p =.93) at .05 significance level. In addition, there were strong positive
correlation between “I am interested in what makes machine work” and “I am curious about how
electronics work” (r = .80, p > .001), and between “I am interested in what makes machine work” and
“if I learn engineering, then I can improve things that people use every day” (r = .64, p > .001).
The students’ attitude towards technology and engineering was a bit interesting. The respondents
showed high curiosity and interest towards technology and engineering. They also agreed that
designing products will be important for their work in future, only that they have low confidence in
building and fixing things. Thus, we conclude that computer science diploma students’ attitude toward
science was quite highly positive with no significance different variation between gender.
Nonetheless, improvements were needed to boost the students’ confidence in technology and
engineering.

4.4. Respondents’ Attitude towards Mathematics

Another stacked bar chart is used to represent the results for mathematic section of the survey in
general (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. A Stacked Bar Chart Showing Results For the Mathematic Section of the Survey

Analysis results showed that the respondents had generally claimed that they were quite good in
mathematics. The greatest proportion of respondents indicated that they were “strongly agree” or
“agree” they can get good grades for the subject (69.6%), followed by “I am good at mathematics”
(63.6%) and “I am the type of student to do well in mathematics” (57.5%). At the other hand, the
proportion of respondents became smaller when indicating that they were “strongly agree” and
“agree” that “I can handle most subjects well, but I cannot do a good job with mathematics” (15.1%),
followed by “mathematics has been my worst subject” (18.1%) and “math is hard for me” (27.2%).
Again, we made sure only positive statement variables were left to measure the attitude using median.
The median values for all variables ranged between 3 and 4 with mostly were 4.

84
Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

In addition, there were strong positive correlations of responses about the three D1, D2 and D3
statements as shown in Figure 4. The results indicated that those respondents who agreed they can do
well in Mathematics also agreed they good at mathematics and agreed they can get good grades,
whereas those who did not agree they can do well also did not agree that they good at mathematics
and did not agree they can get good grades (between r = .92 and r = .84, p > .001). Another strong
positive correlations were also seen among the three D4, D5 and D6 statements: between “Math has
been my worst subject” and “I can handle most subjects well, but cannot do a good job with
mathematics” (r = .90, p > .001), between “Mathematics is hard for me” and “I can handle most
subjects well, but cannot do a good job with mathematics” (r = .84, p > .001), and between
“Mathematics is hard for me” and “Math has been my worst subject” (r = .74, p > .001).

Figure 4. Positive Correlations of Responses for D1, D2 and D3 in Mathematics Section

Moreover, as expected, some strong negative correlations occurred between the followings: “I am
the type of students to do well in mathematics” and “Math is hard for me” (r = -.72, p < .001), “I can
get good grades in mathematics” and “mathematics has been my worst subject” (r = -.62, p < .001).
These findings showed that the respondents’ responses were firm.
Again, to determine any significant differences between the respondents’ capability towards
mathematics between gender we used Kruskal-Wallis rank sum test with similar null hypothesis. The
results showed that attitude towards mathematics between gender are identical (between p = .20 and p
= .98) at .05 significance level. In general, we conclude that computer science diploma students’
attitude was quite highly positive towards mathematics with no significance different variation
between genders.

4.5. Consideration for Careers in STEM Fields

Analysis results as in Table 4 showed that computer science diploma students had generally moderate
consideration for careers in STEM fields. All median values for considering a career in each STEM
field were 3 only.
The greatest proportion of respondents indicated that they were “strongly agree” or “agree” to
consider careers that uses mathematics (42.4%), while the smallest proportion of respondents reported
that they were “strongly agree” or “agree” to consider careers in technology and engineering related
field (27.2%). On average, female and male respondents expressed a similar level of consideration for
careers in STEM fields (37.5% and 31.9% on average) with female respondents had slightly higher
agreement to consider careers that uses mathematics (47.0%), and careers related to technology and
engineering field (37.5%), compared to male respondents who had lower agreement to consider
careers related to mathematics field (37.5%), and careers related to technology and engineering field

85
Azniah Ismail, Nor Zuhaidah Mohamed Zain, Harnani Mat Zin.
A Simple Survey on Attitude of Computer Science Diploma Students towards STEM.
International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

(18.7%). Such results were a bit discouraging as the respondents were all pursuing a diploma in
computer science.

Table 4. Results on Considering Careers in the STEM Fields between Genders

Science
Gender Frequency % Total %
Male 5 31.2 10 30.3
Female 5 29.4
Technology & Engineering
Gender Frequency % Total %
Male 3 18.7 9 27.2
Female 6 37.5
Mathematics
Gender Frequency % Total %
Male 6 37.5 14 42.4
Female 8 47.0
STEM (as a whole)
Gender Average % Total (on average) %
Male 5 31.2 11 33.3
Female 6 37.5

Note. Total number of respondents, n = 33

As some research indicates that greater confidence leads to greater interest and vice versa [25], we
may link this shortcoming with students having low confidence in fixing and building things as
discussed earlier. Most probably, the students were also having low STEM career knowledge, making
them not well familiarized with related careers in the fields. Blotnicky et al. [1] study found that
STEM career knowledge correlates with students’ interest in pursuing careers involving STEM, thus
suggested the exposure of students to STEM careers. In our case, is to give the students more
exposure to computer science careers. Other suggestion taken from [8], is to encourage students to
participate in science fairs, robotics competitions, computing contests and other STEM competitions.

5. Conclusion
In this study, we discuss the attitude of students taking computer science diploma towards STEM. No
significant difference between male and female students’ attitude towards STEM fields was reported.
As demonstrated, students’ capability in mathematics subjects seem to be quite strong but moderate in
science (that could be correlated with their previous high school results which they used to get
admission to the computer science program but were not discussed in this paper). Furthermore, they
had high curiosity and interest about products of technology and engineering and realized that
designing products will be important for their future work.
However, surprisingly, they had moderate consideration to have a career in STEM-related fields
despite the facts that they were all pursuing a diploma in computer science. Clearly, they have shown
some signs of low confidence as most of them disagreed that they were good at building and fixing
things and disagreed that they believed they can be successful in a career related to technology and
engineering. Hence, more efforts are needed by the University to give exposures and experiences in
computer science field to the diploma students to boost their interests and confidence in the field,
which in turn hopefully helps to refine the students’ attitude. Nonetheless, our findings can be used to
build an extended study on improving the attitude towards STEM and maintaining the interest in
STEM-related career among the computer science diploma students.

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International Journal of Humanities, Management and Social Sciences, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 76-88, December 2019. DOI: 10.36079/lamintang.ij-humass-0202.35

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