Students’ perspectives on Batik Cirebon for high school chemistry embedded STEM learning

Abstract

Abstract Batik Cirebon is one of Indonesia’s potential local wisdom contexts that can be used in Chemistry high school STEM-based instruction. However, it is necessary to educationally reconstruct the context first so that its scientific content is suitable to be delivered to students. This research was a preliminary study that explored students’ perspectives of batik Cirebon context as one of the stages in educational reconstruction. Model of Educational Reconstruction was used as a basis for reconstructing batik Cirebon context. Students’ perspectives were explored through in-depth questionnaire towards 14 respondents about: STEM education; their preconceptions about scientific content of batik and its related chemical concepts; and their interest of implementing batik context in Chemistry embedded-STEM instruction. Analysis of students’ perspectives was carried out based on the hermeneutic-analytic method. The results of this study indicated that students’ preconceptions about chemical concepts related to batik context were still far from its correct scientific conceptions. Even so, respondents showed positive attitude towards the possibility of implementing STEM learning in high school chemistry. These findings are important as references in further educational reconstruction research of batik Cirebon context for Chemistry embedded-STEM learning, such as the instructional materials and also its learning strategy and evaluation.