Investigating University Students’ Preferences to Science Communication Skills: A Case of Prospective Science Teacher in Indonesia

Abstract

<p class="apa">The purpose of this study was to investigate Indonesian university students’ preferences to science communication skills. Data collected from 251 students who were majoring in science education program. The Learning Preferences to Science Communication (LPSC) questionnaire was developed with Indonesian language and validated through an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) of participants’ responses. The differences between student levels were also explored for their significance using ANOVA test in order to draw a clear line among different learning preferences. The results indicated that, <em>first</em>, the instrument used in this study had satisfactory in validity and reliability. The construct validities of the LPSC were vary from .48 and .83 and explained 64.54% of the variance. Overall, the Cronbach alpha coefficient of the instrument was .91. <em>Second</em>, university students as prospective teacher in junior and freshman level performed higher preference in visual (V) and aural (A) than others. Moreover, senior student depicted higher confident in read or write (R/W) than junior and sophomore level. However, university student in sophomore level performed less confident in both visual and aural. <em>Third</em>, the results also showed the significant intra-relationships among dimensions of learning preferences. The implications delineated contribute to the improvement of science teacher education program in Indonesia.</p>