Last modified: 2020-09-21
Abstract
One of the studies in the physics education curriculum at the undergraduate level is the philosophy of science (POS) and the history of physics (HOS). POS can be understood intensively if the reflection on the HOS has been understood beforehand. POS is a system of thinking that will answer philosophical educational problems and requires philosophical answers as well. This study aims to analyse the university students’ profile of understanding of the concept of epistemology, ontology, and axiology.
As the situation of COVID-19 pandemic, an online survey design was guided this research. The participants included 89 students who were majoring in Physics Education. In the duration of the spring semester 2020, this research was conducted by giving an online questionnaire containing statements with a value range of one to ten. The greater value given indicates the level of confidence of respondents on the truth of the statement. The first step was determining the item under the study of the POS, especially in the theme of epistemology, axiology, and ontology. Next, the step was making a revision of the statement or item after receive suggestions from colleagues. Then, create a questionnaire using Google Form to further expert validation. Finally, 30 items of the questionnaire were ready to be distributed to students to determine the level of student understanding of those three concepts. The data obtained were then analysed using quantitative descriptive analysis techniques and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to achieve the results of the students’ understanding level of the philosophy of the concept of science.
The results indicated that it was about 22% of the total participants had a lack of understanding of epistemological studies. Meanwhile, a total of 14.3% of the respondents had a lack of understanding of the concept of ontology. The best result was, the understanding of the concept of axiology, the undergraduate physics students achieved 91.2% had a good level of understanding of this concept. It indicated that 8.8% of them had a low level of knowledge of axiological studies. Turning to the result of EFA, it stated all items developed to measure the factor behind the structure scale with loading factor more than 0.4 with the overall reliability of more than 88%. It was noted that the scale explained the variance of 62%. All the results of EFA fulfilled the statistic criteria. This finding provides an additional treasure of previous knowledge that rarely explores the concept of epistemology, ontology, and axiology in a specific manner.
It can be concluded that the majority of undergraduate physics students know and understand the fundamental concept of philosophy of science with ranked axiology, ontology, and epistemology. The results of EFA claimed the questionnaire had been used fulfilled the requirement of validity and reliability of a scale.