Abstract—Self-efficacy is a perceived competence in
performing a particular task, and science self-efficacy can
determine the engagement to students' science learning. Based
on the theory of learning life approach, this study proposed a
conceptual framework to clarify the role of information and
communication technology (ICT) on forming science
self-efficacy. Furthermore, we compared the difference between
boys and girls in the pathways in the proposed framework.
15-year-old secondary school students in China released by
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development
(PISA) in 2015 were as the participants. After weighting, there
were 790,611 secondary school students involved in this study
(415,066 boys and 375,545 girls) to test the model fit with
structural equation models and multi-group analysis by using
Lisrel 8.80. Results showed that: 1. The correlations between
science self-efficacy and ICT self-regulated ability, out-school
ICT science learning behavior, and inquiry-based teaching
were significantly positive related. Science self-efficacy was
significantly negative correlated with out-school ICT leisure
activities. 2. The proposed framework not only had ideal model
fit on the whole participants but also on boys and girls. 3. The
coefficient of boys of positive impact of out-school ICT leisure
activities on ICT self-regulated ability, out-school ICT science
learning behavior on science self-efficacy, and the positive
impact effect of out-school ICT leisure activities on the indirect
positive impact of science self-efficacy were all lower than girls.
According to our findings, it is suggested that teachers should
not only use inquiry-based teaching strategies in science
classrooms, but also encourage students to independently apply
ICT's scientific learning behaviors out-school, which is
particularly important for girls.
Index Terms—Science self-efficacy, ICT, PISA 2015,
Structural equation modeling.
Yuanyuan Zheng is with International College, Krirk University,
Bangkok, 10220 Thailand. She is also with Liupanshui Normal University,
Guizhou, China (e-mail: 1271234387@qq.com).
I-Hua Chen is with Chinese Academy of Education Big Data, Qufu
Normal University, Shandong, China (e-mail: aholechen@gmail.com).
Cite: Yuanyuan Zheng and I-Hua Chen, "The Relation between ICT Usage and 15-Year-Old Students' Science Self-efficacy," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 88-95, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).