Effects of Systems Thinking on High School Students' Science Self-Efficacy

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of systems thinking on high school students' self-regulatory efficacy and self-confidence that constitute science self-efficacy. We set self-regulatory efficacy as a factor of students' systems thinking affects their self-confidence on science through self-regulatory efficacy. A total of 210 students were sampled from general high schools and 188 valid cases were analyzed. The instrument has 39 items that consist of 20 items measuring systems thinking and 19 items of science self-efficacy. The result of the exploratory factor analysis indicated that 20 items for systems thinking, 8 items for self-regulatory efficacy, 4 items for self-confidence are reasonable. Testing the goodness of fit of a structural equation model, it turn out to be appropriate (chi(2)=344.498, df=242, TLI= .921, RMSEA= .044) using 24 items (mental model, personal mastery, systems analysis, self-regulatory efficacy, and self-confidence were constructed). In addition, the mental model, which is one factor of systems thinking, is mediated by self-regulatory efficacy that affects self-confidence directly and/or indirectly. The results suggest that systems thinking affects science self-efficacy directly and indirectly. Utilizing systems thinking in science education can produce a theoretical basis in improving students' confidence and self-efficacy about science.