Relationship between attitude to career and technology course with technological and entrepreneurship attitude of high school students in district one of Tabriz

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Developing a positive attitude toward the subject under study is one of the common educational goals today. Teachers as well as parents believe that the student's attitude toward the subject matter affects the student's success in school. High school students' perceptions regarding technology learning may influence their decision to study in a field at the university and work in the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics which are considered to be the basis of economic development in developed countries. During the past decades, there has been a growing gap between the scientific and technical skills offered by the schools and the economic demand in this area, and the number of the learners and those who have been trained in technology and science has decreased in some cases. Since the main objectives of the field of education and learning of the work and technology curriculum in the Fundamental Document of Transformation of Education for the first year of high school is obtaining the merits and positive attitude towards technology and entrepreneurship, the aim of this study is investigating the relationship between attitude toward work and technology with technological attitude and entrepreneurship of high school students in destrict one of Tabriz in the academic year 2018-2019. MethodS: This study was a correlational research using structural equation modeling method. Data were analyzed using least squares method. This method tests the pattern in two steps which include the measurement and structural pattern test. The measurement model examines the validity and reliability of measurement tools and research structures and tests the structural pattern of hypotheses and relationships of latent variables. The statistical population consisted of 15386 high school boys and girls in district one of Tabriz who were studying in the academic year 2018-2019. The sample was selected by proportional random sampling method (the seventh, eighth, and ninth grade) and since the original questionnaire had 40 components, 10 subjects were selected for each component and on the whole, 402 subjects were selected. Data were collected using the Liou and Kuo Technological Attitude Questionnaire (2014), Athayde Entrepreneurial Attitude Questionnaire (2009), and a researcher-made attitude to career and technology c­­­ourse Questionnaire. To test the hypotheses, structural equation analysis using Smart PLS 3 software was used. Findings: The findings showed that there was a very close relationship between career and technology course, attitude to technology and entrepreneurship. Hypotheses were significant at 0.001 level and t-statistic was significant as it was higher than 1.96. Attitude to career and technology course explains self-efficacy of learning technology as 0.44, the value of earning technology as 0.56, strategies of learning technology as 0.56, goal orientation of learning technology as 0.63, environmental stimulus of learning technology as 0.64, self-regulation-triggering of learning technology as 0.54, self-Regulation Implementation of learning technology as 0.68, others’ leadership as 0.40, achievement as 0.56, personal control as 0.30, creativity as 0.42, and intuition as 0.38. Conclusion: Attitude to career and technology course explained the components of technological attitude and the components of attitude to entrepreneurship. The high significance of a positive attitude to the career and technology course lies in having a positive relationship with valuable components such as self-efficacy, learning value, strategies of learning, goal orientation, environment stimulus, creating self-regulation, leadership of others, achievement, self-control, creativity and intuition; therefore, it is recommended to prioritize this course. Knowing the attitude factors and their relationship to the subjects of courses can help teachers to improve the curriculum and the effectiveness of teaching methods so that students can be more successful in learning their lessons, academic performance, and career. ===================================================================================== COPYRIGHTS ©2021 The author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers. =====================================================================================

Keywords

• technological attitude
• entrepreneurship attitude
• career and technology course