Science students’ literacy and faculty members’ perspective toward nanotechnology: Is it needed in 21st century education?

Abstract

Nanotechnology has been applied in various fields of human life today. However, efforts to integrate nanotechnology into the curriculum in Indonesia are insufficient, including in higher education. The research was conducted to reveal the level of literacy of science students and faculty member at university level in Indonesia. The research method in this study is a cross-sectional survey design with a total of 63 science lectures and 388 students from 22 universities in Indonesia who are participated in this study. The literacy level of student and lecturer’s perspective was analyzed from research instrument that consists of 16 questions test items in multiple choice forms. Descriptive statistics method used to analyze literacy level of science’s students and descriptive analysis used to analyze faculty member perspective toward nanotechnology. This study found that the highest literacy level toward nanotechnology in student university level was chemistry students (43,789) and the lowest is biology students (29,579). It means that the understanding of nanotechnology, which is more directed to the field of biology is not widely studied by the student’s in university level. Faculty members have perspective about nanotechnology are not integrated nanotechnology into classroom. They believed that nanotechnology is an important issue that must be directly available with curriculum system in education. This study contributes to primary research about nanotechnology implementation in education as a part of the need of 21st century.