Indonesia’s Young Scientists: Profiling Science Identity of Middle School Students

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-537-9_13How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Young Scientists; Science Identity; Rasch Model

Abstract

Science identity is a crucial construct for understanding how adolescents engage with science and envision their future. This study profiled the science identity of Indonesian middle school students by describing their interest, confidence, motivation, and environmental concern as potential young scientists. A PISA 2025-informed questionnaire was distributed online to students via Google Form with the assistance of science teachers, resulting in 517 valid responses from multiple Indonesian regions, predominantly Java and Sulawesi. The instrument measured science capital, attitudes (self-concept, self-efficacy, enjoyment, and motivation), and environmental concern/agency. Data were analyzed using the Rasch model to determine students’ science identity levels and identify group differences based on gender, region, and socioeconomic background. The results showed that most students (88.6%) were at a moderate level of science identity, while 7.0% reached the high level and 4.5% were at the low level. Differential Item Functioning (DIF) analysis indicated only minor variations: male students tended to get bored faster, female students were less active in environmental agency, urban students joined fewer nonformal science activities, and students with unemployed parents faced difficulties in science capital. This study provides a large-scale portrait of Indonesian adolescents’ science identity and suggests the need to strengthen motivation, confidence, and environmental agency to support science education and STEM engagement.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Syech Zainal
AU  - Raya Agni
AU  - Siti Eneng Sururiyatul Mu’aziyah
AU  - Supriyadi Supriyadi
AU  - Pahriadi Pahriadi
AU  - Isnawati Isnawati
AU  - Astija Astija
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/19
TI  - Indonesia’s Young Scientists: Profiling Science Identity of Middle School Students
BT  - Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Education (ICE-3 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 132
EP  - 142
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-537-9_13
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-537-9_13
ID  - Zainal2026
ER  -