STEM Teaching Readiness in Hong Kong: A Decade of Insights From the Modified Theory of Planned Behavior

This study investigates the readiness of primary and secondary school teachers in Hong Kong to implement STEM education, nearly ten years after its formal policy introduction.Grounded in a modified Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), the research explores five key constructs: attitudes toward STEM, perceived systemic barriers, self-efficacy, affective conditions (as a proxy for intention), and STEM teaching behaviors.A quantitative survey was conducted with 119 teachers using convenience and snowball sampling.The results revealed that attitudes significantly predicted affective readiness (β = 0.544, p < 0.001), and affective readiness in turn strongly influenced actual STEM teaching behaviors (β = 0.592, p < 0.001).Perceived systemic barriers also had a surprising positive influence on behavior (β = 0.303, p < 0.001), suggesting that in certain institutional contexts, constraints may act as creative drivers rather than deterrents.In contrast, self-efficacy was not a significant predictor of intention (p > 0.05).The model accounted for 56.9% of the variance in affective readiness and 43.5% in teaching behavior, indicating moderate to strong explanatory power.Additional analysis showed that related training and experience significantly enhanced readiness (p < 0.05), regardless of gender or school level.The findings have practical implications for curriculum designers and school leaders, suggesting that professional development should integrate emotional readiness and institutional resilience as central components of STEM implementation strategies.