STEM in Transition from Primary School to Middle School: Primary School Students Attitudes (original) (raw)
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Evaluation of Middle School Students' Attitudes Towards Stem Education
2019
The aim of this study is to evaluate the attitudes of secondary school students towards STEM education. For this purpose, screening method, one of the quantitative research methods, has been used. Of the 384 students who participated in the research, 50.5% are female and 49.5% are male. Data has been obtained through STEM training attitude scale. The data has been analyzed by means of SPSS 21.0 software with average, standard deviation, t test and correlation techniques. As a result of the study, it has been concluded that the participants have positive attitudes towards the fields that make up STEM. It has been observed that there is no correlation between the participants' attitudes towards STEM and their gender. However, there is a significant positive correlation between their attitudes towards STEM and their success in science and general courses.
The Effect of STEM Activities on Primary School Students' Attitudes towards STEM
International Journal of Research in Teacher Education, 2023
This study aimed to find out the effect of STEM activities on primary school students' attitudes towards STEM by using a pretest-posttest, experimental-control group quasi-experimental design. The research was conducted with 39 primary school students in the experimental (Nexperimental=21) and control group (Ncontrol=18) who were studying in the fourth grade of a school located in a city in the Central Anatolia Region of Türkiye in the 2021-2022 academic year. The STEM Attitude Scale was administered as a pretest and posttest to measure the changes in primary school students' attitudes towards STEM before and after the STEM activities. The intervention step included nine different STEM activities prepared for primary school students. The data were analyzed using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) and dependent groups t-test, and the effect size (e-square [ή2]) was calculated according to the variances between the scores. Based on the results, it was concluded that STEM activities foster the positive STEM attitudes of primary school students participating in these activities with a significantly wider effect than the primary school students who do not participate in such activities. The effect of engaging in STEM activities on primary school students' attitude towards STEM sub-dimensions was also examined, which indicated significant improvements in all sub-dimensions compared to the primary school students who did not take part in these activities. Including STEM based activities in primary schools is highly recommended because STEM activities are design-oriented, enable the use of technology, and involve skills such as creativity, problem solving, communication, and cooperation.
The study carried out in order to investigate the primary school children’s attitudes towards STEM in terms of different variables is a descriptive survey model. The target population of the study consist of the students studying at 4th grades at schools in Gaziantep central towns and the sample of the study consists of 492 4th grade students from seven primary schools at 2016-2017 fall term. “STEMPrimary School Attitude Scale” was used as data collection tool. Having been adjusted to primary school level by the researchers, the scale is a 5 point likert scale onsisting of four subscales and 21 items about “mathematics”, “science”, “engineering-technology” and “21st century skills”. Within reliability studies of the scale, Cronbach Alpha factors were calculated for subscales as .79, .84, .82 and .90 in order. The data were analyzed by using SPSS 20 statistical package program and for the interpretation of the results, .05 significance level was accepted.
The national economy is in need of more engineers and skilled workers in science, technology, and mathematics (STEM) fields who also possess competencies in critical-thinking, communication, and collaboration – also known as 21st century skills. In response to this need, educational organizations across the country are implementing innovative STEM education programs designed in part to increase student attitudes toward STEM subjects and careers. This paper describes how a team of researchers at The Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University developed the Upper Elementary School and Middle/High School Student Attitudes toward STEM (S-STEM) Surveys to measure those attitudes. The surveys each consist of four, validated constructs which use Likert-scale items to measure student attitudes toward science, mathematics, engineering and technology, 21st century skills. The surveys also contain a comprehensive section measuring student interest in STEM car...
This study is conducted to investigate high school students’ attitudes towards STEM in the context of school type in terms of various variables, such as; grade, attendance to science centers, carrying out experiments in lessons, carrying out experiments as an extracurricular activity, using laboratories in lessons, preparing projects, participation in project competitions and getting information from an expert about STEM topics. Study is descriptive one in the survey model. 712 high school students from 12 high schools in Gaziantep province in 2016-2017 academic year make up the sample of the study. “STEM Attitude Scale” used as the data collection tool of the study. It has been determined in the study that 9th grade students’ attitudes towards STEM differ and this difference is in favor of Anatolian and Science High Schools between the ones choosing Anatolian – Science High School and Industrial and Religious Vocational High Schools. Another finding of the study is that there is significant difference in support of the 9th graders’ attitude points towards between the 9th and 12th graders studying at Anatolian High Schools; however, there is no difference among the students’ attitude points towards STEM at other school types according to the grades they study in.
Elementary School Female Students' Attitude towards STEM
Journal of Business and Social Review in Emerging Economies, 2020
STEM has unraveled itself as an integrated teaching learning approach that fosters ingenuity and creativity, instill innovation, inculcate critical thinking, teach problem solving and encourages experimentation. Despite of modern advances, female representation in STEM workforce is low as compared to males. Studies show that girls lose their interest and intent to major in STEM fields during their middle school. The purpose of this study was to develop female student’s attitude towards STEM at elementary level. True experimental design of quantitative approach was employed to conduct the study. The population was consisted of all the girls students of govt. school at elementary level. The sample was comprised of 8th grade female students of a public sector school in Lahore. To collect data a questionnaire developed by Friday Institute for Educational Innovation (2012) was adapted. The study was concluded on the basis of the findings that there was a significant effect of STEM integr...
Elementary Students' Attitudes towards STEM and 21st Century Skills
International Journal of Evaluation and Research in Education, 2021
STEM and 21st-century learning are very important to be applied from an early age for all students, including at the elementary school level. This study aims to describe students' attitudes towards STEM and 21st-century skills according to gender and education level. The method used is descriptive quantitative by explaining and comparing the results of the questionnaires given to students. Student attitudes are described based on domain of STEM (Science, Technology/Engineering and Math) , 21st-century skills, gender, and student grade level. The test instrument used refers to one of the articles that have been published in a reputable international journal with a questionnaire scale of 1-5. There are 130 elementary students who were obtained randomly from one of the elementary schools in Yogyakarta. The results showed that based on the science the mean score of the students was 3.23 (moderate). on mathematics 3,21(moderate); on technology/engineering 3.68 ( moderate ) and on 21s...
Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 2015
Using an iterative design along with multiple methodological approaches and a large representative sample, this study presents reliability, validity, and fairness evidence for two surveys measuring student attitudes toward science, technology, engineering, and math (S-STEM) and interest in STEM careers for (a) 4th- through 5th-grade students (Upper Elementary S-STEM) and (b) 6th- through 12th-grade students (Middle/High S-STEM). Findings from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) suggested the use of a four-factor structure to measure student attitudes toward science, math, engineering/technology, and 21st century skills. Subject matter experts and literature reviews provided evidence of content validity. Reliability levels were high for both versions. Furthermore, both the Upper Elementary S-STEM and Middle/High S-STEM Surveys demonstrated evidence of configural, metric, and scalar invariance across grade levels, races/ethnicities, and genders. Th...
Students' Attitudes towards STEM Education: Voices from Indonesian Junior High Schools
The purpose of this study was to investigate Indonesian students' attitudes towards Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) through survey study. Data collected from 260 Indonesian junior high school students (47.3% male and 52.7% female) who were studying at public school in East Java province. The Attitudes Towards Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (AT-STEM) questionnaire was developed with Indonesian language and validated through an exploratory factor analysis of participants' responses. In addition, the Pearson product moment was used to measure the correlation among four dimensions of scale. The results indicated that, first, the instrument used in this study had satisfactory validity and reliability. The construct validities of the AT-STEM were varying from .60 and .96 and explained 86.84% of the variance. Overall, the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the instrument was .94. Second, the dimension of Mathematics came in the first rank and followed by Science as well as the degree of attitudes towards STEM. Last, the results also showed a significant interrelationship among dimensions of attitudes towards STEM.