Pre-Service Science Teachers' Conceptions of STEM Education
Author(s):
Fulden Güler (presenting / submitting) Jale Çakıroğlu Özgül Yılmaz-Tüzün
Conference:
ECER 2017
Network:
Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Format:
Paper

Session Information

ERG SES E 02, Pre-service Teachers and Education

Paper Session

Time:
2017-08-21
15:30-17:00
Room:
W3.11
Chair:
Javier Diez-Palomar

Contribution

There is a strong emphasis on integrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) explicitly in all levels of education in recently published reports in the USA (National Research Council, 2012; 2014). In the same vein, promoting STEM education is highlighted in many studies and reports in European and in Turkish context (Corlu, Capraro & Capraro, 2014; OECD, 2013). Although the increased attention towards STEM education in recent years, the definition of STEM is still unclear and ill structured (Bybee, 2013; Dugger, 2009) and there are plenty of definitions available in the literature. In the present study, STEM is defined as “the teaching and learning of the content and practices of disciplinary knowledge which include science and/or mathematics through the integration of the practices of engineering and engineering design of relevant technologies” (Bryan, Moore, Johnson & Roehrig, 2015, p. 23). STEM education is considered as one of the major reforms in education in the last years (Daugherty, 2013). Since teachers are the key factors for implementation of the educational reforms (Canea, 2013), teacher quality is an important issue and integration of STEM into the classroom practices requires well-trained teachers (NRC, 2010). However, research suggested that teachers have limited understanding regarding STEM integration and they experience difficulty in implementing STEM in their classrooms (Nadelson et al, 2013).  Hence, there is a need for teachers being exposed to STEM teaching as early as possible (Radloff & Guzey, 2016).

Moreover, what does the integrated STEM education mean is still being discussed and there is no consensus on what is the most effective way for providing integration (Roehrig, Moore, Wang & Park, 2012; Wang, Moore, Roehrig & Park, 2011). Because of the different descriptions of STEM integration, it is difficult to support pre-service teachers for effective STEM teaching. In the first instance, pre-service teachers’ conceptualizations of STEM education need to be understood to promote them for integrated STEM teaching and design effective STEM instruction. What pre-service science teachers think about STEM education could be uncovered through their visualizations of STEM integration (Radloff & Guzey, 2016). The number of studies addressing integrated STEM visualizations are rare in the literature and among them Bybee’s (2013) theoretical visualizations provides wide range of perspectives for STEM integration and utilized in the present study. According to Bybee (2013) the continuum for visualizations ranging from STEM education referring teaching four disciplines separately and at the opposite end there is a complete integration called as transdisciplinary integration and it puts emphasis on the real-world connections of STEM. The purpose of the study is to examine how pre-service science teachers at a large university located in the capital city of Turkey visualize STEM education and investigate the rationale for their visual representations. In line with the purpose, the research question that guide the present study is “How pre-service science teachers conceptualize integrated STEM education?”. This explanatory study is considered as significant for providing information regarding pre-service science teachers’ views on STEM education both visually and textually. Moreover, literature suggested that STEM education should be a part of initial teacher education programs (Bozkurt, 2014; Mativo & Park, 2012; Rockland et al, 2010) and the present study might provide an appropriate starting point for how to design integrated STEM courses in teacher education programs, in what ways pre-service science teachers’ understanding of STEM might be enhanced and what points should be considered while preparing future teachers for integrating STEM. 

Method

Survey design was used in the current study to describe how pre-service science teachers conceptualize STEM education. 49 fourth grade pre-service science teachers were selected through convenient sampling and involved in the study. Although there is no course directly focusing on STEM education in the teacher education program, participants of study were familiar with the STEM education since they took “Methods in Science Teaching” and “Science, Technology and Society” courses in which STEM education was included as a part of these courses. The instrument developed by Radloff and Guzey (2016) was used to collect data. The primary purpose is to examine participants’ STEM visualizations through drawing diagram but there were some open ended and Likert type items to support the analysis of diagrams. The instrument includes items requesting participants’ demographic information, how they characterize their own teaching style (on a Likert scale ranging from mostly teacher directed to mostly student directed), how they describe STEM education through open-ended question, how they specify the connection between STEM disciplines on a Likert scale ranging from not connected to well connected to provide basis for their understandings regarding STEM education. Then, they were asked to draw a diagram by using the letters “S-T-E-M” to visualize STEM and provide rationale for why they did draw in this way to extend the information obtained from drawings. Moreover, four new items were added into the original instrument in the present study as follows: “How much are you interested in STEM teaching?”, “How informative are you about STEM teaching?”, “How confident do you feel in your ability to design STEM integrated lessons?”, and “How confident do you feel in your ability to implement STEM lesson in the classroom?” o get deeper information about participants’ views on STEM teaching. Expert opinions were taken and the instrument was administered to five pre-service science teachers before the main study. For the analysis of diagrams, Bybee’s (2013) STEM visualizations was used for coding the data which will be explained further. Three researchers coded the drawings independently based on Bybee’s visualizations and interrater reliability was used to give evidence for credibility. It was calculated as %80 by using the formula suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994). Then, the researchers discussed the inconsistences among their responses and reached the total agreement at the end. For the analysis of open ended questions constant comparative approach was utilized (Glaser & Strauss, 1967).

Expected Outcomes

The majority of participants reported that they had interest in STEM teaching (%91.9), they were informative about STEM teaching (%76.52), they felt confident about designing (75.5%) and implementing (75.5%) STEM integrated lessons. Moreover, six visualizations from Bybee’s (2013) theoretical framework was observed in participants’ drawings. The findings indicated that 1) the most common found type was interconnected visualization (n=13) in which students drew two-way connections between all STEM disciplines referring to complete connection and supported by the data that 91.8% of the participants chose “8” or greater out of 10 for the connectedness of STEM disciplines in the survey, 2) nested visualization (n=10) includes having one STEM discipline as dominant that encompass other ones and participants utilized “science” as overarching discipline; 3) transdisciplinary visualization (n=6) provides complete integration and put emphasis on real world connection and implementation of STEM. Participants’ drawings included designing ships, plane, bridge or Venn diagrams in which there was annotated “STEM” at the center showing full integration; 4) overlapping visualizations (n=5) in which two dominant disciplines linked through one or two STEM disciplines and all drawings revealed that S and M are connected by T and E; 5) sequential visualization (n=3) refers to sequencing STEM disciplines successively and drawings included series of STEM disciplines connected by one-way arrows in linear way; 6) siloed visualization (n=2) pointed out S, T, E and M are isolated from each other and drawings demonstrated there was no connection between STEM disciplines. Moreover, there are uncategorized drawings (n=10) that refers to whether participants did not draw diagram or did not use the given letters. It could be concluded that the drawings showed great variations. Moreover, the most common explanation of participants’ rationale for their STEM visualization is “they are all connected” that supported the data obtained from drawings.

References

Bozkurt, E. (2014). Mühendislik tasarım temelli fen eğitiminin fen bilgisi öğretmen adaylarının karar verme becerisi, bilimsel süreç becerileri ve sürece yönelik algılarına etkisi. (Unpublished Dissertation), Gazi Üniversitesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Ankara. Bryan, L.A., Moore, T., Johnson, C. C. & Roehrig, G. H. (2015). Integrated STEM education. In Johnson, Peters-Burton & Moore (Eds). STEM Road Map: A Framework for Integrated STEM Education (p. 203-201). New York: Routledge. Bybee, R. (2013). The case of STEM education: Challenges and opportunities. NSTA Press, Arlington. Caena, F. (2013). Supporting teacher competence development for better learning outcomes. Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/school/doc/teachercomp.pdf Corlu, M. S., Capraro, R. M., & Capraro, M. M. (2014). Introducing STEM education: Implications for educating our teachers for the age of innovation. Egitim ve Bilim, 39(171). Dugger, W. (2010). Evolution of STEM in the United States. Technology Education Research Conference. Queensland. Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Aldine, Chicago. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2nd Ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Mativo, J. M., & Park, J. H. (2012). Innovative and creative K-12 engineering Strategies: Implications of preservice teacher survey. Journal of STEM Education, 13(5), 26-29. Nadelson, L. S., Callahan, J., Pyke, P., Hay, A., Dance, M., & Pfiester, J. (2013). Teacher STEM perception and preparation: Inquiry-based STEM professional development for elementary teachers. The Journal of Educational Research, 106(2), 157-168. National Research Council. (2010). A framework for science education: Preliminary public draft. Committee on Conceptual Framework for New Science Education Standards. Retrieved from http://www.aapt.org/ Resources/upload/Draft-Framework-Science-Education.pdf OECD. (2013). Sparking Innovation in STEM Education with Technology and Collaboration. Retrieved from https://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/OECD_EDUWKP(2013)_%20Sparking%20Innovation%20in%20STEM%20education.pdf Radloff, J., & Guzey, S. (2016). Investigating preservice STEM teacher conceptions of STEM education. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 25(5), 759-774. Rockland, R., Bloom, D. S., Carpinelli, J., Burr-Alexander, L., Hirsch, L. S., & Kimmel, H. (2010). Advancing the “E” in K-12 STEM education. Journal of Technology Studies, 36(1), 53-64. Roehrig, G. H., Moore, T. J., Wang, H. H., & Park, M. S. (2012). Is adding the E enough? Investigating the impact of K‐12 engineering standards on the implementation of STEM integration. School Science and Mathematics, 112(1), 31-44. Wang, H. H., Moore, T. J., Roehrig, G. H., & Park, M. S. (2011). STEM integration: Teacher perceptions and practice. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 1(2), 2.

Author Information

Fulden Güler (presenting / submitting)
Ege University
Izmir
Jale Çakıroğlu
Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Özgül Yılmaz-Tüzün
Middle East Technical University, Turkey

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