STEM Education Research: Content Analysis

Abstract

People need to be qualified to adapt to innovations caused by the rapid change in information and technology. This would be realized with the integration of technology into education. In order to subsist in the world of science and technology the disciplines with an important role both now and in the future are science, technology, engineering and mathematics. In this regard, the number of studies conducted on the improvement of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education is also increasing day by day. In this study information is given about the studies conducted on STEM and a total of 40 academic studies consisting of articles and papers published in national and international journals are discussed. Within this scope, studies conducted on the subject matter according to the results of the content analysis are investigated. Research approaches, research methods, learning environments, learning outcomes, data collection tools, research samples, STEM subjects of these studies and body of literature are evaluated. Data collected from the studies are analyzed with methods of descriptive statistics. Results are presented as frequencies and percentage tables. As a result of the study it stands out that qualitative researches are preferred more in STEM education studies, experimental studies and surveys are used as research methods and studies are conducted mostly with primary school students. It is considered that this study would be helpful to researchers eager to study on the subject.

Thematic Content Analysis of Doctoral Theses in STEM Education: Turkey Context

“…Qualitative method was used in some of the analyzed doctoral theses and quantitative method was used in a few. Similarly, Çevik (2017) and Kaleci & Korkmaz (2018) found that the studies based on qualitative method were the most common in the studies investigated in their study. It is concluded that action research (Hacıoğlu, 2017) and design-based research methodology (Gül, 2019) are frequently preferred in the doctoral theses analyzed.…”

“…In this context, the fact that it has been studied with all the relevant groups and the most secondary school students shows that STEM education is being worked with a group that is expected to contribute, and this situation can be evaluated as contributing to the field. In the studies examined in the literature review conducted by Kaleci & Korkmaz (2018), it was determined that the most research was carried out with primary school students. In the theses analyzed has been determined that the highest number of studies in the theses on STEM were conducted with 31-50 people (Hiğde, 2018;Koçyiğit, 2019), then 71-100 people, then 51-70 people (Ata Aktürk, 2019) and 11-30 people (Tunç, 2019).…”

“…When the studies in the literature are examined, analysis studies on the biometric analysis of scientific research on STEM (Özkaya, 2019), meta synthesis (Herdem & Ünal, 2018), content analysis (Aydın-Günbatar & Tabar, 2019;Çevik, 2017;Kaleci & Korkmaz, 2018), review (Jayarajah, Saat, Rauf & Amnah, 2014;Tezel & Yaman, 2017;Yılmaz, Gülgün, Çetinkaya & Doğanay, 2018), analysis of qualitative findings (Kanadlı, 2019) and methodological analysis of STEM studies (Özcan & Karabaş, 2019) were carried out. Furthermore, analysis/ meta-analysis of STEM-related experimental studies (Belland, Walker, Kim & Lefler, 2017;van den Hurk, meelissen & van Langen, 2019;, metaanalysis of the impact of STEM on cognitive outcomes (Belland, Walker, Olsen & Leary, 2015) and meta-analysis of STEM-related studies (Kim, Belland & Walker, 2018) were conducted.…”

Research Attitudes, Motivations, and Challenges of STEM Education Researchers

“…This is particularly crucial given that integration of STEM education has increasingly been growing in both developed and developing countries (El-Deghaidy & Mansour, 2015). Kaleci and Korkmaz (2018) have identified STEM education"s contributions to society which include the development of scientific and technological skills, contribution to sustainable growth, and the improvement of STEM literacy while drawing its connection to the society, school, and work, among others. Given this role played by STEM education in the global community, one cannot deny the need to pay attention to it.…”

Application of PjBL with brain-based STEAM approach to improve learning achievement of students

“…The inclusion of art elements in education can improve student inquiry skills, problemsolving skills, and creative thinking (Psycharis, 2018), make learning more exciting, increase the creativity of students and develop knowledge and social abilities (H. Kim & Chae, 2016). Besides, the application of STEM learning can increase the level of student productivity (Kaleci & Korkmaz, 2018). So there was a shift from STEM to STEAM (Psycharis, 2018).…”