Perceptions of in-service teachers toward teaching STEM in Thailand

This study examined teachers’ perceptions of STEM education, which is receiving increased attention in educational reforms worldwide. It is important that we focus on teachers because they play a critical role in the success of new reforms. We grounded our work in the construct of PCK with a particular focus on teachers’ orientations, which strongly shape their instructional decisions. The term ‘orientations’ refers to teachers’ beliefs about the purposes and goals for teaching science at different grade levels. In this study, teachers’ perceptions of STEM are considered to be related to their orientations. Our findings contribute to the field by characterizing the current state of teachers’ perceptions of STEM education and by helping establish a baseline for further research about teachers’ PCK for teaching STEM.

Our findings make several contributions toward understanding in-service teachers’ perceptions of STEM. First, our study provides evidence that there is not a widespread awareness of STEM education among in-service teachers. The majority of teachers recognized STEM from online sources (e.g., websites and social media), colleagues, and related workshop events. That means we still need to invest more in communicating STEM education to the public by several channels, especially online and social network. Clearly, it is very important to start with raising the awareness and understanding levels of administrators and teachers to develop a common understanding of STEM education that can enhance collaboration between policy makers, school administrators, practitioners, and supporters to reach the same goal.

Second, our findings illustrate a lack of consensus among teachers about definition of integrative STEM. Most teachers described STEM education as an integrated-disciplines teaching approach toward solving real-life problems. Moreover, teachers often defined STEM education with the common phrases “solving problems” and “learning by doing”. Therefore, the types of activity that harmonize with teachers’ perception of STEM education are most likely problem-based, project-based, and inquiry-based approaches. These findings relate to teachers’ STEM-integration perception, showing that a number of teachers viewed STEM approach as a transdisciplinary integration (all disciplines are planned and taught together) and interdisciplinary integration (all disciplines are planned and taught separately). Teachers viewed STEM as an approach that involves solving real-life problems with integrated knowledge. That is, real-life problems need to be infused in STEM lesson plans to connect lessons to everyday experiences. Based on the notion of Bybee (2013) and our findings, we still have no precise answers of which type of STEM integration is the best approach.

Third, our findings reveal areas of concern for in-service teachers about the STEM disciplines themselves. The findings also show that most in-service teachers have a higher concern about engineering than other discipline. Teacher confidence for teaching STEM is an important predictor of ability for teaching STEM-related content, and teachers that tend to have problems with content, especially engineering, can have a negative influence on student learning (Harlen & Holroyd, 1997; Ford, 2007; Jarrett, 1999). National education agencies such as the Ministry of Education and school administrators can apply this finding as baseline information toward making further steps to support STEM education implementation. Based on our findings, we suggest that educational resources materials and resources be designed to cover all common integration perceptions in order to serve all possible teaching styles. Moreover, IPST, curriculum, and teacher development agencies, can apply these findings and study methods to improve understanding about STEM perception and support teachers to develop better beliefs and attitudes about teaching STEM. For example, many teachers hold strong concerns about engineering, thus engineering-integrated curriculum and standards should be developed to support teachers’ understanding, and teachers can use this curriculum as a guideline for enacting a STEM approach. Many scholars suggest that teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, and perceptions about teaching and learning are tacit and tenacious and serve as filters for acceptable learning and teaching activity (Kagan, 1992; Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996; Gess-newsome, 2015). We suggest that emphasis on students’ learning outcome and assessments must be included in teacher development process because students’ learning is directly related to teachers' decision-making and selection of appropriated approaches to teaching (Trigwell et al., 1999).

The STEM perception survey developed in this study reveals science teachers’ perceptions of STEM education. This data can be used to help science educators, curriculum developers, and others involved in teacher development as initial information or to provide ideas to develop professional development experiences concerning these factors. Everyone's perspective need not be the same, but we need to be clear enough about the perspective we hold because it can affect and shape our decisions. Thus, measuring STEM-education perceptions is important not only for teachers, but also the workplace, the community, and society.