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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 19, Issue 1, Article 6 (Jun., 2018) |
Content analysis method is used in educational researches to answer various questions about thinking and learning by considering individual differences (Çepni, 2014). In this study, we used the same method to determine the views of pre-service teachers on STEM activities. The coding technique was used to determine and interpret data obtained from participants in an inductive way (Çepni, 2014).
The participants of this study were eight pre-service teachers, 3 women and 5 men, who took RPFE course during spring term of 2015-2016. All participants were senior students from Van Yuzuncu Yil University [YYU], Faculty of Education, Department of Physics Education and their ages range from 25 to 30. The participants have not taken any STEM related courses and had no information about STEM education or STEM activities prior to study.
The aim of the RPFE course is to enable pre-service teachers to conduct a research in field education. In the scope of the course, students conduct a project on a specific subject related to their field education in the RPFE. Through the project study, they learn research methods, data collection tools, data analysis, and how to illustrate the results. It is important that the research should consist of up-to-date teaching or learning methods and approaches. It was therefore decided to conduct a group study in a project related to STEM education for pre-service teachers in the scope of the RPFE course.
In the scope of the course, during the first month of the term, pre-service teachers conducted research and investigation on STEM education. During lecture hours, extensive discussions were held by the participants on STEM education and STEM activities. As a result, it was decided to organize a ‘Science Festival’ including STEM activities for middle school students. On the following month of the term, STEM activities were explored and the participants proposed some activities for the festival. Finally, six hands-on STEM activities were decided to be used in the festival. These activities were Spaghetti Bridge, Steamy Ship, Art Bot, Fruit Battery, Let’s Make an Eye, Coding Hour with Angry Bird. The ‘Science Festival’ took place in the faculty of education of YYU, and 20 voluntary students from the nearest middle school were attended to the festival. The festival was started at 9:00 am and ended in 05:00 pm, so took 8 hours in total.
Data Collection Tools and Data Analysis
The structured interview form was used to collect the data. The main purpose of a structured interview is to identify the differences, similarities or contradictions between the information provided by the participants and to compare the findings (Çepni, 2014). The form developed for the interview included five open-ended questions. Two specialists in science education applied the validity test for the study. Interview forms were then given to participants only after all studies in the scope of the course have done.
Content analysis method was used for analyzing the data. The similarities and differences between the information obtained from the answers of pre-service teachers’ for each question were examined. In the answers given to each question, appropriate themes were determined for the purpose of the research and the frequencies of repetition of the codes in the themes were examined. The participants were encoded as PT1, PT2…PT8.
