Awareness and self-efficacy of pre-service science teachers about STEM Education: A qualitative study

The case study methodology was used in this research. According to Creswell (2013), a case study is a qualitative approach in which the researcher collects detailed and in-depth information about real life or a limited system with the help of various data collection tools. The case investigated in this study was the pre-service science teachers' views about STEM education. This method was preferred to reveal the pre-service science teachers' views about STEM in detail. A two-hour Arduino based STEM learning activity was conducted for fifteen pre-service science teachers who have not received any STEM course or training before. After the activity, the views of pre-service teachers were collected using an online survey.

Participants

This research was carried out with 15 university students who are studying at a state university in Turkey. Participants have been training to become science teachers at a secondary school level (5th-8th grades). For this reason, they were qualified as a pre-service teacher. Pre-service science teachers undergo a four-year education and study physics, chemistry, biology, technology, and pedagogy. The selection of the participants was made on a voluntary basis. While determining who the participants were going to be, brief information was told about the research to all participants. It was explained that the activity about STEM will be completed in 120 minutes and then they would have to do a survey. Among the nearly 100 pre-service teachers, 15 participants volunteered to participate in the research. When the responses to the survey were examined, it was determined that two preservice teachers did not respond to the survey. Therefore, the opinions of 13 pre-service teachers were examined and the demographic information of the teachers participating in the study was presented as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Demographic information of the participants

	f	%
Gender
Male	4	30.76
Female	9	69.24
Age	M
Mean age	22
Minimum age	21
Maximum age	24
Students’ level	f	%
3rd year	5	38.46
4th year	8	61.54

Data collection process

The pre-service teachers were invited who participated in the research to the computer laboratory of the faculty where they studied. There are 40 desktop computers in that laboratory. Preservice teachers worked individually on those computers. A 120-minute STEM activity was conducted using problem-based learning. Problems in problem-based learning are presented to the students within the context of a scenario by the instructor and it is tried to find solutions to the problem in the axis of research, analysis, and discussion. The problems faced by a seller were presented who wanted to make a LED panel as a scenario. The Colors of Light as the science content was chosen which is a topic in the secondary school science curriculum. STEM activity was started with the integration of mathematics and continued with technology, science, and engineering. In the mathematics discipline, participants sought a solution to an algebra problem from daily life. Participants used an Arduino Uno microcontroller in the discipline of technology and engineering in the STEM approach. In the activity, the primary and secondary colors were discussed that compose light in the science stage of STEM. The different stages of STEM education can be found in Figure 1. Figure 2 was exhibited photos taken during the activity. In order to hide the identity of the participants, stickers were placed on their faces.

Figure 1. Stages of STEM

Figure 2. Photos from the activity

Data collection tool

An online survey was used as the data collection tool. The survey was sent to the e-mail addresses of the participants after the activity. The survey consisted of two parts. In the first part, participants were asked about their age, gender, and what grade they were in. In the second part, there were 11 open-ended questions in four different themes. Questions and themes are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. Survey questions

While preparing the questions of the survey, studies were examined that were investigating the perceptions of teachers about STEM in the literature (Goodpaster et al., 2012; Herro & Quigley 2017; Park et al., 2016). In addition, after the preparation of the survey, it was presented to two researchers in the field of STEM in order for them to share their views and then the necessary corrections were made.

Data analysis Form

NVivo 12 computer program was used in the analysis of the qualitative data obtained in the research and the data was analysed with the content analysis technique. The stages followed in the analysis process were:

Since the survey was conducted online, the answers were recorded in pdf format. 18-page answers were recorded on the NVivo 12 software on a question basis.
Responses were coded given to the questions under four themes. In the findings section of the research, the names of the pre-service teachers, which the interviews were held with, were not clearly stated and encrypted such as T1, T2, T3,… were used for the pre-service teachers.
The data was shared with a researcher who had previously conducted qualitative research using NVivo. After giving information about the themes, the researcher was asked to code the data. The reliability formula proposed by Miles and Huberman (1994) was used to calculate reliability between encoders. If the result was calculated with the reliability formula it was over 70% (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p.64), assuming the reliability among the encoders was provided. As a result of the calculations made in this research, the reliability between encoders was 84% and the encodings were accepted as reliable.
The codes were supported with various quotations that were said by the participants. The findings were explained in relation to the research question.