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doi: 10.1007/s40299-018-0400-7pmid: N/A
This review identifies 20 studies pertaining to teacher professional development for STEM education. Using a mixture of content analysis with reference to the TPACK framework, and open and axial coding, a descriptive model was constructed. The model describes the connection of the various categories of variables associated with teacher professional development for STEM. How content, pedagogy, and technology are featured in current STEM research are treated as properties of the core phenomenon of teacher professional development for STEM. Design considerations for future research are presented. The study recommends that design thinking, epistemic fluency and technological pedagogical engineering knowledge could be the anchors of future research.
Lee, Min-Hsien; Hsu, Chung-Yuan; Chang, Chun-Yen
doi: 10.1007/s40299-018-0401-6pmid: N/A
This study, first of all, aimed to develop a new survey to assess Taiwanese teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in STEM knowledge. Second, it aimed to probe any differences in teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in STEM knowledge regarding their gender and teaching subjects. Last, we examined the structural relations among teachers’ perceived self-efficacy in STEM knowledge and their attitudes toward STEM education. The participants were 220 high school teachers in Taiwan. The 30-item instrument consisted of six factors: scientific inquiry, technology use, engineering design, mathematical thinking, and synthesized knowledge of STEM, as well as attitudes toward STEM education. The results showed that the proposed instrument was valid and reliable. In addition, male teachers outperformed female teachers in each dimension of the survey. Last, teachers’ self-efficacy in synthesized knowledge of STEM had two mediating effects. One was in the relationship between self-efficacy in engineering design and attitudes toward STEM education. The other was in the relationship between self-efficacy in Mathematical Thinking and Attitudes toward STEM education.
Dong, Yan; Xu, Chang; Song, Xiaoting; Fu, Qian; Chai, Ching; Huang, Yue
doi: 10.1007/s40299-018-0407-0pmid: N/A
Teachers’ self-efficacy and engagement in classroom teaching play critical roles in making the integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education happen. However, the potential factors influencing teachers’ self-efficacy and engagement in STEM teaching have yet to be examined. This study constructed a hypothesized model including teaching self-efficacy, pedagogical design self-efficacy, discipline knowledge, administration support, and collegial support and investigated their structural effects on teacher engagement based on the survey of 458 Chinese teachers. Results of structural equation modeling revealed teaching self-efficacy, pedagogical design self-efficacy, and collegial support were the important predictors of teachers’ engagement in STEM teaching. Meanwhile, teachers’ discipline knowledge and administration support positively influenced teaching self-efficacy which in turn influenced teacher engagement. Findings of this study suggested that to enhance teachers’ engagement in STEM teaching, further studies on teacher professional development are needed to explore how to enhance teachers’ pedagogical design competencies and collaboration consciousness. This study provides some implications and recommendations for school administrators and teacher educators to successfully enhance teachers’ engagement and competencies in STEM education.
Geng, Jie; Jong, Morris; Chai, Ching
doi: 10.1007/s40299-018-0414-1pmid: N/A
STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education is vital for incubating future scientists, engineers, and inventors. Teaching and learning in STEM education require teachers and students to employ design thinking and multi-disciplinary knowledge to formulate new solutions for emerging problems. School teachers are facing multiple challenges in implementing STEM education. With the application of the Self-efficacy and stages of concern theories, this quantitative study (with 235 teacher respondents) aims to unearth Hong Kong teachers’ responses regarding STEM education. The results show that 5.53% of the respondents regard themselves as “well prepared” for STEM education. On the other hand, the respondents have intense “information”, “management”, and “consequence” concerns about implementing STEM education in schools. The findings reflect that there is an urgent need to provide teachers with articulated professional development, pedagogic support, and curricular resources for empowering them to implement STEM education in practice.
So, Hyo-Jeong; Ryoo, Dahyeon; Park, Hyunjin; Choi, Hyungshin
doi: 10.1007/s40299-018-0410-5pmid: N/A
The main purpose of this study was to examine the multi-functional relationship among pre-service teachers’ art appreciation, attitude toward science, technology acceptance, creative convergence competency, and teaching competency in STEAM education. Data were collected from 238 pre-service teachers in Korea and were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicate that pre-service teachers’ art appreciation, attitude toward science, and technology acceptance had a significant effect on their creative convergence competency. In particular, their attitude toward science had the greatest effect on the creative convergence competency, which had a significant effect on the teaching competency in STEAM education. In addition, individual characteristics (i.e., art appreciation, attitude toward science) had indirect effects on the teaching competency in STEAM education mediated by the creative convergence competency. Overall, the results of this study show the criticality of supporting pre-service teachers to develop positive attitudes toward art appreciation and science to foster creative convergence skills. In conclusion, we suggest that the current fragmented approach with strict disciplinary boundaries at teaching education institutions does not adequately prepare pre-service teachers to be competent in teaching STEAM education. More holistic and systemic approaches are necessary to support the trajectory of pre-service teachers’ development of STEAM teaching competency.
Hong, Huang-Yao; Lin, Pei-Yi; Chen, Bodong; Chen, Nanxi
doi: 10.1007/s40299-018-0409-ypmid: N/A
STEM learning is an integrated approach to improving learners’ problem-solving capacity and 21st-century skills by engaging them in systematic investigation that requires interdisciplinary knowledge. This study aimed to examine whether the design of an innovative knowledge-building environment facilitates STEM learning. Participants were university students engaging in in-depth group projects to design a piece of living-technology product. Data were obtained from student groups’ online discussion of their STEM projects. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of student groups’ knowledge-building activities, including fostering a strong sense of community, working productively with ideas, and assuming higher-level agency, provided evidence of students’ deep engagement in the design of their STEM projects. Recommendations for the design of effective STEM learning environments are offered.
Lin, Yu-Tzu; Wang, Ming-Tsan; Wu, Cheng-Chih
doi: 10.1007/s40299-018-0415-0pmid: N/A
This study designs and implements interdisciplinary STEM instruction by adopting modelling-based physics programming, and explores its effectiveness on learning. A quasi-experimental study was conducted. The experimental group wrote programs to solve physics problems by following the modelling process, while the control group solved general problems without specific guidance. The findings show that the STEM group performed better on both programming and physics achievements, and had higher self-efficacy on modelling. The STEM group benefited from the modelling-based instruction and could formulate the problems to a more effective representation for problem solving (abstraction), and also could transfer the solution to more accurate code (coding), both of which contributed to programming ability. Through the modelling process for physics simulation, physics programming also improved students’ understanding of difficult physics concepts.
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