Investigate the effect of activity-based STEM education on scientific process skills for 4-6 years old preschool children

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of activity-based STEM education on scientific process skills for preschool children aged 4-6 years. Firstly,in order to form the study group of the research, the school was determined with a similar sampling method which is a kind of purposive sampling method. In this context, firstly in the formation of the working group; in Bolu province center, two classes of children of the same age and similar developmental stages were identified in the kindergarten of Bolu Bağışçılar Foundation. These classes were assigned as experimental and control group. In the 2018-2019 academic year, a total of 48 children were included in the study group 19, of which were children in the Bolu Bagisçılar Foundation Kindergarten and 29 in the other. Personal Information Form and Preschool Scientific Process Skills Scale were used as data collection tools. The 8 week (24 activity) Activity-Based STEM Training Practices which were prepared by the researcher for the experimental group were carried out three days a week (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) with 45 minutes for each session. In this process, no Activity-Based STEM Training was applied for the scientific process skills with the children in the control group. The daily program of the Preschool Education Program (for 36-72 Months Old Children) was implemented in 2013. In the analysis of the data; Mann Whitney U Test which is one of the non-parametric statistical tests, pre-test scores for comparison of the scores before and after the application for both group – post-test scores of non-parametric statistical tests Wilcoxon Sign Rank Test, and finally Post-test scores of Mann Whitney U Test, which is one of the non-parametric tests, were used to evaluate the status of experimental and control groups after the application. The significance level was accepted as 0.05 when interpreting the results. As a result of the research, it was seen that there was no significant difference according to gender and age (p> .05) in the scientific process skills of the children in the experimental and control groups participating in Activity Based STEM Training Practices and there was a significant difference when the post-test scores of the experimental group were examined (p<0,05). When these analyses are examined, it is seen that Activity Based STEM Training Practices have an effect on improving children's scientific process skills. There was no significant difference in the scientific process skills of the children in the experimental group participating in the Activity Based STEM Training according to gender and age variables. According to these results; In the stages of this education given in the preschool period, educational practices in which children's scientific process skills are supported should be strengthened with various activity areas.