The effect of stem-based scientific storybooks on 7th grade students' creative thinking and problem-solving skills

STEM topics promote STEM literacy, acquiring new professions, and enhancing individuals' problem-solving, decision-making, critical thinking, and creative solution-generation skills. In line with these skills, reading scientific storybooks with STEM content is of great importance. Learning environments that encourage students' interest, curiosity, imagination, and creativity while enabling them to overcome encountered problems should be provided. Within this scope, this study aims to examine the impact of scientific stories supported by STEM content in science lessons on the creative thinking and problem-solving skills of 7th-grade students.The research was conducted using a mixed-method approach. The study was carried out during the 2024-2025 academic year in a secondary school located in Tuşba district, Van province. It consisted of 60 students, with 30 in the experimental group and 30 in the control group. Quantitative data collection tools included the 'Problem-Solving Scale' and 'Creative Thinking Scale.' Qualitative data were collected using 'Semi-Structured Interview Questions' (SSI). IBM SPSS Statistics 27.0 and Microsoft Excel 2016 were utilized for analyzing quantitative data, while content analysis was used for qualitative data analysis.Research findings indicate that there is a significant difference in favor of the experimental group in terms of post-test scores related to creative thinking skills (CTS) and problem-solving skills (PSS) between the experimental and control groups. Furthermore, interviews with students in the experimental group revealed that STEM-supported scientific stories enhanced their research and inquiry skills, increased their curiosity, imagination, and broadened their perspectives, facilitated learning, encouraged different viewpoints, and helped concretize subjects.As a result, it has been observed that STEM-supported scientific storybooks contributed to the increase in creative thinking and problem-solving skills of 7th-grade students in the experimental group. Based on the research results, it is recommended that STEM-supported scientific stories be included in science lessons at the secondary school level and that STEM activities related to the content of the stories be conducted.