Views of teachers on STEM education self-efficacy

The aim of this study is to analyze the perceptions of teachers' in terms of their self efficacy beliefs in STEM education. The participants were 380 teachers working in Diyarbakır Province in differing schools with various branches such as Science, maths, preschool education, IT, and primary school education. 21 teachers out of 380 were interviewed as of qualitative data. The design of the study was explanatory sequantial design as a part of mixed method. There were two stages in the course of the study. In the first phase, the researcher used " STEM applications- Teachers' self efficacy scale". In the second phase, the researchers made semiconducted interviews with 21 teachers to look at their opinions about STEM training by means of "an interview form" created by her after consulting related experts in the field. Qualitative data collected by interviews were used to support the quantitative data obtained by means of the scale. The qualitative data was analyzed using a computer package program and ANOVA and independent samples T-test was conducted to look at differences among variables of teachers' demographic information. Content analysis was conducted to look at the answers of open ended questions for qualitative data. The data obtained in content analysis can be seen in related table with emerging codes and themes. It was concluded in the study that the teachers had a moderate level of self efficacy in STEM education. There appeared a statistically significant difference in gender variable on the side of females and private schools for school type variable. There was no statistically significant difference in terms of branch and years of experience. It was concluded from the interviews that STEM education can foster the students' 21st century skills, their creativity, motivation towards courses and science. Most of the teachers expressed STEM education should start from preschool education period. Moreover they stated STEM education did not get enough importance and attention as much as it deserved, some drawbacks in the course of implementation, and the ignorance of both teachers and school administrations about the subject. More than half of the participants said that the infrastructure of schools and related materials are hardly enough to implement stem education. To sum up, in order to applySTEM educational method properly, there seems that all the related stakeholders need to get enough training about this subject, the infrastructure of the sechools be modified accordingly, the curriculums be updated in terms of STEM norms and included into the course programs.