Examining the effects of early STEM educational program on the scientific process skills of preschool children between 60-66 months

The main aim of this research is to reveal the effect of Early Stem Educational Program (ESTEMEP) which is prepared in accordance with knowledge gathered from literature, on children's scientific process skills acquisition. The study was designed as quasi experimental design. Participants of the study were attending from Şehit Mehmet Şefik Şefkatlioğlu Kindergarden, in İstanbul, in 2017-2018 education year. There were two groups as experimental group which consists of 15 children (4 girls, 11 boys) and control group which consists of 11 children (6 girls, 5 boys). Total number of participants is 26. In this study, science process scale for 60-72 months old children developed by Özkan (2015) was used to gather data. ESTEMEP is prepared by the researcher. While preparing program it is taken into consideration that science (buoyancy of water, density, solar system etc.), mathematics (weight, numeration, ranking, grouping etc.), technology (usage of technological materials) and engineering (finding solutions to problems, product creation etc.) skills are actively used in ESTEMEP activities. Necessary permissions from school director, university and parents are taken to conduct this study. After that, pre-test is made to both control and experimental groups before implementing ESTEMEP. Then experimental group was applied STEM program for 10 weeks, two times a week. Control group proceed on usual daily routine at the same time. At the end of 10th week, post-test is made to both control and experimental groups. Because of the fact that the number of participants is smaller than 30, non-parametric statistical tests were used. Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to compare pre-test and post-test score means of both groups. Mann-Withney U test was used to find out differences between post-tests of experimental and control groups. Furthermore, Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to find out whether the skills acquired by children thanks to ESTEMEP were permanent or not. Findings of the study show that although at the beginning both groups were equal to each other, after the implementation, significant difference between groups occurred for the benefit of experimental group. According to permanency test, the significant difference is long lasting. Which means that ESTEMEP has positive and long-lasting effect on children's scientific process skills. Key Words: STEM, Early Childhood Education, Kindergarden, Preschool, Scientific Process Skills, 21st Century Skills