STEM integrated social studies (SSTEM): A mixed method research

It is important to train childrens who thinking critically, questioning, designing, solving problems, being innovative, taking risks, being self-confident and cooperating in line with the technological developments in the 21st century; They prefer to touch, live, produce, imagine, achieve by themselves, solve their daily life problems and decide for their own future. In the light of all these requirements, the aim of this research is to evaluate the effects of social studies course taught with S-STEM applications on primary school 4th grade students' attitudes towards Social Studies discipline, 21st century learning and renewal skills, as well as to evaluate the social studies lessons conducted with SSTEM based on the views of primary school students. In addition, revealing the effects of SSTEM implementations; It is hoped that it will contribute to researchers and practitioners in order to realize more effective and efficient social studies teaching practices. Embedded design, one of the mixed research methods, was used in the research. In the quantitative dimension of the study, one of the real experimental designs, pre-test post-test quasi experimental design with control group, and basic qualitative research design was used in the context of qualitative dimension of this research. The study group of the research consists of 40 primary school 4th grade students studying in Afyonkarahisar in the 2nd semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. All of the students studying in these classes participated in the quantitative part of the study. The experimental group consists of 12 girls and 8 boys, totally 20 students. The control group consists of a total of 20 students, 9 girls and 11 boys. In the qualitative aspect of the research, data were collected from the students in the experimental group, with a semi-structured interview form, from 9 students with good-medium-low academic achievement, who were selected with maximum diversity sampling, one of the purposive sampling methods. Experimental application lasted for six weeks in the second term of the 2021-2022 academic year, and lessons were carried out with SSTEM activity applications in the experimental group of the research. Quantitative data obtained from "Social Studies Attitude Scale" and "21. century of Learning and Renewal Skills Scale". In the qualitative aspect of the study, semi-structured interview form, unstructured observation, student diaries, engineering design diaries and researcher diaries were used. Mann Whitney U test in comparisons between groups in the analysis of quantitative data; Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used for intragroup comparisons. Descriptive analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data. In this study, credibility, transferability, reliability and verifiability methods were taken as basis for validity and reliability studies. According to the quantitative findings obtained from the research, it was concluded that the SSTEM education approach practices positively affected their attitudes towards the social studies course. In addition, when the pre-test and post-tests were examined in terms of 21st century learning and renewal skills, it was seen that there were significant differences in studies including SSTEM applications. In the qualitative findings of the study, it was observed that 21st century skills such as creative thinking, cooperation, communication, problem solving, and self-regulation changed positively while students were performing SSTEM practices. In addition, it was noted that students stated that SSTEM activities increased their self-confidence and courage. In addition to these, it was revealed that the students had difficulties in the engineering design process, time management skills, and lack of prior knowledge in the use of technology. It was determined that the results obtained from student diaries, researcher diaries and interviews also supported the quantitative results. In addition, since the SSTEM education approach has a wide field due to its nature that can be integrated with all disciplines in terms of practicing and gaining skills, it has been suggested that experiences that can improve their prior knowledge and cover all learning areas can be offered so that students do not have problems during the implementations. Keywords: SSTEM, STEM, social studies, 21st century skills, attitude, primary school students.