Perceptions of visual arts teachers working at science and art centers regarding STEAM education

In order to meet the increasing demands for professional groups in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, countries have applied new education policies and turned towards a new educational approach. The STEM approach was formed by the abbreviation of the English initials of the words science (science), technology (technology), engineering and mathematics (mathematics). It is expected that these fields will produce solutions to the problems of the 21st century in an integrated manner and prepare today's children for the professions of the next century. With the increase in aesthetics, imagination and design skills in every field, its new approach has been updated as STEAM with the addition of the initials of the word ART to STEM education. It is seen that the studies on STEM in Turkey have been done on teachers, students and special talents. In this study, sub-objectives to evaluate the perceptions of visual arts teachers working in science and art centers in Turkey about STEAM education according to different variables (gender, age, STEAM education status, seniority, working process in the institution, use of technology, reading science and technical journals) It has been studied in order to make sense of the relationship between the four sections on the axis. The research guiding findings were obtained by using a survey research model among 78 visual arts teachers working in Science and Art Centers (BİLSEM) in Turkey in the 2020-2021 academic year. Questionnaire applied to Visual Arts Teachers teachers; It consists of 8 demographic information questions, 60 five-point Likert-type opinions and 3 open-ended questions. The analysis of the data was provided by mean, standard deviation, t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). As a result of the findings of the study, it was determined that the perceptions of the teachers working in the BİLSEM institution about STEAM education did not differ significantly according to the variables of age, gender, seniority, year according to the institution, technology knowledge and science-technical reading, and their views on STEAM education were positive.