Evaluation of STEM activities in science classes according to STEM lesson specifications

In recent years, with the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) approach, students can learn science concepts more meaningfully and with this approach, they can explain the situations or problems they may encounter in daily life with scientific concepts. For this reason, many course contents related to the STEM approach are developed and its effects are examined. And as a result, various findings may emerge about the effects of the STEM approach. Therefore, it is important to determine to what extent the STEM activities developed and used in the studies related to the STEM approach in the literature reflect the specifications of the STEM lesson. In this context, this study has two main aims. The first aim of this study is to adapt the STEM lesson specifications scale developed by Jolly (2017). In its adaptation to Turkish, support was received from an expert with a good command of English, a student of English Language and Literature, and a physics educator with a good level of English. The adapted scale was compared with the original scale. Except for a few words, it was determined that most of the adaptations were made. The second aim is to determine to what extent this scale is suitable for the purpose by applying it to the articles and thesis studies published in the field. For this reason, after the adaptation of the scale was completed, the scale was used to determine at what level the STEM activities in the master's and doctoral thesis studies and article studies published in the literature carried the STEM lesson specifications in this study. By reviewing the literature, 49 articles and 92 theses published in the literature between 2011-2021, including STEM activities made in the science course, were reached. Qualitative data from these studies were analyzed by the content analysis method. Quantitative data were analyzed using the SPSS 21 program with a reliability test and factor analysis method. As a result of the analyses, the findings obtained by the content analysis method were generally carried out in the discipline of physics, in addition, it has been concluded that studies are generally conducted on the propagation of light in articles on force and motion in theses. The Cronbach Alpha value of the reliability test of the STEM lesson specifications rating scale was found to be .802, among the findings obtained by the reliability test and factor analysis method performed in the SPSS 21 program. When these findings were examined, it was concluded that the researcher was objective and the coding was reliable. As a result of factor analysis, it was observed that the KMO value was .706 and p<.05. When these findings were examined, it was concluded that the STEM lesson specifications scale had a scale structure with four sub-factors: "defining the problem", "integration of disciplines", "engineering and design" and "material presentation and evaluation".