Design and evaluation of web portal development of STEM projects for secondary school students

The aim of this study is to develop a web portal design that will solve the problems involving the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and to evaluate the students' opinions about this application. The study group consisted of 16 students in 6th grade in a secondary school in the 2017-2018 academic year in Afşin district of Kahramanmaraş province. The study was conducted with a case study design, one of the qualitative research methods. The working group developed a project by solving a problem involving the disciplines of science, technology, engineering and mathematics within five weeks via the prepared web portal. The qualitative data of the study were obtained through a semi-structured interview form with the study group students. The qualitative data collected from the study were coded and evaluated with descriptive analysis method. As a result, when the qualitative data obtained from the interviews conducted with the working group on which STEM projects development web portal is applied for middle school students were evaluated, the students stated that the preparation of the project made positive contributions to them such as increasing sense of research and responsibility, solving problems and understanding, planned work, project designing and writing. About STEM projects web portal for middle school students used in the study, students were informed that they were effective in producing planned, logical, detailed solutions and facilitating project writing; the desired time to enter, to provide cooperation, appropriate to the purpose and the information is very good strengths as expressed.