Primary school teachers opinions towards to the STEM practices: A case study

The aim of this study is to determine the orientation of primary school teachers towards STEM teaching and to examine their views on STEM practices. STEM education; It is an educational approach that aims to integrate information and knowledge related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics to gain students. Case study pattern was used in the research. Since the quantitative and qualitative data sources can be used together in the case study, sequential explanatory pattern, one of the mixed method patterns, was used in this research. "Integrated STEM Teaching Orientation Scale" was used as a quantitative data collection tool. The scale consists of 7 Likert type, 31 items and 5 sub-dimensions. As the qualitative data collection tool, "Semi-Structured Interview Form for STEM Practices of Primary School Teachers" consisting of 15 questions developed by the researcher was used. The study group consists of 344 primary school teacher working in Bornova district of İzmir province in 2019-2020 academic year. In addition, interviews were held with 24 primary school teachers. SPSS 25.0 package program was used in the analysis of quantitative data. In the analysis of qualitative data, content analysis and descriptive analysis were used. According to the quantitative findings obtained from the research, it was determined that the orientation of primary school teachers towards integrated STEM teaching was positive in the sub-dimensions of knowledge, value, attitude, subjective criteria, and perceived behavior control and behavior orientation. It was determined that STEM orientations there was no statistically difference according to gender and graduated department variable. In addition, it was observed that there was a statistically significant difference in the sub-dimension of subjective criteria according to the seniority variable. According to qualitative findings, primary school teachers heard about STEM, they could define STEM, they had not been trained about STEM, they had some professional competencies in STEM, they had difficulties while practicing in their lessons, and that they had cost, material/material, classroom environment/group work in STEM education practices. It was determined that the time was insufficient, but students could improve their hand skills. However, they have many advantages/disadvantages in terms of teachers and students, they consider STEM as suitable for all science subjects, some of them do not use STEM applications that they recommend teachers to apply STEM disciplines, and that they do not know most of the book published by EBA (Education İnformation Network), while doing so, it was concluded that they had difficulty in all areas.