Stem integrated social studies: An action research

Today, individuals are expected to have the knowledge, skills and competences to solve real world problems from an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspective. In today's world where technological developments are accelerating, it has become a priority to raise individuals who can think critically, question, problem-solve and equipped with engineering design skills, are innovative, self-confident and able to cooperate. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education integrates disciplines in order to respond to these expectations and enables an approach in which students combine theory and practice, experience learning from mistakes and develop solutions to daily life problems. In addition, integrating social studies with STEM (SSTEM) enables complex world problems to be addressed with more inclusive and sustainable solutions and enables individuals to develop effective skills in both social and technical fields. It also provides a context for the problems addressed in STEM. In this respect, education systems that encourage innovation and creative thinking lead individuals to produce solutions for both their own future and social benefit. In the light of these requirements, the aim of this study is to examine the effects of STEM (SSTEM) implementations integrated with the middle school social studies course on 5th grade students' attitudes towards social studies course, attitudes towards STEM, 21st century skills and research-inquiry skills and to evaluate this application process of 5th grade students based on the views of middle school students. The study may contribute to researchers and practitioners to realise more effective and efficient social studies teaching practices. It is hoped that this thesis, which is the first in the literature with the integration of social studies and STEM and its design in the form of action research, will fill the gap in the literature and contribute to both researchers and practitioners. Action research, one of the qualitative research designs, was used in the study. The participants of the study consisted of 13 students (7 boys and 6 girls) in the 5/A class of a public school affiliated to the Afyonkarahisar Central Provincial Directorate of National Education in the spring term of the 2022-2023 academic year. The data of this study were collected through 'Social Studies Attitude Scale', 'STEM Attitude Scale', 'Research-Inquiry Oriented Attitude Scale' and '21st Century Skills Scale', student diaries, (MTS) notebooks, researcher's diary, video recordings of the activities, audio recordings of the validity committee, interviews with the focus students at the end of the process and evaluation rubrics. When the quantitative findings of the study were examined, it was determined that there was no statistically significant difference between the pre-test and post-test in the attitudes of secondary school students participating in SSTEM practices towards the social studies course. While there was no statistically significant difference between the pre-test and post-test in the Attitude Towards Inquiry Scale, there was a statistically significant difference in favour of the post-test scores in the 21st Century Skills Scale. In the STEM Attitude Scale, it was determined that there was a statistically significant difference in favour of Science, Technology, Engineering, Science-Mathematics-Engineering-Technology sub-dimensions and STEM Attitude Scale post-test scores. In terms of qualitative findings, as a result of the analysis of student diaries, researcher diaries, video lesson recordings, validity committee voice recordings and face-to-face interviews with students, it was seen that 5th grade students found SSTEM implementations educational and instructive, and stated that the lesson became less boring and more fun in this process. In addition, it was determined that students stated that SSTEM implementations improved their 21st century skills such as research, problem solving, collaboration, critical and creative thinking and decision making. In addition, students stated that they learnt coding, designing products using Web 2.0 tools, learning the engineering design process and learning some English words. Among the difficulties encountered by the students in the process, there were difficulties in tasks requiring psycho-motor skills such as researching, coding, designing products, drawing in an engineering design notebook; difficulties in time management, division of labour and group work; and deficiencies in the use of e-mail addresses. In line with the findings obtained from the research, it is suggested that various studies can be designed by using the SSTEM approach at different grade levels, for different achievements and using different research methods in order to associate the social studies course with daily life and to expand interdisciplinary practices.