The impact of STEM education on the academic success of 8th grade students about subject of slope

The aim of this research is to reveal the effect of STEM education approach on middle school 8th grade students' academic success in subject of slope in the field of algebra. The research was designed according to the single group pretest-posttest design, which is one of the weak experimental research designs. The study group of the research consists of 23 students at the 8th grade of a secondary school in Gerze,the district of Sinop province in the 2022-2023 academic year. Purposive sampling method was used when selecting the study group. Three lesson plans, which were prepared considering the integration stages of the 5E learning model into STEM, were applied in the Information Technologies class of the school for 3 weeks. During the implementation of the lesson plans, games and worksheets designed by the researcher with the help of the Scratch program, in line with expert opinions, were used. In order to measure the academic achievements of the students, the "Achievement Test for the Subject of Slope" (ATSS) developed by the researcher was used. After the ATSS post-test application, the opinions of 4 students selected from the study group using maximum diversity sampling, one of the purposeful sampling methods, were consulted. In the analysis of quantitative data, dependent groups t-test was used to test whether there was a significant difference between the pretest-posttest mean scores of ATSS. As a result of the analysis of the data obtained, it was seen that STEM education activities had a positive and significant effect on students' academic success in subject of slope. Student opinions about the education provided were collected with the Semi-structured Interview Form for Evaluation of STEM Education. Content analysis technique was used to analyze the data obtained from the interview questions. The codes obtained as a result of the analysis were classified under two categories. As a result of the interviews, the students stated that the lessons taught with STEM education activities were more enjoyable and the activities made it easier to understand the subject of slope, and they realized that STEM fields are intertwined with each other. Additionally, it was observed that students developed positive thoughts about STEM fields. Keywords: STEM education, slope, academic success, middle school students