The effect of STEM education on fourth grade students' understanding of science concepts and scientific process skills

The aim of this research was to examine the effects of STEM approach on students' conceptual understanding and scientific process skills in primary school science course and to determine the opinions of the students in the experimental group about the STEM approach. The research was carried out with 49 fourth grade students in a public primary school in Ankara. The research was designed as an embedded design, which is one of the mixed research methods. STEM approach was used in the teaching of the "Lighting and Sound Technologies" and "Simple Electrical Circuits" units in the experimental group, while the teacher taught the same subjects with the already used methods and strategies in the comparison group. Concept Understanding Test, Inquiry Skills Test, Investigation Report and Semi-Structured Interview Form were used as data collection tools in the research. At the end of the 11-week implementation period, dependent and independent samples t-tests were used to assess students' conceptual understanding and scientific process skills. Investigation Report Assessment Rubric was used to evaluate the students' writing skills in investigation report. Content analysis was conducted to analyze the qualitative data collected from the students. As a result of the research, it was concluded that the STEM approach improved students' conceptual understanding and scientific process skills compared to the teacher's existing teaching method. At the same time, it was determined that there was an increase in the writing skills in investigation report of the experimental group students throughout the implementation process. It has been determined that the students held positive views on the implementation process and approach.