The effects of activities prepared with the STEM approach on the mathematical concept development of children in preschool

The purpose of this research; It is the study of the effects of the STEM-based activities on the mathematical concept development of children attending preschool education. The research was conducted with five-years-old children in a state school in Gaziantep in the 2019-2020 academic year. In the study, a pre-test, post-test and paired control group pattern was used. The study group of the research consists of 24 children, 12 girls and 12 boys. In the research, applied as a scale developed by Taştepe and Temel (2013) Early Childhood Mathematics Education Content Standards Scale. In addition, the demographic information of the child was collected with the General Information Form prepared by the researcher. The activities were applied by the researcher to the experimental group two days a week for eight weeks, and no intervention was made to the control group. The data obtained from the research were analyzed using SPSS. According to the analysis results of the research; It was found that there was a significant difference in the mathematical concept development of 5-year-old children who attended pre-school education in which activities prepared with the STEM approach were applied, but there was no gender-based difference. Keywords: STEM, Preschool Education, Mathematical Concept Development