Primary School Teacher Candidates' Experiences Regarding Problem-Based Stem Applications

Abstract

In this study, it was aimed to reveal how primary school teacher candidates who were educated in the primary
school teaching program experienced the problem-based STEM application performed in Science and
Technology Teaching (STT) I and which skills they employed in the process. The research was carried out
with a case study, one of the qualitative research approaches. Easily accessible sampling metho was used to
identify participants. In this context, 41 primary school teacher candidates who were studying in their third
year in the classroom teaching program at the education faculty of a university and taking the STT I course
participated. The research data were collected through semi-structured interviews and observations.
Descriptive analysis technique was used to analyze the data in the study. The interviews and the data obtained
from the recorded videos about the STEM activity that the primary school teacher candidates conducted
within the scope of the STT I course, "The Studies of Primary School Teacher Candidates in the STEM
Implementation Process", "The Skills and Affective Characteristics of Primary School Candidates Employed
in the STEM Implementation Process", "Primary School Candidates' Opinions on the STEM Implementation
Process ”under the themes in the form of findings. As a result of the research, it was seen that the teacher
candidates both followed the engineering design steps and used interdisciplinary skills within the scope of
an engineering design task presented in a real life context.