Abstract
A growing interest has been observed among K-12 school educators to incorporate maker pedagogy into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education to engage students in the design and making process. Both cognitive engagement and emotional engagement of students can be promoted through satisfying the psychological need of relatedness that concerns a sense of connection and belonging. How to support relatedness would influence the effective development of students’ cognitive competencies, namely creativity and critical thinking, and non-cognitive characteristics, namely interest and identity. Therefore, the present study investigated how two relatedness support strategies—real-world problems (RWP) and mentoring influence the development of student’s STEM-related cognitive competencies and non-cognitive characteristics in STEM marker activities. We implemented a 7-week intervention study with three classes of Grade 9 students (aged 13–15 years) in Hong Kong (n = 95). Three intervention conditions were designed in the experiment, comprising textbook problem (TBP), RWP, and RWP with mentoring (RWPM). Our analysis showed that (i) the differences in creativity among the three groups were non-significant, (ii) the RWP and RWPM groups showed stronger critical thinking than the TBP group, and (iii) the RWPM group exhibited stronger STEM interest and identity than the other two groups. This study revealed the effectiveness of adopting RWP strategy in developing secondary students’ perceived cognitive competencies (e.g., creativity and critical thinking) and the feasibility of employing a mentoring mechanism for cultivating learners’ perceived non-cognitive characteristics (e.g., STEM identity and interest). Hence, we also offered practical suggestions for teachers.
Highlights
After the release of the Make magazine in 2005 and the hosting of the first Maker Faire in 2006, the maker movement started to gain momentum into becoming a worldwide phenomenon (Sang and Simpson, 2019)
The incorporation of maker education in STEM learning and teaching is considered as contemporary pedagogy that embraces collaboration, experimentation, and open-endedness (Nemorin and Selwyn, 2017; Godhe et al, 2019); this pedagogy is less established in classrooms and relatively new to most schools and teachers (Honey et al, 2014)
Our analyses revealed there was no significant difference among the pre-questionnaire scores of creativity, F (2, 94) = 0.10, p = 0.91; critical thinking, F (2, 94) = 0.57, p = 0.57; STEM interest, F (2, 94) = 0.38, p = 0.69; and STEM identity, F (2, 94) = 1.81, p = 0.17
Summary
After the release of the Make magazine in 2005 and the hosting of the first Maker Faire in 2006, the maker movement started to gain momentum into becoming a worldwide phenomenon (Sang and Simpson, 2019) This movement is a cultural trend focused on creating makers rather than consumers of products in the 21st century (Marshall and Harron, 2018) and advocates for creativity, excitement, and innovation (Bevan et al, 2015; Papadakis, 2021). Relatedness for STEM Maker Activities such as prototypes and artifacts that they feel are relevant and interesting This maker-centered approach has been applied in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) learning and teaching (Honey et al, 2014; Godhe et al, 2019) primarily by means of after-school or extracurricular activities, and in libraries, museums, or playgrounds. Real-world problems (RWPs) and mentoring would better motivate student engagement than textbook problem (TBP) in STEM maker activities
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