Abstract
This paper describes a quantitative study that explores teaching practices in primary education to sustain the hypothesis that students’ critical thinking may be activated through individual and group reflection. The study examines the quality of the reflections from primary school students during group processing when participating in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) instructional approaches. The project’s core methodology lies in scientific (physics) and artistic (dance) instructional activities which were executed in a continuous reflective and cooperative learning environment. The educational approach was refined by analyzing the reflective discussions from focus groups where descriptive, argumentative, reflective and critical reflective knowledge about acquired knowledge, competences, beliefs, attitudes and emotions were considered. While the educational intervention proved that 1st-year (K-7) students essentially reflected at the level of description, 3rd-year (K-9) and 5th-year (K-11) students, however, attained higher levels of individual critical reflection development than initially anticipated. The STEAM approaches were found to produce significant use and understanding of both science and artistic concepts and to increase a sense of competence readiness and a perception of modes of cooperation such as individual responsibility and promotive interaction.
Highlights
Reflection is one of the most exciting competences in primary, secondary and tertiary education systems because it empowers students in their personal learning [1]
For the analysis of the degree of reflection, no significant differences were found between the courses (K-7, -9 and -11) for the dimensions of analysis corresponding to description, argumentation or critical reflection (Table 4)
The question of whether STEAM education can encourage primary school students to reflect on scientific reasoning and critical thinking has provided some results in which cross-disciplinary instructional interventions, that include the arts, can be fully developed through interdisciplinary approaches across domains [47,48,49]
Summary
Reflection is one of the most exciting competences in primary, secondary and tertiary education systems because it empowers students in their personal learning [1]. Knowledge acquisition demands inter- and cross-disciplinary approaches and competences [4,5,6,7], and entails transformative instructional approaches [1]. Reflection connects previous and new experiences with existing knowledge and skills; all of which are essential in defining students’ specific learning outcomes [8,9]. Reflection can offer a way of identifying, in terms of acquisition of systems thinking, transversal and specific competences, attitudes and emotions as explicit outcomes, the unique.
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