Investigation of secondary school students' attitude towards technology and their STEM perceptions: Turkey sample

Abstract

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education is an approach that develops 21st century skills such as career choice in science and engineering, entrepreneurship, innovation, creative and critical thinking. The acronym STEM stands for the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. When looking from the past to the present, it has been observed that there has been an increase in STEM studies. However, there was no study which was conducted on STEM education in Turkey mostly consisted of studies which aimed at determining the interests, attitudes and achievements of students and prospective teachers, and there was no study on the relationship between students' tendencies to technology in STEM education and their STEM perceptions. It is necessary for societies that can rapidly keep up with developing technology and innovations Therefore, in this study, it was aimed to examine the relationship between the perceptions of secondary school students towards STEM fields, determining their attitudes towards technology, students' attitudes towards technology and its use in lessons, and the total perception levels of STEM fields and sub-dimensions. The study was completed in the fall semester of the 2019-2020 academic year. The data of the study were analyzed by quantitative survey model. In the study, ‘Attitude towards Technology Scale’ and ‘STEM Perception Scale’ were used as data collection tools. In the tests applied, the data were analyzed using the Independent Sample t-test, ANOVA, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Regression Analysis. According to data analysis and findings, it was determined that there was a moderately significant negative relationship between the students' attitude level towards technology, and the STEM perception level. In the light of the findings, the importance of STEM education was emphasized and recommendations were made to program designers, researchers and practitioners on this subject.