The development of early childhood students’ creative thinking problem solving abilities through STEM Education learning activities

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to study changes in early childhood students’ creative problem solving abilities comparing between before and after the intervention of STEM education learning activities. The sample group were male and female early childhood aged between 5-6 years studying in Soonthornwattana School, Chaiyaphum Province, 2nd semester, academic year of 2017. Methodology was the quasi-experiment design. The STEM education activities provided students to organize the nine square grid movement activities. Early childhood children’s creative thinking and problem solving ability was collected by the behavior observation form of creative problem solving skills (FCPS). The FCPS items consists of 12 items that represent the 3 items of access to problems, 3 items of thinking of a solution, 3 items of selection and preparation of problem solving, and 3 items of planning for solving problems. Then, each item of the FCPS was analysed for descriptive statistics. The results showed that early childhood who have been organized activities according to STEM Education’s theoretical concepts have developed more creative problem solving skills, with an average score of 14.63 and after the event will have a score of 24.27. When considering each aspect of the experiment, it was found that early childhood have creative problem-solving skills. Which has higher scores each week Shows that early childhood who have organized activities according to STEM Education’s theoretical concepts have higher creative problem-solving skills which is in accordance with the assumptions set forth.