The development of STEM integrated scientific inquiry model for promoting grade 9 students’ creative thinking skill and scientific mind in electricity

Abstract

Although Scientific Inquiry (SI) takes a long root as a pedagogical method of teaching science, it does not explicitly emphasize engineering design process and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. This study aimed to construct a new pedagogical model called STEM Integrated with Scientific Inquiry (STEM-SI) model. This study employed a two-loop Research and Development (R&D). In R&D loop 1, the researchers employed a documentary research with the documents directly related to STEM and SI. Content analysis was used to analyze contents in such documents. The finding yielded that the STEM-SI model was developed and consisted of nine teaching steps: 1) Reviewing, 2) Engaging, 3) Exploring, 4) Designing, 5) Solving, 6) Evaluating and improving, 7) Sharing, 8) Expanding and 9) Applying. These teaching steps were utilized to develop the lesson plans in the Electricity topic for grade 9 students. In R&D loop 2, the research design was a one group pre-test post-test design. The sample was 40 grade 9 students came from Cluster Random Sampling. Two research instruments used were the Creative Thinking Skill Test and the Scientific Mind Questionnaire. The students’ creative thinking skill and the scientific mind were tested with the 70% criteria by using one sample t-test. The results expressed that the STEM-SI model could promote grade 9 students’ creative thinking skill and the scientific mind higher than the set criteria at the .05 statistical significance level. At final, the results from R2 were used to further develop the STEM-SI model and its associated lesson plans.