Abstract
In this study, the effects of the STEM activities integrated with socio-scientific issues on students' 21st century skills were investigated. In this research, nested mixed design was used. The study group of this research consisted of 16 middle school students who studied in the seventh grade of a public school in an eastern province of Turkey. Socio-scientific STEM activities were applied to the study group for 24 weeks in the first and second semesters. Students followed the engineering design stages for STEM activities. In the research, 21st Century Skills Scale, Interview Form, Perception of 21st Century Skills Form, Field Notes, and Informal Interview Notes were used as data collection tools. SPSS was used to analyze the quantitative data of the research, and content and descriptive analysis methods were used to analyze the qualitative data. The study results showed that STEM activities integrated with socio-scientific issues had a positive effect on students' 21st century skills. Also, as a result of the examination of the opinions of the students, it was determined that the application developed the “creativity and innovation” skills of the students the most. Furthermore, students’ social and intercultural entrepreneurship, self-management, leadership and responsibility, critical thinking, problem solving, communication and cooperation, creativity and innovation skills were enhanced/developed at the end of the study.
Highlights
Individuals who have innovation, entrepreneurship, and production skills should be trained to provide qualified workforce to the industry
It was concluded that socio-scientific STEM practice permanently improved the students' skills that are within the scope of Cognitive, Affective and Sociocultural sub-dimensions of the 21st century skills scale
In this study, it was attempted to show that the STEM education integrated to scientific issues that we believe to have social effects such as recycling/domestic wastes, wind energy/motion energy, solar energy, the benefits/harms of technology and its use in daily life, global warming, space studies/life in space/space pollution effectively helped to gain the 21st century skills that the people of our era should have and permanently improved these skills that people have
Summary
Individuals who have innovation, entrepreneurship, and production skills should be trained to provide qualified workforce to the industry. The USA needed a comprehensive and coordinated education approach and developed STEM education to raise STEM-literate individuals who have technical knowledge and skills (Bybee, 2010). To this end, STEM schools were opened in many states (Akgunduz et al, 2015). In the first week of the study, the students in the study group were informed about the study to be carried out for two class periods The 21st Century Skills Scale was applied to students as a pretest for two class periods.
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