STEM Education Implementation at Early Age and Stakeholders’ Opinions: The Case of Turkey

Abstract

This study aims to observe and examine the implementation of STEM education in early childhood and get opinions of teachers, parents and school administrators. The method of the study is the case study, one of the qualitative research methods. The data were collected with The Classroom Observation Protocol (COP) and Semi- Structured Interviews with parents, teachers and vice-principals. The study was conducted in Turkey in a preschool education institution at a state university in Istanbul. This study was carried out with 15 children, two teachers, two vice-principals and five parents. In the study, the data were described using the method of content analysis. During the STEM training, 39 out of 48 indicators were observed by using the Classroom Observation Protocol (COP). It was concluded that the STEM education applied contains the desired STEM education items, and STEM education might be appropriately incorporated in early childhood classrooms. As the results of the interviews, it was concluded that parents did not have information about STEM education because they were not provided with enough information about it. Besides, teachers and vice-principals were satisfied with this training and they observed positive changes in children as the result of the STEM education. Keywords: early age; engineering; mathematics; science; STEM; technology