ABSTRACT

The Effect of the STEAM Strategies on the Science Process Skills and Attitude in Elementary Fifth Grade Science Lessons

Oh Myeong Seok

Major in Educational Technology Graduate School of Educational Information, Kong Ju National Universersity

Supervised by Professor Han Seung Lock. Ph. D.


The purpose of this study was to find out if the use of STEAM strategies would impact students process skills and attitudes towards science concepts. The study was conducted during a three week period and consisted of forty fifth grade elementary school students. The students were pre-assessed to see where they stood when it came to science process skills and their attitude towards science. The forty students were split in to two groups. One was a general science class and the other was conducted using units and strategies with the STEAM science lessons. Through the course of this three week study, data was collected and compared between the two study groups. With the collected data, a comparison was made to see if there would be a difference when it came to science process skills and science related attitudes. At the end of the study, a post-assessment was given and the scores of those tests helped find the outcome of the study.
The overall results of the study show that the STEAM fifth grade study group had some effect on helping students improve on science inquiry skills and basic processing skills. There was a slight improvement in high level integration process skills based on using their basic process skills while observing and taking part in actual experiments. Although using the STEAM strategies over a three week period showed a minimal increase on science process skills, it was found that the outcome of the students who were taught using STEAM was above average compared to the other study group. The effects of this method have shown that continuing to use the STEAM science lessons may in fact impact the science related attitudes of students, and increase their science process skills. With a longer time period to apply these lessons, this study shows that progress is possible and this method will have a positive effect on the students and the study of science.