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