Developing and Validating a Scale of STEM Project-Based Learning Experience
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Developing and Validating a Scale of STEM Project-Based Learning Experience Zhi Hong Wan 1
& Wing Mui Winnie So
2
& Ying Zhan
1
Accepted: 22 September 2020/ # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract
This study developed and validated a scale of STEM project-based learning (PBL) experience, which comprises four dimensions: scientific inquiry, technological application, engineering design, and mathematical processing. The participants were 727 primary higher graders. Both within-network and between-network approaches were adopted to analyze the construct validation of the scale. The within-network analyses revealed good internal consistency reliability. The four-dimensional structure of STEM-PBL experience was supported by the confirmatory factor analysis. Multi-group confirmatory factor analyses showed that the four-dimensional structure was consistent across students of different genders and grades. The between-network analyses generated significant correlations of the four dimensions of STEM-PBL experience with students’ interest in learning STEM, utilitarian motives for learning STEM, and STEM career aspiration. This scale can be used in future research to probe how different components of STEMPBL are related to the cognitive and affective development of students, which will in turn help teachers to make evidence-based decisions when they design STEM-PBL for different objectives. Keywords STEM . Project-based learning . Attitudes toward STEM . Career aspiration
* Wing Mui Winnie So [email protected] Zhi Hong Wan [email protected] Ying Zhan [email protected]
1
Department of Curriculum & Instruction, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong, China
2
Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, Hong Kong, China
Research in Science Education
Introduction STEM is an acronym for the four discipline families of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Breiner et al. 2012). In a broad sense, STEM education includes both disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches to learning in the four disciplines. However, when the term is used in the context of education policy and curricula, STEM education usually places more emphasis on an integrated or cross-disciplinary approach to learning (Johnson 2013; Merrill and Daugherty 2009), in which “rigorous academic concepts are coupled with realworld lessons as students apply science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in contexts that make connections between school, community, work, and the global enterprise” (Tsupros et al. 2009, p. 2). Recently there has been an increasing emphasis in government policies worldwide on the promotion of integrated STEM education (Hoeg and Bencze 2017; So et al. 2018; Wan et al. 2020). A 2007 report published by the National Governors Association (NGA), entitled Innovation America: Building a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Agenda, emphasized that STEM education does not just mean to develop students’ literacy in these four strands of education. Successf
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