Assessing changes in teachers' attitudes toward interdisciplinary STEM teaching Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2015, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht. Integrating engineering and technology concepts into K-12 science and math curricula through engineering design project-based learning has been found to increase students interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), however preparing teachers to shift to interdisciplinary teaching remains a significant challenge. Primarily teachers need to develop both skills and attitudes toward interdisciplinary teaching. In doing so, professional development (PD) is considered a key component in helping teachers through this transformation process. In an educational environment of accountability, measuring the effects of PD programs on teacher behaviors and capacity is essential but often elusive. The current study describes the change in attitudes to interdisciplinary teaching of 29 self-selected middle and high school teachers who participated a PD workshop and in delivering a 1215week interdisciplinary teaching and design problem unit that spanned multiple STEM subjects. This quasi-experimental pilot study implemented a single group pretestposttest design using survey methods to collect data from the participants at two intervals; at the time of the PD workshop and at the completion of the teaching unit that emphasized a long-term engineering design problem. The goals of this research are to (1) assess the changes in attitudes to interdisciplinary teaching, attitudes to teamwork, teaching satisfaction, and resistance to change, (2) explore relationships among these changes, (3) and describe the variation in these changes across teachers gender, school level, discipline taught, and education level.

published proceedings

  • INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN EDUCATION

altmetric score

  • 9.93

author list (cited authors)

  • Al Salami, M. K., Makela, C. J., & de Miranda, M. A.

citation count

  • 69

complete list of authors

  • Al Salami, Mubarak K||Makela, Carole J||de Miranda, Michael A

publication date

  • March 2017