Science student teachers’ ability in preparing 5E inquiry-based STEM lessons

Abstract

This research aimed to develop science student teachers’ ability to prepare 5E inquiry-based STEM lessons in the science teaching methods course. This approach was proposed as 5E inquiry and STEM activities were integrated in the Elaboration stage. Research participants were 49 science student teachers (SSTs) who were third-year students in the Teacher Education program in Thailand. The research instruments included an inquiry-based STEM lesson assessment form and a semi-structured interview. The lessons were evaluated with an analytical rubric using two raters; inter-rater reliability was 0.82. The results from SSTs’ 5E inquiry-based STEM lessons analysis revealed that 77.55 and 67.35 percent of SSTs were able to identify learning indicators and learning covering STEM disciplines, respectively. More than 73.47 percent were able to design inquiry-based STEM lessons at the good level of the 5E phases. For their STEM activities, 89.80 percent related to big ideas of science content. Furthermore, 81 percent of SSTs responded that they would bring a 5E inquiry-based STEM learning approach into future classrooms. These results illustrate that this approach can be an alternative approach for teaching and learning STEM by using science as the core content for driving the integration of all STEM disciplines.