Characteristics of the Relationship between Teachers, Researchers and Engineers in Web-based Elementary School STEM Class Design Meetings: Through Network Analysis Using Utterance Data

Abstract

In order to promote STEM education in elementary schools, professional development of STEM teachers is necessary. For that purpose, there are ways in which the teacher can collaborate with researchers and engineers to design the STEM classes and develop the profession. It is necessary to know when teachers receive good influences from researchers and engineers. However, we have not seen any information about those characteristics to date. Therefore, in this study, referring to Bekir et al. (2018) STEMPCK, we extracted the STEMPCK elements in the utterances of the class design process and created a network diagram of the utterances. By doing so, we attempted to understand how teachers interact with researchers and engineers, and how they are influenced by these interactions. The results showed that teachers were more likely to be influenced by researchers and engineers when pedagogical knowledge, which is one of the STEMPCK elements, was used as a shared term. In addition, the importance of acquiring knowledge of Science, Technology, Engineering and 21st Century Skills Knowledge from experts was also confirmed.