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Assessing changes in teachers’ attitudes toward interdisciplinary STEM teaching

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Abstract

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 12–15 week interdisciplinary teaching and design problem unit that spanned multiple STEM subjects. This quasi-experimental pilot study implemented a single group pretest–posttest 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.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Education, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Mubarak K. Al Salami, Carole J. Makela & Michael A. de Miranda

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 80523, USA

    Michael A. de Miranda

Authors
  1. Mubarak K. Al Salami
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  2. Carole J. Makela
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  3. Michael A. de Miranda
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Correspondence to Mubarak K. Al Salami.

Additional information

This program is based upon collaborative work supported by a National Science Foundation Grant No. 0841259; Colorado State University, Thomas W. Chen, Principal Investigator, Michael A. de Miranda and Stuart Tobet, Co-Principal Investigators. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Results of paired samples t tests for attitudes to interdisciplinary teaching and resistance to change

See Table 9.

Table 9 Results of paired samples t tests for attitudes to interdisciplinary teaching and resistance to change (N = 29)
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Appendix 2: Characteristics of students in participating middle schools and high schools as in school year 2013/2014

See Table 10.

Table 10 Students’ characteristics in participating middle schools and high schools in school year 2013/2014
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Appendix 3: Results of normality tests

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Table 11 Tests of normality (N = 29)
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Al Salami, M.K., Makela, C.J. & de Miranda, M.A. Assessing changes in teachers’ attitudes toward interdisciplinary STEM teaching. Int J Technol Des Educ 27, 63–88 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10798-015-9341-0

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