Abstract

STEM education has been implemented in the Vietnamese school system for more than ten years with different purposes: increasing students learning achievement and training the future generation who will meet the future higher requirements at national and global levels. In Viet Nam, there are several forms of STEM education in schools such as field trips, competitions, clubs, STEM lessons, STEM fairs, and so on. This paper will discuss the current situation of using the form of STEM lessons to integrate STEM education into teaching and learning Science in primary schools in Viet Nam and provide suggestions will be provided.

1. Introduction

In this process, implementing STEM education as an independent subject soon revealed several weaknesses, like a range of too complicated requirements for schools. For example, to implement STEM, schools must develop the setting of a new goal and assessment system, a separated STEM curriculum and lessons, and other necessary conditions and facilities besides the national curriculum. Then, the adaptation of integrating STEM into school subjects appears recently to be a favorable trend in many nations. STEM education integration has outstanding benefits. Firstly, it allows students to achieve both the subject and STEM education objectives at the same time. That means students can develop the knowledge and skills related to the Science subject and expand their knowledge and skills from the STEM program. Secondly, integrating STEM education into school subjects helps students absorb science concepts easily and practically, increases students' academic achievement, and promotes their interests and identities ¹, according to the Committee on Integrated STEM Education, the United States. Finally, integrating STEM education into school subjects does not require a new educational program, so it saves cost and time and maintains consistency with the current school curriculum.

In Viet Nam, following this trend, STEM education has been implemented informally in schools since around 2012. At that time, STEM education activities were organized as extracurricular activities and robot competitions by education centers or private companies, namely Robotics, S3 creative academy, Kidscode STEM, and so on. Until 2017, the Viet Nam Education and Training Ministry piloted formally STEM education in schools in some provinces, such as Lao Cai, Ha Noi, Nam Dinh, Thua Thien Hue, Dak Lak, Can Tho, and Dong Thap. In these provinces, the schools, which included primary, secondary, and high school levels located in well-developed areas, were selected. In this period, STEM education was implemented in a variety of forms like STEM lessons, STEM experience activities, and Scientific research activities ². However until now, the results of this pilot program have not been assessed and studied fully yet, but only briefly summarize the advantages and limitations of the STEM piloted program such as teachers’ awareness, benefits of STEM education ³.

In the national education curriculum (2018), the suggestions of Science education methodology are described as “to provide opportunities for students to connect and use their knowledge and skills gained from all the topics in Science and other subjects like Math, Informatics, Technology to solve real-life problems by their ability” ⁴. This suggestion well matches the features of STEM education methodology. In addition, currently, the 2018 national education curriculum has not been implemented in 4 and 5 grades. Hence, it is necessary to review carefully the implementation of STEM education in the 2006 National education program to find out the advantages and disadvantages of this methodology. If these researches are conducted, it will be a good preparation for the implementation of STEM education in Sciences in the 2018 national education curriculum in the next few years.

Because of the above reasons, our research is published in this paper to clarify the current situation of implementing STEM education in teaching and learning Science, which subject is being implemented under the 2006 national education program, in primary schools.

2. Content

This research aims to learn about 1) Teacher awareness of integrating STEM education into teaching and learning Science in some Vietnam primary schools; 2) The current situation of integrating STEM education into teaching and learning Science in some Vietnam primary schools.

In our research, we use several quantitive and qualitative research methods, including 1) Quantitive research method group: Survey and a statistical program; 2) Qualitative research method group: Observation and interview.

Regarding the survey, the questionnaire, in terms of content, is designed to collect information about teachers' perceptions of two main areas of STEM education. One is the nature of STEM education, and the other is the way that teachers usually use to integrate STEM education into teaching and learning Science at primary school. In terms of format, all of the questions are designed as closed-ended questions with multiple answer options. While each question belonging to the former area has 3 options corresponding to 3 levels of agreement: Disagree, Neutral, and Agree, the questions related to the latter one have 5 options corresponding to 5 levels of frequency: Never; Seldom; Sometimes; Frequently; Always.

The data collected from this survey is processed by the SPSS20 program to find out the average and standard deviation. The total of teachers’ answers is divided into different groups based on the average of the options. Below is the way to determine:

For the scale of 3 levels: The distance value = (Maximum – Minimum) / 3 = (3-1)/3 = 0.66. We will have the value snippets: 1.00 – 1.66: Disagree; 1.67 – 2.33: Neutral; 2.34 – 3.00: Agree

For the scale of 5 levels: The distance value = (Maximum – Minimum) / 5 = (5-1)/5 = 0.80.

We will have the value snippets: 1.00 – 1.80: Never; 1.81 – 2.60: Seldom 2.61 – 3.40: Sometimes; 3.41 – 4.20: Frequently; 4.21 – 5.00: Always.

Regarding the group of qualitative research methods, observation is used to observe STEM activities in Science classes in primary schools. After that, the interview is carried out with primary teachers. Interview questions focus on the teachers’ basis of choosing each STEM topic, and their ways to integrate STEM education in teaching and learning science in primary schools.

For the survey, the total number of respondents in this study is 164 teachers who are teaching Science at 26 different primary schools in five provinces namely Hanoi, Bac Giang, Vinh Phuc, Lao Cai, and Hoa Binh. There are 50 teachers from Ha Noi, 24 teachers from Bac Giang, 29 teachers from Vinh Phuc, 34 teachers from Lao Cai, and 27 teachers from Hoa Binh). The teacher’s range of teaching experience is from 1 year to 33 years, so the average is 12.78 years. Most of the teachers meet qualified professional qualifications by Education Law, 2019. Most also teach at primary schools with well-equipped facilities and advantages of socioeconomic factors. The detailed teachers’ information is in Table 1.

Besides, the observation of six STEM education activities in six Science classes. They were conducted by six teachers at three primary schools, namely Nguyen Du primary school (Lao Cai), Nguyen Tuan primary school (Ha Noi), and Dong Coc primary school (Bac Giang). The first two schools have well-equipped facilities and advantages of socioeconomic factors while the latter has unwell-equipped facilities and disadvantages of socioeconomic factors.

Finally, there are 20 teachers participated in the interview. They come from six primary schools that participating in the program of pilot STEM education at the primary level in the school year 2022-2023 ².

There are a lot of different research on integrating STEM into education, two of which are Dugger’s (2010) and Vasquez’s (2013). In Dugger’s research, there are four ways to integrate STEM into the education system are shown ⁵. These are 1) four separate disciplines. 2) Two of the four disciplines emphasized (e.g., SteM, which means Science and Math are focused while Technology and Engineering are not.). 3) merely one discipline is integrated into the other three (e.g., E; STM, which means Engineering is a discipline while others are integrated into Engineering). 4) All four disciplines have equal emphasis and are approached in an interdisciplinary way. In Vasquez's research ⁶, he distinguishes three approaches to integrating STEM into the education system. These are: 1) multidisciplinary; 2) interdisciplinary; 3) transdisciplinary. Both these approaches have strengths and weaknesses for Vietnam's educational current situation, we follow Dugger’s approach to discover and assess teachers’ awareness of STEM integration.

In terms of teachers’ awareness of areas of STEM education, the question provides 10 options corresponding to 10 areas, including math, language, science, technology, engineering, art, music, ethics, history, and geography. These 10 areas are called the same as the 10 areas name in the National Education Curriculum to ensure that respondents understand precisely. All participants read and select options as the STEM components if they believe. Overall, the result shows that the teachers have a lot of different opinions of what components of STEM are. The percentage of teachers who select exactly from 2 to 3 areas belonging to STEM is highest at 39.02% while the figure for teachers who select correctly all 4 areas of STEM is lower, at 28.66%. By contrast, the is only 6.71% of participants answered correctly one or none of the four areas of STEM. In addition, 25.65% of respondents said that all of the areas in the National Education Curriculum are also STEM areas. The differences in understanding STEM areas indeed make an effect on how teachers integrate STEM into their teaching process. As a result, there is an inconsistency in choosing topics, making lesson plans, and implementing STEM activities in Science classes at primary schools.

Next is the teachers’ perspective on the features of STEM education at the primary education level. For this question, there are six options, teachers select all options described correctly in STEM education features from his/her point of view. The detail is shown in Table 2.

Overall, the average score of the teachers’choice’s from about 2.18-2.31, which means that most teachers have a neutral opinion of the six characteristics of STEM education. This result illustrates that many teachers do not have a clear understanding of the characteristics of STEM education. The percentage of agreeing with two characteristics: “Being hands-on activities and promoting applying knowledge flexibly and creatively to create products or solve real-life problems” and “Using modern tools and locally available materials” is the highest, with 31.7% and 32.9%, respectively. This result shows that teachers understand these two characteristics/opinions of STEM education than other characteristics. While the percentage of disagreeing with two characteristics: “Connecting two or more subjects that belong to STEM areas. These subjects are supportive of each other” and “Learning tasks associated with solving local problems” are highest with 5.5% and 4.3%, respectively. This result shows that teachers do not really understand these two characteristics of STEM education.

The next question asked teachers about the advantages of each topic in Science when integrating STEM education. Overall, the result illustrates that the majority agreed that all of the science subject topics in the National Education curriculum have advantages for STEM integration. There are six topics, which are Substance, Energy, Plants and animals, Fungi and bacteria, Humans and health, Organisms and the Environment, in this subject’s curriculum. The three topics considered to have the most advantages in integrating STEM education are Organisms and the Environment, Plants and animals, and Humans and health with the numbers M=3.74, SD =0.796, M=3.72, SD =0.788, M=3.71, SD =0.774, respectively. By contrast, Fungi and bacteria, with M=3.40, SD=0.826, is the topic that has the least advantages. With the data, it can be seen that the Science subject’s curriculum is highly advantageous for integrating STEM education.

This study delves into the current situation of teaching and learning Science, which is being implemented under the 2006 National education curriculum.

Firstly, in order to clarify which STEM components are usually integrated into teaching and learning Science, there is a list of subjects that are provided. This provision ensures teachers understand all of the list and aims to help teachers easier to review their integration if they did. In each option, there are five frequency levels of each subject integration in teaching and learning namely Always, Frequently, Sometimes, Seldoms, and Never, corresponding to integration frequency is more than 75%, from 50% to 75%, from 25% to less than 50%, below 25%, 0% respectively. Details are shown in Table 3.

The survey results in Table 3 show that Math and Technology have the highest average score in all of the teachers' choices, with M=3.65, and standard deviations are 0.765 and 0.827, respectively. By contrast, the subjects that have the lowest average score are Music (M=3.10, SD=0.804), Physical Education (M=3.14, SD=0.843), and History and Geography (M=3.29), SD=0,856). The results show that teachers regularly integrate the objectives and content of Math and Technology in teaching Science while fewer do that with Music, Physical Education, History, and Geography.

Combining with teachers’ interviews, we found that most of teachers believe that Math and Technology outperform Physical education, Music, History and Geography in integrating into teaching and learning Science. The keyword is the connection. While the curriculum of Math and Technology has a range of topics that are convenient to connect to each Science lesson, it is more difficult for teachers can do so with Music, History or Geography curriculum.

Observing Science classes shows the same results. It is obvious that teachers integrated not only objectives but also content and learning activities of Math and Technology, which are STEM components when conducting Science lessons.

The next point is the teachers’ bases for designing STEM lessons. The question is “What basis do you usually rely on to choose STEM topics and design STEM lessons?” There are two bases that the most significant numbers of teachers provided. One is “Teachers’ interest and ability” with M=3.62; SD= 0.745, and the other is “The framework of STEM education established by the school, M= 3.61, SD=0.795. By contrast, the figure for the basis of “Students’ interest and needs” and “Real-life problems” is the least impressive with M=3.44; SD= 0.881, M=3.43; SD= 0.837 respectively. Moreover, when interviewing teachers, they shared that they usually used the available STEM lesson plans from training materials or manual books and slightly adjusted them. In the interview, GV N.T.H (Doi Ngo 1, Bac Giang) said “These STEM lessons have objectives, content and activities clearly and consistently”. In conclusion, although relying on available resources when choosing a STEM topic or designing a STEM lesson plan helps teachers save time, it makes the lessons is less practical and more difficult to engage students. Hence, it is expected that teachers base on real-life problems and students’ needs and interests when they make STEM lesson plans beside other bases.

Zendler and his/her fellow- workers shows 20 methods to appy STEM education ^{4 7 8}, which are modified in our research. The result of our research illustrated that some of them were used quite frequently by teachers, like problem-based learning, project work, learning at stations, discovery learning, learning tasks, experiment, presentation. The report of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) on STEM Education and the Primary School curriculum) emphasizes the methods to integrate STEM education, like cooperative learning, teamwork, project-based learning, experiments, outdoor learning, and field trips ⁹. Research by Larkin & Lowrie (2022) ¹⁰ and Lowrie et al. (2017) ¹¹ shows three commonly used and effective methods of integrating STEM education: question-based learning), project-based learning (project-based learning), problem-based learning (Problem-Based Learning), and some other methods also used by many teachers: games. To learn about the teaching method used to integrate STEM education in schools in Vietnam, we conducted a survey.

Next, regarding teaching methods, there is a list of teaching methods, which are recommended by Vietnamese educators are provided. Similar to other questions related to frequency, there are five options which are Never; Seldom; Sometimes; Frequently; Always corresponding to integration frequency is more than 75%, from 50% to 75%, from 25% to less than 50%, below 25%, 0% respectively. Details are shown in Table 5.

Table 5 shows that several teaching methods usually used are Observation, Discussion and Practical methods. These are common teaching methods that teachers often use in Science lessons. Other teaching methods that are used less frequently are Storytelling; the Project-based learning approach; learning by participating in field trips; Competitions or fairs, and Clubs.

In the conceptual framework for STEM education integration, Kelley and Geoff Knowles have proposed an integrated model of STEM fields ¹², which includes the following contents: engineering design; scientific inquiry; technological literacy; and mathematical thinking. This study provides a suggestion for teachers to integrate STEM education into teaching. We also study the research done by Clark, A. C., & Ernst, J. V. (2007) ¹³, Sanders (2009) ¹⁴, Jay B. Labov et al. (2010) ¹⁵, and Moore et al. (2013) ¹⁶. All these researches mentioned the integration of STEM into various subjects. In Vietnam, integrating STEM education is mainly carried out in two directions: technical design and scientific research ¹⁷. The integrated content has been implemented by students in teaching Science in some primary schools.

We also observed six Science classes that integrate STEM education in three primary schools. The six Science classes’ names are: Little Friend (Người bạn bé nhỏ; Colourful rain (Mưa sắc màu); Wind power plant model (Mô hình máy phát điện gió); Mini flashlight (Đèn pin bỏ túi); Make an Electrical Simple Circuit (Lắp mạch điện đơn giản); Start seeds in egg shells (Trồng cây trong vỏ trứng). All six lessons belong to grade 5 in the national education curriculum. By observing, there is a common structure of these five classes. Learning activities are divided into 3 main parts and are conducted sequentially as follows: Starting from the first activity 1: Define the problem; then the second is: Explore foundation knowledge; and final activity 3: Find a solution, manufacture and share. Ms. T.T.P (Nguyen Tuan Primary School, Hanoi) said: "We implement the integration under the guidance of the Ministry of Education and Training".

The first activity named “Define the problem” aims to encourage students to find out the problem and solution, so teachers usually organize a play or a discussion. There are two out of six activities in which students identified the problem from a real-life situation. The first one appeared when students prepared for the camping trip then they quickly realized they needed a mini flashlight. The other arose from the disadvantage of students’ hometowns. They live in a mountainous area where there is no electricity, so they want to make a wind power plant. In the remaining four Science lessons, teachers engage students by providing several pictures or asking them to sing a song and then asking them some questions. Although students seemed to concentrate, they did not excited.

In the next stage, "Explore foundation knowledge, " students are provided opportunities to observe, discuss in groups, and experiment to explore and learn new knowledge to make products. For example, in the Mini flashlight lesson, students gain knowledge of the structure of electrical circuits and how they work by following exactly teacher’s guide in installation. Then, they continue to spend time observing an electrical circuit and discuss answering questions in small groups. In the Wind power plant, students observed a simulation model of a wind power plant to learn about the structure and all parts of a wind power plant. Then, students watched a video on how to generate electricity from the wind power plant to understand the principles of wind turbines. Finally, they conducted experiments to find out the influence of wind speed and propeller characteristics on the brightness of the lamp. Thus, in this activity, students are not allowed to implement solutions that they raised in the previous activity. Instead, they implement the solution that the teacher provided. It leads to students only learning scientific knowledge that is relevant to STEM and conducting experiments.

In the final activity named “Find a solution,” teachers usually conducted in the form of a group discussion, a practice activity, and an applying activity. By observing learning activities, we found that students faced many difficulties if they had been asked to choose the best solution to make a product. They are unable to raise their questions or propose a reasonable solution. In this activity, teachers often try to suggest a solution or provide a sample pattern for students to follow. While students are working, teachers usually remind students to recall and mobilize their knowledge and skills. It is clear that students became more passive in this activity partly because of teachers’ much more guidance and intervention. As a result, the students’ products are similar to the sample model.

In conclusion, the integration of STEM education was implemented based on the guidance on implementing STEM education of the Ministry of Education and Training. The teaching methods used are traditional. Several teaching methods like project-based learning, hands-on approach, and competitions are seldom used. Moreover, the products of STEM activities usually show the ways that students use their knowledge and skills. In addition, the applicability of products in solving local or regional problems has not yet been clearly shown.

Firstly, while teachers’ awareness of STEM education is well, there is a little confusion when integrating STEM into teaching and learning Sciences. Hence, it will be helpful if Vietnamese educational administrators and experts provide more specific guides for teachers instead of focusing on fostering and raising teachers’ awareness about STEM education. As a result, the implementation of STEM integration will be more efficient. Secondly, it is clear that STEM education topics are built mainly using available topics in the guidelines and manual, so it is not completely practical and meets the students' needs and interests. To improve that, it is logical and systematic that teachers could develop a STEM integration program into Science in which there is a tight connection between topics. Not only should topics selected be real-life problems, but also meet the students' needs. Topics also need to ensure their educational goals, contents, and methods demonstrating the integration of remaining STEM components: Math, Engineering, and Technology.

STEM education activities are conducted following the technical process, in which students encourage to practice, cooperate more, and mobilize their knowledge and skills from various areas like Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology to create products. Students, however, have little chance to choose, propose and follow their ideas. By contrast, they often have to follow teachers to guide them step by step, which deprives them of opportunities to develop and sharpen their creative thinking and problem-solving abilities, incidentally. If project-based teaching and problem-based teaching methods are used more, it will create a closer connection between Science, Math, Engineering, and Technology. Through projects and solving practical problems, students can mobilize their knowledge and skills to find and solve problems and create products. As a result, their knowledge and skills will develop.

3. Conclusion

Firstly, the results of this research show that primary school teachers have a limited understanding of STEM education, they started to integrate STEM into teaching and learning Science though. These types of learning activities provide a better environment and conditions for students to build and develop their science competencies.

Secondly, the research shows that integrating STEM education has not brought learning activities close to real contexts and real problems at the local, regional and national levels.

Finally, the research also recommends that to integrate STEM in teaching and learning Science efficiently, teachers should choose STEM topics based on real-life problems at local, regional, or national levels. The learning activities should be organized flexibly, using various teaching methods to foster and promote students’ initiative and creativity.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research is funded by Hanoi Pedagogical University 2 under grant number HPU2.UT-2021.13.

References