HOW HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ASSESS THE IMPORTANCE OF STEM WORKSHOPS FOR ACQUIRING NEW KNOWLEDGE

Abstract

Striving to support students in choosing to study STEM subjects more intensively, one of the challenges for a teacher is to create an educational environment in which students can acquire new theoretical and practical knowledge and improve and enrich their competencies. Within the implementation of the STEM workshop Mission (Im)possible, first and second grade high school students, aged 15 and 16 (N = 108), were introduced to the basic cryptography concepts, lasers, sensors, various electronic components, their connections, and programming. Through group work, within a supportive environment and competitive atmosphere, students created an alarm system to protect a document with a previously encrypted message. After the workshop, participants took part in a survey, through which they expressed their agreement using a five-point Likert scale regarding statements related to the educational nature of the implemented workshops. The focus of the research is to determine to what extent students agree with the three statements: 1) I acquired new knowledge in mathematics, physics, and computer science during the workshop; 2) I believe that this way, I can learn more compared to traditional teaching methods; and 3) I believe that the activities during the workshop are significant for my education. Since the mean scores for all three statements were higher than 4.2, it can be concluded that students completely agree with all three statements on average. The results support the idea that STEM workshops can be designed and implemented to be accessible to students and that they can recognize their educational character.