DEVELOPMENT OF INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL BASED ON STEAM EDUCATION TO ENHANCE PROBLEM SOLVING THINKING OF YOUNG CHILDREN

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to 1) develop an instructional model based on STEAM education to enhance problem solving thinking of young children and 2) study the results of using instructional model. The samples of this research were 54 young children of 2-5 years old from Phanakorn Rajabhat University Child Center, 8 kindergarten teachers of Phanakorn Rajabhat University Child Center and 30 student teachers. Instruments for data collection were a problem-solving thinking assessment and teacher satisfaction assessment forms. Arithmetic mean, Standard deviation, and t-test were applied to analyze the results of the study. The research findings were as follows: 1) The instructional model based on STEAM education to enhance problem solving thinking of young children consisted of 5 main elements (1) principles of the developed instructional model (2) objectives of the developed instructional model (3)contents (4) five steps of the instructional model including identify a problem, collect data, design and develop, test and evaluate, and present and share and (5) evaluation of the process. 2) The result from model testing revealed that the average scores on problem solving thinking of the young children after the experiment were higher than before with statistically significant differences at .05. The satisfaction of teachers and students who used an environmental education instructional model were found at the highest level.