Exploration of Preservice Teachers’ STEM Teaching Intentions with respect to the Department and Grade

STEM education included in undergraduate science and mathematics education program in 2017. Inclusion of STEM education in teacher education programs higlights the importance of the investigating the preservice teachers STEM teaching intentions. In this scope, it is important to determine STEM teaching intentions of preservice primary, science and mathematics teachers. This research aims to identify the preservice primary school, mathematics, elementary science teachers’ STEM teaching intentions. In this study, relational screening model was used. The study was conducted in fall semester of 2017-2018 academic year. A total of 521 (354 woman, 167 man) preservice teachers from three different departments enrolled in the study. The questionnaire, developed by Lin and William (2015) and adapted to Turkish by Hac？mero？lu and Bulut (2016) was used to assess preservice teachers’ STEM teaching intentions. Data was analyzed by using PASW Statistics 18 and LISREL 8.80 statistical packages for windows. It was found that preservice teachers’ STEM teaching intentions vary according to their field of education. This significant difference is in favour of preservice science teacher. Findings reveal that preservice science and primary school teachers STEM teaching intentions are better than preservice mathematics teachers. It is suggested that more studies are needed to determine inservice and preservice teachers’ STEM teaching intentions to identify what can be done to increase their teaching intentions