STEAM en Educación Primaria: impacto en las competencias y motivación del alumnado de Ceuta

Abstract

This thesis carried out under the format of a compendium of publications, addresses the impact of ICT and specifically STEAM (for its acronym in English from science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) in Primary Education in the Autonomous City of Ceuta. If electronic tools and devices were assuming an important role within educational methodologies, COVID-19 and confinement have accelerated this process. For this reason, the time of the pandemic and its sanitary restrictions in schools has been a factor that has been taken into account during the study. At the secondary stage, students have to choose to study science or art. However, in this study we analyse from earlier ages, specifically Primary Education, how the influence of the arts and creativity can be linked and studied transversally with STEM competence, influencing different fields and disciplines. The importance is such that even the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training has incorporated the STEM competence (includes the E for engineering) and Computational Thinking in the Primary Education curriculum established by the LOMLOE (2020). Although before these legislative updates in education, there were already educational centres that were committed to the presence of active methodologies that included ICT, creation zones and spaces with content such as robotics, block programming or Artificial Intelligence. In addition, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are linked to the STEAM disciplines and immersed in the daily lives of people from increasingly early ages. ICTs have been key for adolescents to follow distance education and have led to greater use and mastery of them. For this reason, the first study of this thesis analyses the motivation generated by ICT in adolescents in the time of the pandemic caused by COVID-19. The objective of the study is to know the use and commitment generated by ICT in these students, in relation to gender and age, after their incorporation into the classroom caused by the confinement of the first wave. The study method responds to a quasi-experimental design of descriptive and correlative type, supported by a quantitative method in data treatment. The data has been obtained through a validated questionnaire called use and commitment of ICT, in which a total of 924 students from the 6th year of primary education in the autonomous city of Ceuta (Spain) have participated, aged between 10 and 13 years The results reveal that the motivation, use and commitment of ICTs at these ages is medium-high, in addition, boys present a higher assessment in all the variables analyzed and, both in gender and age, there is a correlation , in addition, if there are predictive factors. In conclusion, the use and engagement of ICT in students in 6th grade of primary education, after the period of confinement, is medium-high. Boys present a higher assessment than girls and, both in gender and age, there is a correlation and predictive factors. The second study investigates the impact generated by the use of STEAM in education, specifically in the development of linguistic and mathematical skills. The learning results were obtained from the external evaluation tests carried out by the National Institute for Educational Evaluation (INEE), over a period of four years. 242 students from the third level of Primary Education from an educational centre in the city of Ceuta located in a disadvantaged area participated in the study. The objectives of the study were to describe the learning results obtained in both competencies according to the gender and immigration background of the students' parents, to compare the results obtained before and during the use of STEAM, and to determine if there is a correlation between the comprehension writing and problem solving. This is a descriptive quantitative study, cross-sectional and correlational. The results of the research show that the transversal and coordinated use of STEAM improves the learning outcomes of linguistic competence and mathematical competence of students in the third year of Primary Education, especially oral expression and comprehension and calculation. The results are, in general, more positive in the case of girls and students whose parents were born in Spain. The study also revealed that there is a positive correlation between reading comprehension and problem solving. The demand for professionals who access the labor market requires knowledge and disciplines towards the STEAM areas. Schools are the first link to train competent students for today's society. However, the pandemic has conditioned the teaching-learning methodologies based on promoting STEAM in educational centres, a reason that leads us to carry out the third study of the thesis, whose main objective of the research is to evaluate the STEAM dimensions in 6th grade of Primary Education in times of pandemic. The study method is based on a quasi-experimental, descriptive and correlational design with an experimental group and a control group. The data has been collected through a validated questionnaire, pre-test and post-test, which measures "Co-Measure: Development of an evaluation for the collaboration of students in STEAM activities". The sample is made up of 142 Spanish students, of which 68 belong to the control group and 74 to the experimental group. The conclusions of the study highlight that active methodologies, based on Computational Thinking and Makerspaces within a Classroom of the Future influence the STEAM dimensions of the experimental group before the pandemic. However, the pandemic and the health restrictions in face-to-face classes have led to a negative assessment of the experimental group in the STEAM dimensions.