# STEM Programs at Primary School: Teachers Views and Concerns About Teaching “Digital Technologies”

Tanya Linden, Therese Keane, Anie Sharma, Andreea Molnar

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Tanya Linden, Therese Keane, Anie Sharma, Andreea Molnar. STEM Programs at Primary School: Teachers Views and Concerns About Teaching “Digital Technologies”. IFIP World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE), Aug 2022, Hiroshima, Japan. pp.27-38, 10.1007/978-3-031-43393-1_4. hal-05533329

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# STEM Programs at Primary School: Teachers Views and Concerns About Teaching “Digital Technologies”

Tanya Linden<fnref n="1" />(✉), Therese Keane<fnref n="2" /> ID, Anie Sharma<fnref n="3" /> ID, and Andreea Molnar<fnref n="3" /> ID

**Abstract.** Modern technology is ubiquitous across all facets of life. The continuously evolving STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education landscape has provided an excellent opportunity to integrate the knowledge of digital technology to solve STEM-based project problems. However, there is no consistency in how STEM programs are taught across Australian primary schools. Whilst primary school teachers have integrated technology into their classroom, the teaching of the Technology discipline has been very patchy. Moreover, using technology such as computers is not the same as learning about computer hardware or about writing software to make it function. To achieve effective integration of technology in teaching and learning, we need to educate and encourage students to become creators of digital solutions rather than consumers, which in turn requires primary school teachers to have the confidence and capacity to teach students this specialized discipline. To address this gap, this study focuses on primary school teachers' intentions, beliefs, and perspectives on teaching Technology, as well as teaching STEM subjects overall. Understanding these beliefs and perspectives will help in building teachers' capacity and ultimately improving learning processes for primary school children. The paper reports on one phase of the project – a pilot study investigating the attitudes of primary school teachers towards meaningful integration of digital technologies in primary school programs conducted through the lens of the conceptual framework for the Dimensions of Attitudes towards Science (DAS). The preliminary findings demonstrate an urgency in addressing primary school teachers needs in getting access to knowledge and resources to build their capacity in the Technology discipline.

**Keywords:** Digital Technologies · STEM · Teachers Attitudes

<footnote n="1">¹ The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia
lindent@unimelb.edu.au</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria 3086, Australia
t.keane@latrobe.edu.au</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Victoria 3122, Australia
{aniesharma, amolnar}@swin.edu.au</footnote>
# 1 Introduction

As the teaching of computing became prevalent in the 1990s, the Australian Education Council [1] declared Technology as one of the eight key learning areas identified in the school curriculum. However, the teaching of Technology across schools has been ad-hoc and some schools are doing this better than others. With the introduction of the Adelaide Declaration on National Goals for Schooling at the turn of the 21st Century [2], Australian State and Commonwealth governments collaborated to produce a declaration stating that students will “be confident, creative and productive users of new technologies, particularly information and communication technologies, and understand the impact of those technologies on society” [2, p. 229].

Almost a decade later, the Melbourne Declaration was produced and replaced the Adelaide Declaration. The main findings of the Melbourne Declaration [3] were that successful learners for the 21st century needed:

* To have the essential skills in literacy and numeracy and be creative and productive users of technology, especially ICT, as a foundation for success in all learning areas;

* To be able to think deeply and logically, and obtain and evaluate evidence in a disciplined way as the result of studying fundamental disciplines;

* To be creative, innovative and resourceful, and be able to solve problems in ways that draw upon a range of learning areas and disciplines;

* To be able to plan activities independently, collaborate, work in teams and communicate ideas.

The Melbourne Declaration was an important document that explicitly stated the significance of the use of Technology and ways it could be used in the classroom. Similar recognitions of the importance of teaching and learning technology were identified in Europe and the United States [4].

In response to the disparate teaching of Technology across Australian primary schools in the six states and two territories, a national curriculum (named Australian Curriculum) was developed that addressed the teaching of Digital Technologies [5]. The compulsory Digital Technologies curriculum from the Foundation Year (age 5) to Grade 6 (age 12) was designed to assist in ensuring that the goals from the Melbourne Declaration were met.

Whilst the curriculum works well for teaching of individual subjects which is particularly suited at secondary school levels, teaching Digital Technology in primary school subjects is problematic as many primary school teachers prefer to teach subjects in an integrated manner [6]. The current three-dimensional design of the Australian Curriculum recognizes that learning does not fit neatly into a curriculum solely organized by learning areas or subjects that reflect the disciplines [7]. The curriculum authorities expect teachers and schools to plan integrated STEM projects and lessons according to their resources and expertise through an interdisciplinary approach addressing the deeper integration between these subjects [6].

Whilst STEM is largely an integrated approach to teaching of the four subject areas, the Technology subject is the glue connecting Science, Mathematics and Engineering. It has been suggested that STEM activities should include meaningful learning objectives of the Technologies learning area rather than acting as a tool to integrate Science and
Mathematics [8]. However, often the integration of Technology is treated as merely using a laptop, downloading information from the internet, or using software such as a word-processor, a spreadsheet, or a presentation tool to display information. For true transformation of the use of technology to occur, students need to be encouraged to be active knowledge developers rather than simply consumers of information [8, 9]. That is, students will be required to develop programs through programming, and creating digital solutions to problems. This will require teachers to develop capacity in their students and they too will need to have the required knowledge to be able to confidently teach these complex concepts.

With primary school teachers being generalist in nature, that is many of them have completed a teaching degree without having studied another degree prior to teaching, many have very little experience in teaching highly complex concepts that are often found in STEM [10, 11]. Fewer than one in three primary teachers has completed any tertiary study in computing or information technology [11]. Therefore, teaching Technologies has been noted as difficult for teachers who do not have any background in this field [12, 13].

For the past two decades, Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has been adopted in the classroom to support teaching and learning practices such as finding information on the internet or typing up documents. Teaching highly sophisticated and complex concepts which is now required by the Digital Technologies curriculum such as programming, algorithms and breaking down problems using computational thinking skills requires a level of understanding that most teachers do not possess.

## 1.1 Teachers' Attitudes Towards Integrating Digital Technologies Learning Areas into STEM Subjects

Teachers' attitudes towards technology integration in instructions and students' learning, i.e. use of digital technology to support teaching and learning, have been widely studied in the research literature [14, 15]. However, there is a lack of studies, especially in Australia, investigating primary teachers' attitudes and capabilities in integrating Technology into STEM lessons. There have been reports on teachers' lack of technical knowledge and skills, low confidence, and self-efficacy and the ability to integrate technology in classroom instructions to stimulate students to learn successfully [16-18]. However, very few studies discuss challenges in integrating technology in STEM disciplines and how teachers struggle to add more content knowledge of technologies in their STEM programs for meaningful integration [8, 19]. There have been many focused programs run by the Australian Government, such as summer school for STEM students and national competitions, the ICT Summer Schools initiative (digIT), and Curious Minds, to encourage robotics, coding and other aspects of digital education in Australia [18]. Researchers and policymakers call for greater focus on the digital technologies learning area [8, 9]. Notably, integrating various aspects of digital technologies into STEM subjects by primary school teachers is unmapped in Australia.

Teaching quality greatly depends on the teachers' expertise, experience and general attitudes towards the subject [20]. Studies have shown that, in addition to the curriculum, teachers' attitudes are significant determinants affecting students' attitudes towards a subject [21, 22]. An attitude can be defined as a complex and multidimensional construct
shaped by knowledge, values, feelings, motivation, and self-esteem [23]. Attitudes are commonly grouped into humans' cognitive, affective, and behavioral attributes [24]. The different subdimensions of attitudes have often been studied separately in literature with respect to individual science, mathematics, technology, or engineering subjects [25–27].

Research shows that enjoyment, confidence, anxiety, and teachers’ position towards technology integration in the classroom are the most common constructs contributing to the success of integrating technology into students’ learning experiences [12, 28]. Also, the research literature identifies perceived control, comprising self-efficacy beliefs and context factors as essential in forming teachers’ attitudes towards any subject [23, 29].

## 1.2 Research Context and Research Question

To address the research gap in studying problems associated with integrating Technology topics in STEM subjects, this study seeks to answer the following research question:

*What are the attitudes of primary school teachers towards meaningful integration of digital technologies in primary school programs?*

The investigation into the attitudes of primary school teachers towards teaching of STEM subjects and the integration process was conducted through the lens of the conceptual framework for the Dimensions of Attitudes towards Science (DAS) [23]. The framework identified three constructs of Cognitive, Affective and Perceived Control attitudes which are further described by several subdimensions (Fig. 1). The DAS instrument is applied to teachers’ perceptions, intentions, and beliefs towards teaching and integrating concepts and practical experiences of Digital Technologies in students’ learning.

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1.** A conceptual framework for DAS (Dimensions of attitudes towards science) [22]</figcaption></figure>
## 2 Methodology

The reported study is a part of the larger project that aims to gain understanding into primary teachers' attitudes towards the successful implementation of STEM programs. Teachers' attitudes towards teaching STEM are influenced by several characteristics, including demographic variables such as gender, educational background and length of teaching experience, as well as access to training and resources. The project adopted a mixed-method sequential explanatory design, which comprises two distinct phases: the quantitative phase followed by the qualitative one [30]. This type of study enables a policy researcher to explain the phenomena through numbers, charts, and basic statistical analyses followed by gaining deeper insights into the issues identified through a quantitative study [31]. However, this paper reports on the pilot part of the quantitative phase only, further quantitative investigations and the qualitative phase of the study are beyond its scope.

In the quantitative phase, to develop a questionnaire for assessing teachers' attitudes towards integrating Technology in primary school programs, the researchers adapted items from the DAS instrument. Additional questions had to be written to identify the critical factors impacting teachers' attitudes in integrating various key elements of digital technologies, design and technologies learning area, science, mathematics and engineering subjects.

Most of the items in the questionnaire were graded using a Likert scale from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). There were also some open-ended questions to get clarifications on Likert-scale choices and some multiple-choice questions. The main theme of the questions focusing on the Digital Technologies learning area were:

* Frequency of teaching key areas like ICT tools, data collection, presentation and creating solutions to problems, examining the main components of digital systems, studying networks for data transmission, and designing and following simple algorithms;

* Questions targeting perceived relevance, perceived difficulty, gender beliefs, enjoyment, anxiety, context factors and self-efficacy constructs as per the DAS instrument's conceptual framework (Fig. 1).

The validity and reliability of the questionnaire was assessed through a pilot study.

### 2.1 Establishing Validity and Reliability of the Questionnaire

To establish content validity, the researchers contacted ten primary school teachers from different schools with a range of teaching backgrounds in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and non-STEM backgrounds, with the request to respond to the questionnaire and provide feedback on the items. The feedback was collected using the Table of Specifications (ToS) feedback form. This ToS feedback form requested that teachers assess each question in the questionnaire in terms of the conceptual framework for DAS.

Only five out of the ten invited teachers attempted the questionnaire. They assessed each of the items for comprehensibility and accuracy, as well as checked whether each item was a true representative of the subdimension of the DAS instrument dimensions, i.e. perceived difficulty, perceived relevance, gender beliefs, anxiety, self-efficacy, and
context factors. The checkmarks were counted, and it was deemed that for every subdimension the tally of checkmarks was sufficient. The percentage of respondents' agreement on the suitability of questions to measure the subdimensions of DAS was 80% and 100%. Thus, the questionnaire was accepted as valid.

Reliability analysis was conducted using the internal consistency method through Cronbach's Alpha coefficients. The reliability coefficient was calculated for Likert-type items subscale-wise. The subscale wise and overall instrument's Cronbach's alpha coefficients are reported in Table 1.

<table><caption>**Table 1.** Cronbach's Alpha Coefficient of Overall scale and Subscales</caption><thead><tr><td>Subscale</td><td>No. of Items</td><td>Cronbach's Alpha</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Planning Integrated STEM lessons</td><td>5</td><td>0.75</td></tr><tr><td>Technology Role in STEM lessons</td><td>5</td><td>0.79</td></tr><tr><td>Teaching Integrated STEM Lessons</td><td>5</td><td>0.83</td></tr><tr><td>STEM Teaching support</td><td>4</td><td>0.91</td></tr></tbody></table>

For the estimation of reliability, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was applied to ascertain the internal consistency of the research tool [32]. Usually, a Cronbach Alpha coefficient above 0.75 is considered to indicate good reliability. As shown in Table 1, Cronbach's alpha coefficients were in the range of 0.75 to 0.91. Hence, the research instrument was deemed significantly reliable for data collection.

## 3 Findings From the Pilot Study

The updated questionnaire was used to conduct a wider pilot study. 36 participants responded to the questionnaire, however three sets of responses had to be discarded because they were incomplete. Thus, a total of 33 teachers' responses were used to assess the instrument's suitability for actual data collection. Eight teacher participants were teaching students at early year levels (5- to 8-year-olds), four at middle year levels (8 to 10 year-olds), eight were teaching at upper year levels (10 to 12 year-olds), four teachers were teaching all year levels as STEM specialists, six teachers and three casual teachers identified themselves as other.

The data was analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Program for Social Sciences). Due to the small sample size, T-tests, non-parametric analysis tools, Cronbach's alpha test and descriptive statistics were used to analyze data. These tests are considered suitable in cases where the sample size is less than 50. The data analysis showed that there were 22 participants with science, mathematics, technology, or STEM background, while 11 came from a non-STEM background.

The teacher respondents were asked to self-report their skill levels as related to planning and teaching the STEM areas in the primary year levels, using a Likert scale from 'Not at all confident' to 'Moderately confident'. The mean was calculated to be between 2 to 3 scale points (Table 2); therefore, it can be judged that among generalist
primary teachers, technology and engineering are the most challenging learning areas to teach, and they expressed the need for training and support in both areas.

<table><caption>**Table 2.** Confidence levels as related to different STEM fields</caption><caption>Descriptive Statistics</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>N</th><th>Minimum</th><th>Maximum</th><th>Mean</th><th>Std. Deviation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>How confident do you feel about planning and teaching the following in the primary year levels?</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Digital Technologies</td><td>33</td><td>1</td><td>4</td><td>2.55</td><td>.869</td></tr><tr><td>Design and Technology</td><td>33</td><td>2</td><td>5</td><td>3.03</td><td>.918</td></tr><tr><td>Engineering</td><td>33</td><td>1</td><td>5</td><td>2.88</td><td>1.023</td></tr><tr><td>Valid N (listwise)</td><td>33</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

The Kruskal-Wallis test was conducted to find the anxiety levels in teachers from all education backgrounds (Table 3). The accepted significance level for the test is 0.05. Our data shows a significance level of 0.589, which indicates that regardless of the background, all teachers felt anxious teaching digital technologies and design and technology subjects.

<table><caption>**Table 3.** Hypothesis for Kruskal-Wallis test to assess anxiety levels</caption><caption>Hypothesis Test Summary</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Null Hypothesis</th><th>Test</th><th>Sig.<sup>a,b</sup></th><th>Decision</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1</td><td>The distribution of A is the same across categories of Education</td><td>Independent-Samples Kruskal-Wallis Test</td><td>.589</td><td>Retain the null hypothesis</td></tr></tbody></table>

Based on the descriptive analysis, in the Digital Technologies learning area, on average only 6% of teachers integrate or teach different key areas of digital technologies in primary classrooms on a daily basis (Table 4). The learning areas showing highest levels of teachers' capabilities and integration is information and communication technologies (ICT) which is depicted in the first two rows in Table 4. The second most integrated learning area is 'design, modify, and follow simple algorithms' in specialist STEM lessons. Teachers' responses demonstrate that digital technologies areas depicted in rows 3-6 are more challenging with less than 25% of respondents integrating them frequently and not on the daily basis.

Teachers were asked to provide answers to the question “Technology plays an important role in STEM lessons. Please select how your STEM lessons often include the following components of Digital Technology or Information Communication Technology?” where different groups of technologies were listed. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze responses (Table 5). The results on the Likert scale from ‘Almost Never’ to ‘Very Frequently’ fall in only three scale categories of ‘Almost Never’, ‘Rarely’, or
<table><caption>**Table 4.** Integration of key areas as noted by teachers</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Digital Technologies areas</th><th colspan="5">Percentage (%) of teachers stating integration of key areas in other subjects</th></tr><tr><th>Almost Never</th><th>Rarely</th><th>Sometimes</th><th>Daily</th><th>Frequently</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Technology tools like MS word, PowerPoint, Blogs, search engines, Video filming etc</td><td>0</td><td>10.38</td><td>30.77</td><td>7.69</td><td>51.16</td></tr><tr><td>Collect, access and present different types of data using range of software to create information and solve problems</td><td>15.38</td><td>15.38</td><td>38.46</td><td>4.31</td><td>26.47</td></tr><tr><td>Examine the main components of common digital systems (hardware and software components) for a purpose</td><td>23.36</td><td>7.69</td><td>46.15</td><td>0</td><td>22.8</td></tr><tr><td>Creating digital solutions</td><td>14.29</td><td>21.43</td><td>42.86</td><td>0</td><td>21.42</td></tr><tr><td>Design, modify and follow simple algorithms represented diagrammatically and in English, involving sequences of steps, branching, and iteration</td><td>46.15</td><td>23.08</td><td>7.69</td><td>0</td><td>23.08</td></tr><tr><td>Study of networks to transmit data</td><td>46.15</td><td>7.69</td><td>30.77</td><td>0</td><td>15.39</td></tr></tbody></table>

‘Sometimes’. Most generalist primary teachers admitted that they have rarely or almost never integrated the key learning concepts of digital technologies, including the main components of digital systems, creation of digital solutions using the range of software and transmission of data using the range of networks.

According to the pilot data, participants believe that different technologies play a vital role in STEM lessons. As far as teaching integrated STEM lessons are concerned, most teachers are not confident in teaching engineering concepts, digital technology, design and technology in STEM programs at primary year level. Their responses demonstrate that urgent actions are needed to address lack of teachers’ knowledge and lack of training and ongoing support in incorporating Technology topics in integrated STEM lessons. Therefore, the following recommendations were proposed.

* To address teachers’ lack of knowledge, it is recommended to make additional training available. The training can be face-to-face where teachers require substantial assistance. Online interactive materials could be helpful as micro-modules. For the benefit of teachers, access to these materials should be available through a blended learning option. This is in line with previous research (e.g. [6]).

* To reduce lack of confidence and anxiety issues, communities of practice need to focus on the aspects of sharing best practices on running activities for students [33].

* To complement best practices from the previous point, a repository of materials needs to be created with associated lesson plans and curriculum mapping. Teachers should
<table><caption>**Table 5.** Descriptive analysis of responses on of Digital Technology and/or Information Communication Technology</caption><thead><tr><th>Design Technologies</th><th>N</th><th>Minimum</th><th>Maximum</th><th>Mean</th><th>Std. Deviation</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Technology plays an important role in STEM lessons. Please select how your STEM lessons often include the following components of Digital Technology or Information Communication Technology?</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Technology tools like MS Word, PowerPoint, Blogs, search engines, Video filming etc</td><td>33</td><td>1</td><td>3</td><td>2.12</td><td>0.87</td></tr><tr><td>Collect, access and present different types of data using range of software to create information and solve problems</td><td>33</td><td>1</td><td>3</td><td>1.7</td><td>0.57</td></tr><tr><td>Examine the main components of common digital systems (hardware and software components) for a purpose</td><td>33</td><td>1</td><td>3</td><td>1.7</td><td>0.51</td></tr><tr><td>Creating digital solutions</td><td>33</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>1.6</td><td>0.49</td></tr><tr><td>Study of networks to transmit data</td><td>33</td><td>1</td><td>3</td><td>1.69</td><td>0.68</td></tr><tr><td>Design, modify and follow simple algorithms represented diagrammatically and in English, involving sequences of steps, branching, and iteration</td><td>33</td><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>1.5</td><td>0.5</td></tr></tbody></table>

be able to keep populating this repository, sharing their successfully used lesson plans, activities and teaching advice. Although this recommendation does not stem directly from the teacher responses to the questionnaire, it is a known fact that having access to quality teaching materials helps in boosting confidence of teachers and improving efficacy as well as addresses the issue of overload and time pressure for lessons development [6, 34]
# 4 Conclusion

Although past research studies investigated teachers' attitudes towards digital technologies at length, they focused on using digital technologies to improve the teaching process and students' learning experience. However, analysis of research literature and educational policy documents identified the need to study teachers' attitudes towards integrating the content of Technology topics into STEM lessons, i.e. teachers' confidence and capabilities to facilitate students activities in creating digital solutions to problems.

To address this gap, the reported phase of this research study used a quantitative approach to assess primary school teachers' attitudes towards integrating digital technology with various levels of difficulty into subjects. The conducted pilot study identified technology and engineering as most challenging for primary school teachers. Regardless of their background, teachers felt anxious when it came to teaching highly specialized areas, such as digital technologies and design and technology subjects. The deficiency of knowledge creates lack of confidence and causes anxiety, which prevent teachers from implementing and sustaining digital technologies integration into STEM subjects. Although further data collection and analysis are needed for sound validity of findings, these preliminary results demonstrate that teachers need practical support in having access to knowledge bases, lesson plans, teaching activities, professional development, and capacity building.

This study has some limitations. In the quantitative phase, only a small number of teachers provided responses to the questionnaire. Although for the pilot study this number of responses was acceptable, it needs to be followed by further data collection and analysis to address the limitations of the sample size. A qualitative phase to further investigate reasons behind lack of capabilities to integrate Technology into STEM teaching needs to be conducted. This additional investigation could analyze the current support available to teachers at primary schools and offer a set of practical suggestions as a response to primary teachers' needs.

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