透過推行幼兒STEAM教學以探討本澳幼兒科學探究能力發展之行動研究- 以本澳一所幼稚園為例

Given the current era dominated by artificial intelligence, education is undergoing reforms to cultivate talents with scientific potential, innovative awareness, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities (WEF, 2022). In this context, STEAM education has gained popularity worldwide and has been implemented at the early childhood education stage. However, Macao has yet to establish clear educational guidelines for STEAM education in early childhood. As numerous scholars have pointed out that implementing STEAM education in early childhood helps enhance children's self-confidence, scientific attitudes, and social adaptability (McClure, 2017; Zhou Shuhui, 2020), this study aims to explore the impact of implementing STEAM education at the early childhood stage on the development of children's scientific inquiry abilities.
The study involved conducting a 12-session ""Happy Play STEAM"" scientific inquiry course over one semester at the researcher's school, with 16 upper-class kindergarten children as participants. The ""Early Childhood Science Practice Scale"" was used to evaluate recordings of the 12 teaching sessions, resulting in a total of 384 assessment data points (16 children × 12 sessions × 2 raters).
The findings reveal that children's scientific inquiry abilities significantly improved after the STEAM teaching intervention. The results indicate that the overall scientific inquiry abilities of the children were notably enhanced following the implementation of STEAM education, demonstrating that STEAM education contributes to the holistic development of scientific inquiry abilities in young children.
Based on the results, this study suggests that implementing STEAM education in early childhood is both feasible and effective for fostering early scientific inquiry abilities. It aligns with children's natural development and leverages their golden learning period to preliminarily cultivate critical thinking, scientific inquiry skills, and other abilities through interdisciplinary learning, enabling them to attempt solving real-life problems.

鑑於現時時代人工智能當導，教育趨向改革以培養具備科學潛質、創新意識、批判思考與問題解決能力的人才（WEF,2022），就此情況STEAM教育開始於各國盛行及於幼兒教育階段實施，但本澳仍未對幼兒教育階段的STEAM教育確立明確的教育方針，由於眾多學者指出於幼兒教育階段推行STEAM教育有助提升其自信、科學態度及社會適應性（McClure,2017 & 周淑惠，2020），故本研究意旨探討在幼兒教育階段推行STEAM教育對幼兒科學探究能力發展之影響。本研究透過於研究者任教之學校開展一學期共十二節的「開心玩STEAM」科學探究課程，以十六位大班幼兒作研究對象，並利用「幼兒科學實作量表」對十二節教學錄影進行評分，共集得384次評估數據（16人 x 12節x 2評分員）。 研究結果顯示：幼兒的科學探究能力於STEAM教學後有著明顯進步，透過研究結果發現幼兒於STEAM教學進行後其整體科學探究能力獲得顯著的提升，此研究表明STEAM教育有助於幼兒科學探究能力的整體發展。 根據研究結果顯示於幼兒階段開展STEAM教育對其早期科學探究能力發展存在可行性及有效性，既能順應幼兒天性發展，亦能把握幼兒的學習黃金期，以使其透過跨學科學習初步培養其批判性思維、科學探究能力等能力，以嘗試解決生活真實問題。