Özet:

STEM is a new educational approach that enables learning to be multidimensional by integrating and linking different disciplines of knowledge and skills in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. From an early age, parents play an important role in raising awareness of STEM by making them interested in the disciplines that make up STEM, making them love STEM and creating a positive attitude towards STEM. In this context, parents need to be aware of the knowledge and skills related to STEM for the education and economy of our country. Accordingly, this study aims to examine the validity and reliability of the STEM Parent Awareness Scale developed by Yun, Cardella, Purzer, Hsu and Chae (2016) and adapted by Gonyea (2017). This scale consists of two sub-scales: knowledge and attitude. Firstly, translation procedures and arrangements were made with the support of experts. The final scale was administered to 207 parents (131 females, 76 males) with children aged 6-18 years. Subsequently, item-total correlations were calculated and the correlation values were found to be between .55 and .86. For the item discrimination, the lower and upper group average of 27% were compared with independent t-test and found to be significant at p <.001 level for all test items. The correlation value between knowledge and attitude subscales was .51 and it was found to be significant at p <.001 level. As a result of confirmatory factor analysis, it was observed that the values of the fit indices were within the acceptable value limits. Finally, Cronbach's Alpha coefficients were calculated for the internal consistency of the scale. Cronbach's Alpha coefficients were .96 for knowledge subscale, .97 for attitude subscale and .96 for the total scale. As a result, STEM Awareness Scale parents to have enough mental properties of the Turkish version, from primary school to higher education of children with their parents, to measure the knowledge and attitudes that it can be used in Turkey.

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