Examination of the Effect of Stem Education on Academic Achievement: A Meta-Analysis Study

Countries with well-trained and qualified labor force today make a significant difference with other countries in areas such as economy, education and industry. One of the important reasons for this difference is that these countries have made innovations in the fields of science, technology and education policies as well as economy. STEM, which is composed of the abbreviations of the first letters of the words Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, is an interdisciplinary approach. The aim of this study is to gather the experimental dissertations examining the effect of STEM education on students’ academic achievements in order to determine the effect of STEM education on academic success and synthesize the study findings. The research was conducted in a screening model. In the study, as there is heterogeneity among the publications included among the scope of the meta-analysis, the size of the impact was calculated utilizing the random effects model. The dissertations examined within the scope of this study were accessed from the Higher Education Institution (HEI) National Study Search System databases using the keywords STEM, academic achievement and experimental model. In this study, dissertations were examined by taking a certain time criterion. A total of 26 dissertations (19 postgraduates and 7 doctoral) examining the effect of STEM education, which is the post-test scores of the experimental and control groups conducted in 2018-2020, on academic achievement were accessed from the database. It was concluded in the study that STEM education has a positive effect on the academic achievements of students.