The inclusion of the arts into science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics (STEAM) has recently gained much national attention. The purpose of this qualitative study was to conduct a thematic analysis of student STEAM survey open responses to provide the field with an examination of grades 3–5 elementary students’ perceptions of their STEAM learning experiences. Grounded in transformative learning theory, a systematic and iterative thematic analysis of 1,572 student-written open responses to six prompts by 262 student participants revealed three primary themes: (1) extent of identification of science and mathematics learning in STEAM; (2) STEAM progression of activities, authentic problems, and empathetic problem solving; and (3) the presence of metacognition in STEAM. Our findings revealed that students’ STEAM perceptions provide strong support for STEAM learning experiences as a space for implementing the instructional practices important and central to reform efforts in science and mathematics education in the elementary grades.

中文翻译：

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小学生对STEAM的看法

将艺术融入科学、技术、工程、艺术和数学 (STEAM) 最近引起了全国的广泛关注。这项定性研究的目的是对学生 STEAM 调查的公开回应进行主题分析，以提供该领域对 3-5 年级小学生对其 STEAM 学习体验的看法的检查。基于变革性学习理论，对 262 名学生参与者对 6 个提示的 1,572 份学生书面公开回应进行了系统和迭代的主题分析，揭示了三个主要主题：（1）STEAM 中科学和数学学习的识别程度；(2) STEAM 活动进展、真实问题、同理心解决问题；(3) STEAM 中元认知的存在。