Chapter 5: The Philippine STEAM Education Model

Science, Technology, Engineering, Agri/Fisheries, Mathematics (STEAM) Education dominates the factors that contribute to national growth and development. This study developed the Philippine STEAM Education (PSE) Model to visualize the Philippine Higher STEAM Education and to check how far we are from the global standards. Grounded on theories (Commission on Higher Education Policies, Standards, and Guidelines [PSG’s], Philippine Professional Standards for Teachers [PPST], and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge [TPACK]), the study sourced its data from online survey (extracted from 1900 STEAM educator respondents [national survey]), classroom observations and interviews of 106 participants determined through stratified and random sampling of a number of state universities and privately-managed colleges and universities. Coding (manual and software aided) directed the model (Pedagogical, Assessment, Technological Integration) generation.

These models guided the decoding of all indicators of STEAM proficiency attributes and traits to the different TPACK dimensions (T, P, C, PC, TC, TP, TPC) from where the dimensions of the emerging TPACK framework for Philippine Higher STEAM Education surfaced. Analyses of the generated individual domain models (Pedagogical, Assessment, Technological Integration) unified and developed the PSE Model that underwent threetier validation by experts in the different STEAM disciplines and country-wide identified STEAM educators. The results of the development and validation processes generated the final validated PSE Model that presents a visual of the current Philippine STEAM Education. However, the model development and design process identified several constructs foreseen to forecast the ideal Philippine STEAM Education, which the country hopes for, thus, led to crafting the emerging PSE Model, as envisioned to represent the Philippine STEAM Education in the 21st century. From these crafted models, the higher education agency of the country may initiate carving policies for STEAM education in the nation. R & D (Research and Development) may consider extending this initial endeavor to spawn tools (in assessment), and processes (in pedagogy and technology integration) to capitalize on the benefits of the generated models of Philippine STEAM Education.