School Stakeholders’ Conceptualization and Implementation Experiences of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) Education in Ghana: A Case of Heads and Teachers at Two Basic Schools

Abstract

This study explored how basic school stakeholders (heads and teachers) conceptualize STEAM and their implementation experiences in the context of STEAM education initiatives in Ghana. Data was collected from 21 basic school stakeholders from two basic schools in southern Ghana: two school heads, four classroom teachers, and fifteen subject teachers. The data was collected by combining individual interviews, lesson observations, and focus group discussions using the qualitative phenomenology case design. The data collected was analyzed and synthesized by an integrated data analysis framework developed from the seven-step phenomenological data analysis framework (Colaizzi, 1978) and the analytics model for lesson observations (Eradze et al., 2017). The Husserlian descriptive phenomenology (Giorgi & Giorgi, 2003; Jackson et al., 2018) was adopted to interpret how the teachers and school heads conceptualize STEAM education and their implementation experiences in basic schools in Ghana. It was found that the basic school heads conceptualize STEAM in consent with the fundamental philosophy of STEAM education as they described STEAM as integrated teaching and learning, experiential education, and life-long education, which implies that STEAM transcends to developing transferable skills for societal development in a rapidly changing world. The practices for STEAM in the basic schools commence with school-level collaborative practices such as termly action planning forums, weekly professional learning communities, and team building for STEAM projects. The teacher-level pedagogical practices also encompassed planning thought processes, teaching methods, cooperative activities, and assessment strategies. Moreover, the findings revealed different dimensions of factors such as stakeholders’ professional development and capacity, availability, adequacy and access to resources, school leadership support, and policy factors and external stakeholder support that enhance or constrain their STEAM practices in the basic schools. These findings gave school stakeholders, education policymakers, and other national stakeholders an indication of the areas of improvement in the context of STEAM. The study serves as a starting point for scholars to delve into research focused on STEAM implementation in Ghana. Based on the findings, a model for implementing STEAM from policy to practice has been proposed for Ghana and other emerging economies.