Empowering Malaysian early childhood practitioners’ sustainable inclusive practices through the ‘integrating and navigating Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics’ (inSTEAM) framework

This study investigate the Malaysian early childhood practitioners’ science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) integrating understanding and practices. Several research studies continuously report that the learners’ interest and motivation in STEAM are declining worldwide, and this reflects the current reality of the shortage of STEAM leaders and experts in the workforce. One of the primary purposes of STEAM learning in the classroom is to enhance the learning process and outcomes to prepare young children for a future STEAM-focused career. A qualitative approach of semi-structured interviews and classroom observations was employed to deeply understand the participants’ practices on Malaysian early childhood STEAM integration. This study adopted the ground-up approach of the constructivist paradigm. This study interviewed 15 early childhood practitioners (including one center director) in several small groups from early childhood centers in the Metropolitan area of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The findings showed how practitioners utilize their understanding and translate this into an integrated STEAM enactment. This study focused on practice-based inputs, where the practitioners also attempted to teach a makerspace lesson that focused on designing and constructing STEAM solutions. Using thematic analysis and coding of the practitioners’ inputs and discussions, five themes arose from the analysis of the interviews. ‘Character building STEAM educators’, ‘locus of control’, ‘risk-taking as part of STEAM learning’, ‘differentiating in STEAM lesson’ and ‘where interest-based learning fit in the local Malaysian curriculum’ were factors that impacted the participants’ drive and actions to integrate STEAM and makerspace. The findings informs other early childhood practitioners understanding and STEAM integration practices. Future study may include a continuous investigation to support early childhood practitioners to facilitate and deliver STEAM integration both inclusively and sustainably.