STEM Education Research in Indonesian Elementary Schools: A Systematic Review of Project-Based Learning

Abstract

AbstractSTEM Education, in various countries including Indonesia, is growing with a variety of classroom learning projects in elementary schools. This study aims to describe the development of basic education STEM research in Indonesia and the various types of learning projects developed based on the curriculum using systematic review. The technique of systematic review is qualitative (meta-synthesis). The primary sources in this study are various works of literature on STEM basic education contained in scientific journals indexed on the SINTA indexing page ranked 1-6 with the years of publication in 2017-2020. The data is analyzed using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) method. The implementation has several steps consisting of (1) identifying research questions, (2) developing research protocols, (3) determining the location of the search area database, (4) selecting relevant research results, (5) selection criteria, (6) data extraction, (7) synthesizing results using meta-synthesis, and (8) presenting results. The most distribution of articles on STEM education themes was found in journals with the scope of educational studies that were ranked at Sinta 3. A review of 17 articles showed that there were variations in projects that could be analyzed further from the 7 articles. Learning projects cover recreational, environmental, and energy topics. Research on STEM learning projects tends to be carried out in upper grades in elementary schools.