Teachers' Stages of Concern on STEM Education in a Rural Secondary School in Guangzhou

For facilitating the smooth implementation of STEM education, it is important to investigate the concern of teachers on it. But the literature review found that related research focused on the rural teachers is very limited. This study thus investigated 31 secondary teachers from a rural secondary school in Guangzhou, a south China city. Stages of Concern (SoC) theory, based on Concerns-based Adoption Model, was used to design the instruments of this study. A mixed approach of quantitative (SoC questionnaire) and qualitative research (teacher interview form based on SoC theory) was adopted. It was found that the teachers' SoC line chart showed the shape of the letter “n”, The highest SoC was Consequence (M=5.63) and the lowest was Refocusing (M=4.95). Findings of teachers' interviews showed that the teachers had the most negative attitude toward the first and fifth stages (i.e. Evaluation & Refocusing). For the remaining three stages, most teachers were willing to accept the educational innovation reform, such as STEM education, although they were not fully prepared and have a worried attitude. The difficulty in implementing STEM education in rural secondary schools was mainly due to a lack of high-quality design of STEM education instruction and enough professional development opportunities.