The Effects of Maker Education on Prospective Early Childhood Teacher’s STEAM Literacy Indexes and Empathic Ability

This study was conducted to find out the effect of maker education applied in children's literature classes on the cultivation of convergence talents and empathic ability of prospective early childhood teachers. To this end, maker education was applied to a total of 23 freshmen students taking early childhood education and children's literature classes at a College in Korea, and its impact was verified through pared t-tests on convergence talent cultivation and empathic ability. First, the study showed that maker education for pre-child teachers had a positive effect on fostering convergence talent. All four areas of convergence, creativity, consideration, and communication showed statistically significant results. Second, maker education for pre-childhood teachers was found to have a positive effect on empathy. Among the two areas of cognitive empathic ability and affective empathies, cognitive empathy showed statistically significant results, but affective empathy did not. Through this study, it was confirmed that maker education has an important educational value to promote convergent knowledge necessary for the future society, and implications were drawn that it is a meaningful educational method for teachers who educate future generation.