The development of STEM integrated scientific inquiry model for promoting grade 9 students’ creative thinking skill and scientific mind in electricity

Although Scientific Inquiry (SI) takes a long root as a pedagogical method of teaching science, it does not explicitly emphasize engineering design process and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education. This study aimed to construct a new pedagogical model called STEM Integrated with Scientific Inquiry (STEM-SI) model. This study employed a two-loop Research and Development (R&D). In R&D loop 1, the researchers employed a documentary research with the documents directly related to STEM and SI. Content analysis was used to analyze contents in such documents. The finding yielded that the STEM-SI model was developed and consisted of nine teaching steps: 1) Reviewing, 2) Engaging, 3) Exploring, 4) Designing, 5) Solving, 6) Evaluating and improving, 7) Sharing, 8) Expanding and 9) Applying. These teaching steps were utilized to develop the lesson plans in the Electricity topic for grade 9 students. In R&D loop 2, the research design was a one group pre-test post-test design. The sample was 40 grade 9 students came from Cluster Random Sampling. Two research instruments used were the Creative Thinking Skill Test and the Scientific Mind Questionnaire. The students’ creative thinking skill and the scientific mind were tested with the 70% criteria by using one sample t-test. The results expressed that the STEM-SI model could promote grade 9 students’ creative thinking skill and the scientific mind higher than the set criteria at the .05 statistical significance level. At final, the results from R2 were used to further develop the STEM-SI model and its associated lesson plans.


Introduction
Today the world is changing rapidly and disrupting more than ever, it is critical to Thailand to prepare Thai citizen to be ready to deal with this rapid changes of the world.The current government has announced that Thailand has stepped into the Thailand 4.0 era, which is a value added innovation-driven era from creativity and technology-focused economy that moves the country towards being wealth, stable and sustainable.Thailand 4.0 is a new model of driving Thailand's economy that aims to change the economic structure towards a "Value-Based Economy" to overcome the trap of middle-income countries.The country's population quality is regarded as an important mechanism for driving innovation.Regarding this, education is regarded as a key to improve the quality of population which will result in societal change.The education sectors aim to adapt and prepare population especially the next generation to occupy important skills for the 21 st century such as creative skills, innovative skills, and so on that will help prepare Thai citizen to be ready for any changes and live happily in the 21 st century world [1].
Teaching and learning in the 21 st century must be learner-centered that allows learners to engage in learning activities and build their own body of knowledge.Teachers in this present time have changed their role from a transmitter of knowledge to a learning facilitator, who assist students to achieve their learning effectively.In another way, learners have changed their role from a receiver of knowledge to become a knowledge creator, who take more responsibility on their learning and construct knowledge by themselves.In the 21 st century, teaching and learning must be changed from teacher-centered to learner-centered.Subsequently, the pedagogical strategies in the 21 st century have changed from lecturebased teaching to be more constructivist-based teaching such as a Problem-based Learning (PBL), Project-based Learning (ProjBL), Scientific Inquiry (SI), and STEM Education [2].
Science is a discipline that directly related to human lives and plays an important role from the past to the present and even the future.Scientific knowledge can lead to the advancement of technology to improve people's quality of life [3].Science cannot be absolutely inseparable from other subjects or topics in this 21 st century.To solve the complex problems in the rapid changing 21 st century world, people need more integrated knowledge and skills.Knowing only a single discipline and occupying only a single skill is not enough in this current world.In science subject, students must learn essential skills being required for successful living in today's world as creative thinking, critical thinking, problemsolving, and communication skills.Teachers must apply the instructional approach that helps students attain the mentioned skills.In this case, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education is regarded as one pedagogical approach that is aligned with the 21 st century because it is beneficial in helping students develop complex and integrated skills needed for this 21 st century.
STEM Education is a learning management system that integrates four disciplines together, that is, S: Science, T: Technology, E: Engineering, and M: Mathematics.STEM focuses in helping learners develop their knowledge for applying to solve real-world problems to improve many important skills and quality of life.At the end of STEM learning process, students are required to apply their knowledge, creativity and Engineering Design Process (EDP) to create their new process and/or product to solve the assigned problem that is beneficial for applying in their daily lives.In this sense, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics are truly blended into STEM [4].Learning through STEM does not focus on memorizing scientific and mathematical knowledge and theories, but focus on constructing new knowledge from STEM practice that stimulates students to connect science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with each other [5].In sum, STEM is a learning management system that encourages learners to build their own body of knowledge that is in line with inquiry-based learning as SI.
Inquiry-based learning is a type of learning management that corresponds to scientists' work through three major principles: 1) In learning science, students learn better when they can seek knowledge on their own rather than being informed about it; 2) Students learn better when the learning environment provokes students to be curious, and teachers must organize activities to stimulate students' eager to learn by using a variety of instructional materials and media; and 3) Teachers should encourage students to use creativity by giving an opportunity to express their own ideas as many as possible.In SI, teachers encourage students to ask questions, generate ideas, and act in the pursuit of knowledge.The SI teaching and learning process encourages learners to find answers or conclusions on their own and teachers take a role as a learning facilitator [6].SI adheres to the constructivist principles of learning by doing them in accordance with the behavior of scientific processes.Science teachers should use SI as a guideline when designing science learning activities for students to learn scientific knowledge through practicing scientific process skills [7].Project-Based Inquiry Learning (PIL) is proposed as one SI technique to be applied in the topic of science i.e. space [17].This study investigates the effect of integrating STEM education through Project-based Inquiry Learning (PIL) and the users of the STEM modules which consists of five projects on topic Space in Year One Mathematics Syllabus in Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah (KSSR) of Malaysia.However, SI emphasizes students' construction of new scientific knowledge through scientific process; it does not explicitly emphasize students to create new process and/or product that can be applied in their daily lives as in STEM.This is a gap still waiting for fulfilment by researchers.
The trend of quality of science learning in Thailand is not up-trend much as you can notice from Figure 1.The average scores of the Ordinary National Educational Test (ONET) ranged from 2015 to 2019 tend to be stay still around 30 scores and a bit decreasing in 2019 academic year.From the past, teaching and learning science in Thailand is still primarily focused on lectures and memorization of content.The teacher is regarded as a sole source of knowledge transfer, and students rarely participate in active learning and hands-on activities.Students lack an opportunity to practice SI and STEM.They also lack several essential skills such as problem-solving skills, creative thinking skills, etc.The first author of this paper works as a science teacher at Deebuk Phangnga Wittayayon School, Phangnga province.When assigning grade 9 students to design a model of lamp, a majority of students could finish the task on time, but their works were not diverse.Each group designed and created their model of lamp that were very similar to their classmates.Students' works lacked originality and novelty because students themselves lacked creative and innovative thinking.In this paper, the authors presented the effort to integrate STEM with SI for teaching science for grade 9 students in the topic of Electricity.The STEM integrated SI (STEM-SI) model presented in this paper will bring the strengths and limit the weaknesses of both models to yield the most effectiveness of learning achievement in science for grade 9 students.

Research Objectives
The research objectives of this study were: a) to develop a STEM-SI model for teaching the topic of Electricity for grade 9 students; and b) to examine grade 9 students' creative skills and scientific attitudes in the topic of Electricity after learning with the STEM-SI model.
Up to this, there were two research hypotheses, that is, First, "After learning with STEM-SI model, grade 9 students had creative skills higher than the 70% set criteria" and Second, "After learning with STEM-SI model, grade 9 students had scientific attitudes higher than the 70% set criteria."

Research Method
This study employed Research and Development (R&D) methodology with two R&D loops.In R&D loop 1 (R1D1), the researchers employed documentary research [16] and content analysis to analyze and, finally, synthesize the SI and STEM.Then, in D1, the researchers used findings from R1 to develop the STEM-SI model for teaching Electricity for grade 9 students.The researchers developed the lesson plans in Electricity according to the STEM-SI model.The content used for testing STEM-SI was is the Electricity topic for grade 9 level in the Science and Technology subject according to the subject matter and learning standards of the Basic Education Core Curriculum B.E. 2561 (2018).

Data Collection and Analysis
The STEM-SI model and associated lesson plans for teaching Electricity for grade 9 students were sent to a panel of five experts with an expertise in science and technology education to check content validation.The experts were asked to give one of these scores (i.e.+1, 0 and -1) for each item statement dealing with content validity of the STEM-SI model and lesson plans.Regarding this, score 1 means the model or lesson plan correspond with the targeted objective; while 0 and -1 mean unsure and do not correspond, respectively.After derived the responses from experts, the researchers calculated for the Index of Item-Objective-Congruence (IOC) of the STEM-SI model and lesson plans.
In R&D loop 2 (R2D2), the researchers aimed to examine the effects of STEM-SI on grade 9 students' creative skills and scientific attitudes.The findings from R2 were then used to revise the STEM-SI model and associated lesson plans.

Data Collection and Analysis
The population for this study was 345 grade 9 students from Deebuk Phang Nga Wittayayon School, Muang, Phang Nga Province, enrolled in the second semester of the 2021 Academic year.The sample was 40 students from Deebuk Phang Nga Witthaya School, enrolled in second semester of 2021 academic year that was obtained from Cluster Random Sampling by using a classroom as a unit of sampling.The sample was asked to respond to two research instruments i.e. the Creative Thinking Skill Test and the Scientific Mind Questionnaire.
There were two research instruments i.e. the Creative Skills Evaluation Form and the Scientific Attitudes Questionnaire.The Creative Skills Evaluation Form was consisted of eight items that were five-scale scoring rubrics aimed to evaluate students' creative skills in four components: Fluency (the ability to generate quantities of ideas), Flexibility (the ability to create different categories of ideas, and to perceive an idea from different points of view), Originality (the ability to generate new, different, and unique ideas that others are not likely to generate) and Elaboration (the ability to expand on an idea by embellishing it with details or the ability to create an intricate plan).The Creative Skills Evaluation Form was validated by a panel of five experts and the IOC of items was ranged from .80 to 1.00 that was in an acceptable level.
The Scientific Attitudes Questionnaire was consisted of 30 items divided into 10 aspects: 1) Curiosity (3 items), 2) Perseverance and focus (2 items), 3) Confidence and patience (3 items), 4) Openmindedness (2 items), 5) Reasoning (3 items), 6) Meticulousness and order (3 items), 7) Honesty (3 items), 8) Responsibility (4 items), 9) Critical thinking (3 items), 10) Creativity (4 items).The items were a five-scale rating.The Scientific Attitudes Questionnaire Form was validated by a panel of five experts and the IOC of items was higher than 0.50 that was in an acceptable level.The Cronbach's alpha coefficient [10] was calculated and used to examine the reliability of Scientific Attitudes Questionnaire.The result of reliability was 0.89 that was regarded as a high level of reliability.
The researchers analyzed the data from the Creative Skills Evaluation Form by calculating for mean and standard deviation (SD).In addition, the mean score of post-survey was compared with the 70% criteria by using the One Sample t-test.The researchers analyzed the data from the Scientific Attitudes Questionnaire by calculating for mean and SD.Also, the mean score of post-survey was compared with the 70% criteria by using the One Sample t-test.The results from R2 were used to further develop the STEM-SI model and its associated lesson plans.

Development of STEM-SI model
From content analysis of the documents related to STEM and SI, there were common teaching steps of STEM and SI as Table 1.After that, the researchers systhesized the teaching steps of STEM-SI model that were comprised of nine teaching steps that could be shown in the last column of Table 1.  3.

Figure 3. STEM-SI model
The description of each teaching step of STEM-SI was as follows.
Step 1: Review of prior knowledge (Reviewing) A teacher explores students' prior knowledge by asking a set of questions or requiring students to do a pre-test to demonstrate prior knowledge.The questions should refer to a local context problem that can use scientific knowledge to solve.Students can relate their learning to their experiences by applying science in their everyday lives.
Step 2: Engaging with problems (Engaging) The teacher presents a real-life problem situation to stimulate students to think and solve the problem by using STEM approach.The teacher's role is to motivate student enthusiasm by creating questions that catch student interest and link the problem with students' real lives.
Step 3: Exploring the problems (Exploring) Students work in group of four to six and collaboratively gather information and brainstorm about the plan to solve the problem.Students seek for more knowledge from a variety of sources such as a library, databases, local experts, or even the teacher.Students evaluate the feasibility, cost-effectiveness, benefits, drawbacks, and suitability of the plan and choose the most appropriate process and/or method to solve the problem.
Step 4: Designing solutions (Designing) Students in each group use information, data, and related concepts derived from the previous step to design a piece of work or a method for solving a problem.
Step 5: Problems solving (Solving) Students in each group create the piece of work or product to solve the assigned problem by using the plan they designed in the previous step.
Step 6: Evaluating and improving Students test the piece of work or product to solve the assigned problem and record the results.They use the results to evaluate the effectiveness of the planned method or designed product.The findings can be used to revise and develop the piece of work or product to solve the assigned problem with the most efficiency.
Step 7: Sharing results (Sharing) Each group presents the planned method or designed product and the findings from the testing and improving process.The final product and its effectiveness in solving the problem should be shown in this step to express the final fruitfulness of STEM-SI learning process.The teacher should encourage students to connect new knowledge with previous knowledge in order to create a new body of knowledge.

Expanding knowledge (Expanding)
Students expand knowledge gained from STEM-SI model by applying learned knowledge in a different but similar situation.
Step 9: Applying knowledge (Applying) The teacher provides opportunities for learners to apply the knowledge gained to be appropriate and beneficial to their daily lives.This step aims to promote students to transfer their learning to real life practice.
After that, the authors applied these nine teaching steps of STEM-SI in designing four lesson plans for teaching the topic of Electricity for grade 9 students: Lesson Plan 1 Electrical Circuits (8 hours); Lesson Plan 2 Household Electrical Circuits (5 hours); Lesson Plan 3 Electric Energy (5 hours); and Lesson Plan 4 Electronics (6 hours).The total of teaching hours for these four lesson plan was 24 hours (or eight weeks).
The panel of five experts in science education was requested to establish content validity of STEM-SI model and its associated lesson plans.The IOC of STEM-SI model and its associated lesson plans were higher than 0.50 that was in an acceptable level.

Effects of STEM-SI model on student creative skills and scientific attitudes
The researchers collected data in the second semester of the 2021 academic year with a sample of 40 grade 9 students from Deebuk Phang Nga Witthaya School.The first author took a role as a grade 9 teacher.She described the goals, roles and responsibilities of participating students before implementing the STEM-SI lesson plans.At the beginning, the sample was asked to respond to the Creative Skills Evaluation Form and the Scientific Attitudes Questionnaire.Subsequently, the first author implemented four lesson plans applied STEM-SI model.At the end of STEM-SI model, the results of effects of STEM-SI model on student creative skills and scientific attitudes was compared with 70% criteria by using One Sample t-test.The results were as follows.According to Table 3, the STEM-SI model also helped grade 9 students significantly develop creative skills higher than the 70% criteria at the .05statistical significance level in each lesson plans.According to Table 4, the STEM-SI model also helped grade 9 students significantly develop creative skills in each component higher than the 70% criteria at the .05statistical significance level.From Table 5, the students who learned with STEM-SI model on electricity had a mean score of scientific attitudes at 3.83, which was higher than the set criteria of 70% (3.50 points of 5) at the .05statistical significance 05 level.From Table 6, the students who learned with STEM-SI model on electricity had a mean score of scientific attitudes in each aspect higher than the set criteria of 70% (3.50 points of 5) at the .05statistical significance level.

Discussion
The quality of new pedagogical model called STEM-SI model and its associated lesson plans were qualified by the judgment of a panel of experts expressed through IOC.In addition, in real classroom practice, STEM-SI model still works well in promoting grade 9 students' creative skills and scientific attitudes.This is because the STEM-SI model was created from the intensive review of related literature of STEM and SI.At final, the analysis of common teaching steps of STEM and SI yields nine teaching steps of STEM-SI.These steps come from empirical evidences of various research conducted nationally and internationally.In addition, students are informed about the change of teaching from the previous one to the new one, STEM-SI.This information makes students aware of the appropriateness of new learning management activities, materials, time spent, measurement, and evaluation as well as awareness of the flaws that should be addressed.This is consistent with the belief that a teaching style is a teaching action model that includes essential elements being organized in an orderly manner.According to the style's philosophy, theory, principle, idea, or teaching, it has been proven and tested to be effective in assisting students with learning in accordance with the specific objectives of that particular teaching style [6].
The STEM-SI model can effectively develop grade 9 students' creative skills in the topic of Electricity.This is related to the work of Palita Sooksamran, and Wareerat Kaewurai [11], who used the science-based learning management model based on the STEM concept to promote problem-solving skills for elementary school students.There were six teaching steps of science-based model based on the STEM: 1) Demanding and being eager for discovery; 2) Aiming for data collection; 3) Establishing coolaborative action; 4) Continuing crate work; 5) Critiquing, reviewing, and reflecting; 6) Returning to society.by completing all six steps of teaching and learning activities, learners received a new body of knowledge derived from four disciplines; namely science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.In addition, the finding of this study is in line with Waristhar Suriyawong [13], who developed a STEMbased learning management model to promote creativity with the EDP on Lighting regarding Grade 8 students.The learning outcomes of students who studied with the STEM learning management model were significantly higher than before at the .01level.The STEM-SI model helped develop students' creative skills because it encourages students to engage in learning style that differs from the previous norm.Students who receive knowledge from teachers will be transformed into students who seek knowledge on discover new body of knowledge.In addition, Natcha Pattana, Nuanjid Chaowakeratipong, and Tweesak Chindanurak [14] investigated the effect of STEM education on Grade 12 students' learning achievement and creativity in Chemistry and Organic Chemistry.It was found that students studying with STEM education had higher scientific creativity than students studying with traditional learning management.The students' creativity after studying with STEM model was higher than before at the .05statistical significance level.
The nine steps of STEM-SI model promote students to practice their creativity constantly especially through the EDP.Students work collaboratively in groups.They engage in many hands-on activities and experiments.They design solution and gain practical experience in creating work pieces to solve problems.Students can also evaluate and improve their works or products and present their created works several times in each lesson to improve their creative thinking.Creativity is a skill that can be increased with constantly practice [12].
The STEM-SI model can effectively develop grade 9 students' scientific attitudes in the topic of Electricity.This is related to the work of Palita Sooksamran and Wareerat Kaewurai [11], who found that, after learned with STEM education, the students had the highest scores for Perseverance, Determination, and Endurance with a mean score of 4.17, followed by Responsibility with an average score of 4.15, and Reasonableness with an average score of 4.07.In addition, Taimaung [15] applied the STEM Education concept to develop Grade 8 students' creativity and science skills.The students who learned with STEM had higher scientific attitudes at a .05statistical significance level.
Ng and Adnan [17] integrated project-based inquiry learning (PIL) with STEM to improve the integration of STEM education in Mathematics.They found that PIL and STEM worked together well in helping Year One students to ask questions and explore the environment through inquiry and solve the issues related to the real world situation to cultivate the practice of STEM.They valued STEM in solving the real-life problem in the context of daily life, society, and the environment.Teachers were more confident in conducting STEM education in school through PIL.In addition, Yuliati, Munfaridah, Ali Indrasari and Rosyidah [18] studied the impact of STEM-based guided inquiry learning (STEM-GI) on students' scientific literacy in the topic of fluid statics.They found that the students who learned with the Scientific literacy of STEM-GI was higher scientific literacy in the topic of fluid statics than conventional class.Also, the students had more positive response towards STEM-based GI than conventional learning.The positive effects of STEM-SI on students' creative skills and scientific attitudes were aligned with these two studies [17][18] applied STEM with inquiry teaching techniques.The combination of strengths of both pedagogical methods, i.e.STEM and SI, may yield more positive effects on students' learning about science.The positive effects of STEM-SI are supported by the related literatures.

Conclusions
The content validity of STEM-SI model and its associated lesson plans was qualified by a panel of experts.In addition, the STEM-SI model could develop grade 9 students' creative skills and scientific attitudes on electricity higher than the 70% set criteria at the .05statistical significance level.These findings show that the STEM-SI is a new pedagogical model that is both valid and reliable.In addition, it is effective in promoting grade 9 students' creative skills and scientific attitudes on electricity.Consequently, other science teachers may apply the STEM-SI model in teaching other topics in science in other grade levels or subjects.In addition, they may apply the process in developing the STEM-SI model presented in his paper to create their new pedagogical model that is best suit their classroom contexts.However, teachers should inform their students about the change of teaching and learning into the new one and clarify the importance of such change to students' quality of learning in order to make students aware of the importance of change and prepare themselves ready for change.This is a key success factor of transforming the old into new science classroom.This study reminds us that students should be informed initially about STEM education and EDP prior learning with STEM-SI model.Also, students should realize the importance of working in groups and the advantages of assisting one another in order to carry out the activities effectively.
The further research related to this study may examine other dependent variables as an effect from using STEM-SI model such as scientific process skills, critical thinking skills.Also, there are other research methodologies and designs that can be used to examine the effectiveness of STEM-SI model such as qualitative research (e.g.case study), classroom research, classroom action research, participatory action research, and so on.At final, the STEM-SI is a combination of STEM and SI and there may be other studies about other combinations between STEM and others or SI and others in order to limit weaknesses of such pedagogical approaches.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Average O-NET scores in science subjects from 2015 to 2019 Source.https://www.admissionpremium.com/content/5440Inaddition, the results from 2000 to 2018 Thailand PISA assessment as Figure2indicate that in 2015 and 2018 Thai students did not perform better in science as well as mathematics subject.The trend of quality of science and mathematics learning is appeared as a downtrend[8].

Table 1 .
The results of the synthesis of common teaching steps of STEM-SI model.Explore problem; Step 4 Design solution; Step 5 Solve problem; Step 6 Test and improve; Step 7 Share results; Step 8 Expand knowledge; and Step 9 Apply knowledge as Figure

Table 2 .
Grade 9 students' creative skills in overall comparing with the 70% criteria after learning with STEM-SI model in the topic of Electricity (n = 40) According to Table2, the STEM-SI model could help grade 9 students significantly develop creative skills higher than the 70% criteria (2.80 points of 4.00) at the .05statistical significance level.
*Statistical significance at the .05level

Table 3 .
Grade 9 students' creative skills with the 70% criteria after learning with STEM-SI model in the topic of Electricity in each lesson plans *Statistical significance at the .05level

Table 4 .
Comparative result of grade 9 students' creative skills with the 70% criteria after learning with STEM-SI model in the topic of Electricity in each component of creativity *Statistical significance at the .05level

Table 5 .
Comparative result of grade 9 students' scientific attitudes with the 70% criteria after learning with STEM-SI model in the topic of Electricity in each component of creativity *Statistical significance at the .05level

Table 6 .
Comparative result of grade 9 students' scientific attitudes in each aspect with the 70% criteria after learning with STEM-SI model in the topic of Electricity in each component of creativity *Statistical significance at the .05level