• Journal of The Korean Association For Science Education
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.313-322
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• 2017

This study aims to analyze the content and methodological aspects of converging scientific technology and humanities in 233 elementary school STEAM programs developed and publicized from 2012 to 2015, to provide the basic materials and implications for editing and supplementing the development of future STEAM programs or policies, or on-site applications of developed programs. The analysis results show that among the Liberal Arts courses of the STEAM program, including Korean, Social Studies, and Ethics, the level of convergence was lowest in Ethics. This seems to be due to the fact that convergence between scientific technology and humanities tended to emphasize a cross-studies convergence over a content convergence done with a specific purpose. In terms of methodological convergence between scientific technology and humanities, the level of convergence of humanities at a normative level was relatively lower than that at a descriptive level. Although a quantitative comparison of the two methods was not significant, it is rather concerning that due to simply converging descriptive humanities, students may not be so aware of the double-sidedness of scientific technology, despite the discovery of some programs that need re-evaluations of their ethical or normative directions. Moreover, the results showed that the cases of converging scientific technology and humanities at a normative level that were analyzed in the STEAM program can be divided into 'complementation of humanities to utilizing scientific technology' and 'complementation of humanities to research in scientific technology and development.' Based on such research results, the study discusses the development of STEAM programs and policies and directions for editing and supplementing programs on-site.