Organising STEM education using the engineering design process: Experimental research to develop students’ creativity through the topic of suspension bridges

Abstract

STEM education has become an important trend in reforming general education, aiming to develop students’ core competencies, including creativity. In physics teaching, organising STEM topics associated with engineering design provides students with opportunities to apply knowledge to solve real-world problems, thereby fostering creative capacity. This study aims to design and evaluate the effectiveness of implementing the STEM topic “Designing a suspension bridge model” in teaching selected content on moments of force and conditions for equilibrium at the upper secondary level. The research employs an experimental pedagogical method combined with both qualitative and quantitative analyses to assess the development of students’ creative competence. The results indicate that students in the experimental group tend to show improvement in manifestations of creativity, such as idea development and product innovation. The study contributes a process for organising STEM-based instruction in physics to enhance creative competence among high school students. However, the difference between the experimental and control groups did not reach statistical significance, suggesting the need for further research with a larger sample size.