Comparative Effectiveness of STEAM and Scientific Approaches on Elementary Students’ Learning Outcomes in Social Studies: The Case of Indonesian Cultural Diversity

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) approach compared to the scientific approach in improving elementary students’ learning outcomes in Social Studies on the topic of cultural diversity. The study was conducted to address the limited student understanding of contextual Social Studies content. A quasi-experimental method with a pretest–posttest control group design was employed, involving fourth-grade students from two elementary schools assigned to different instructional approaches. Data were collected using a validated learning outcomes test and analyzed using an independent sample t-test. The results indicated that the STEAM approach produced higher learning gains than the scientific approach. The STEAM group achieved a mean gain score of 0.65, while the scientific group obtained 0.42. The mean post-test score of the STEAM group (83.6) was higher than that of the scientific group (76.4), with a statistically significant difference (p = 0.003). The study concluded that the STEAM approach was more effective in enhancing students’ understanding of cultural diversity. These findings suggested that integrative and contextual learning approaches could improve Social Studies learning outcomes.