Conceptualising and Implementing STEM in Albanian Catholic Primary Schools An Exploratory Study of Teachers' Drawings, Diagrams and Written Reflections

Abstract

STEM education is a contested and context-dependent construct, and teachers' interpretations shape which disciplines, pedagogies, purposes and learners become visible in school practice. This qualitative, interpretive case study examines how 45 practising teachers from private Catholic primary schools across Albania conceptualised STEM and anticipated its implementation. Data were generated at the beginning of the first day of a three-day professional-formation event organised by the National Commission for Catholic Education in Albania at the Interdiocesan Seminary of Shkodër in June 2025, before participants received any training input. Participants first responded to the open prompt through drawings, diagrams, words or mixed visual-textual forms, 45 artefacts were collected. They then answered five open questions concerning current school and classroom practice, possible implementation, flexibility, and barriers or facilitators. Twenty-four written response pages were available for analysis. Teachers represented STEM principally as an integrated, learner-centred and developmental approach organised through projects, questions, practical activity, collaboration and teacher facilitation. Organic growth, journeys, positive affect, citizenship and school modernisation were prominent, while engineering design, mathematical evidence, testing, revision and assessment were less visible. The written responses added a more conditional account, implementation ranged from first awareness to established pockets of integrated practice, flexibility and gradual implementation were strongly endorsed; and adoption was seen to depend on professional learning, curriculum space, leadership, collaboration, resources and parental relationships. The central contribution is the distinction between an aspirational visual grammar of STEM and an operational discourse of cautious, conditional optimism. Professional learning should therefore recognise existing practical expertise while making disciplinary purpose, engineering design, evidence and curriculum alignment more explicit.