Saudi Arabian science and mathematics teachers’ attitudes toward integrating STEM in teaching before and after participating in a professional development program

Abstract: For the advancement of current and future economic and overall wellbeing to occur, STEM professionals are highly needed. STEM education is an approach that integrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula into one interdisciplinary curriculum. In the context of STEM education, learners acquire deep and critical thinking abilities, which help them become creative and analytic thinkers, and hence innovators in their careers. For this to happen, the teacher must be trained to successfully design and effectively teach an integrated STEM curriculum. The purpose of this study was to analyze Saudi Arabian science and mathematics teachers’ attitudes toward integrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in teaching before and after they participated in a short professional development program focused on STEM integration in a specific middle school science and mathematics content. The participants were 48 Saudi Arabian science

Abstract: For the advancement of current and future economic and overall wellbeing to occur, STEM professionals are highly needed. STEM education is an approach that integrates science, technology, engineering and mathematics curricula into one interdisciplinary curriculum. In the context of STEM education, learners acquire deep and critical thinking abilities, which help them become creative and analytic thinkers, and hence innovators in their careers. For this to happen, the teacher must be trained to successfully design and effectively teach an integrated STEM curriculum. The purpose of this study was to analyze Saudi Arabian science and mathematics teachers' attitudes toward integrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in teaching before and after they participated in a short professional development program focused on STEM integration in a specific middle school science and mathematics content. The participants were 48 Saudi Arabian science Abdulwali H. Aldahmash ABOUT THE AUTHORS Abdulwali H. Aldahmash, Professor of Chemical Education, at the Excellent Center for Science and Mathematics Education, King Saud University, Riyadh. His research focuses on science teacher's continuing professional development, STEM education. He has published many studies in the area of interest in well-known journals (e.g., An Analysis of Activities in Saudi Arabian Middle School Science Textbooks and Workbooks for the Inclusion of Essential Features of Inquiry, Kinetic vs. static computer-generated visuals for facilitating college students' understanding of reaction mechanisms in organic chemistry, secondary School Science Teachers' Views about Their Reflective Practices, Emerging Trends in Research on Math Teacher Professional Development, etc.).
Naem, M. Alamri, Associate professor of Math Education, King Saud University, curriculum and instruction dept. College of education, and Excellent Center for Science and Mathematics Education, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He has published a study in the area of interest in a well-known journal titled "Emerging Trends in Research on Math Teacher Professional Development". He also published studies in local journals.

PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
This study presents the attitudes of science and mathematics teachers about integrating STEM in teaching as a result of their participation in a professional program focused on teaching integrated STEM. The study was designed to investigate the impact of a short PD program on teacher's attitudes towards STEM education. Findings indicated that the short PD program had a slight positive impact on teacher's self-efficacy, and their perceived difficulty of teaching integrated STEM. However, it was shown that the short training program had no effect on perceived relevance, anxiety, and enjoyment of teaching integrated STEM among science and mathematics due to their participation in the PD program. This implicates that well planned long and continuous PD programs would be more effective than short PD programs in enhancing teachers' experience and affective factors about integrating STEM in teaching science and mathematics. and mathematics teachers, who participated in a 6-day program held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The research methodology was a pretest-posttest one group (preexperimental) design. The primary data source was the Instrument for Teachers' Attitudes Toward Teaching Integrated STEM. The results indicate that Saudi Arabian science and mathematics teachers' perceptions of difficulties decreased due to their participation in the professional development program on integrated STEM. Meanwhile, the teachers' self-efficacy improved following their participation in the STEM professional development (PD) program. However, no perceived effect was found for the teachers' perceptions of the relevance of or their anxiety about or enjoyment of Integrated STEM teaching due to their participation in the 6-day PD program. We argue that Engaging teachers in integrated STEM professional development may improve their attitudes toward and increase their interest in teaching this approach. To improve teachers' attitudes toward, it is suggested that future PD programs should be long and continuous, and focus on training science and mathematics teachers to teach integrated STEM subjects.

Introduction
Challenges and issues such as the spread of poverty, global warming, environmental pollution, overpopulation, agricultural production, health, biodiversity, declining energy, water sources, and the social impacts of the twenty-first century must remain at the forefront of education reform efforts (Thomas & Watters, 2015, p. 42). To cope with such challenges and issues, modern societies need to devise multidisciplinary solutions that enable individuals to become creative and skilled problem solvers. This can be accomplished by changing the focus of education to align with twenty-first-century skills (Voogt & Roblin, 2010), which involves transitioning from expecting learners to merely have disconnection parts of knowledge to help them apply their knowledge into in their real life.
STEM is a multidisciplinary approach to teaching that integrates science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines in one curriculum as cross-cutting or cross-disciplinary-overlap topics (Morrison, 2006;Morrison & Bartlett, 2009). This combination supplies societies with individuals who are capable of turning knowledge into action, and individuals who can solve the major problems facing their societies. In other words, integrated STEM can enable students to be critical of the world and find answers to solve issues present in society (Robinson, 2016;Hu & Garimella, 2015;Kennedy & Odell, 2014). For example, integrating biology and engineering allowed biomaterials engineers to help people suffering from pain and debilitating diseases feel healthier and safer (Vernengo, Farrell, Kadlowec, & Strobel, 2014).
In the context of STEM education, learners acquire deep and critical thinking abilities, which help them become creative and analytic thinkers, and hence innovators in their careers. Being an innovative thinker means being able to solve the most pressing problems facing society as well as the entire world. Furthermore, Furner & Kumar (2007) indicated that using an integrated education strengthens learner's opportunities for more stimulating experiences. It also guarantees student-centered learning and may improve higher-level thinking skills and problem-solving (Bell, 2016;Stohlmann, Moore, & Roehrig, 2012;Ellis & Fouts, 2001;King, & Wiseman, 2001). Similarly, Morrison (2006) asserted that integrated STEM education can improve students' problem-solving, innovation, invention, and logical thinking skills. Integrated STEM curriculum can increase students' learning, but teachers appear to have greater difficulty shifting to this type of integrated curriculum due to their experiences with traditional preparation programs.
STEM education is an approach that includes four pillars, which are: Science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It was defined as "the creation of a discipline based on the integration of other disciplinary knowledge into a new 'whole' (Morrison, 2006;Sanders, 2009). As STEM education removed the borders between the four disciplines, and integrate them into one discipline, it equipped students with the ability to integrate the world, and deal with it as one entity. In this regard, Tsupros, Kohler, & Hallinen (2009) described STEM education as: "interdisciplinary approach to learning where rigorous academic concepts are coupled with real-world lessons as students apply science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in contexts that make connections between school, community, work, and the global enterprise enabling the development of STEM literacy and with it the ability to compete in the new economy".
Many countries (Lucas, Claxton & Hanson, 2014;National Research Council, NRC, 2014; Office of the Chief Scientist, 2014; Office of the US President, 2013) turned their focus towards Promoting STEM education in their institutions. Among those efforts, some direction and pillars had been put forward. For example, the following four pillars for STEM education had been specified by the Irish Minister for Education and Skills (2017) (2017)). Three of these pillars (2, 3, & 4) concentrated on teacher abilities to teach multi-disciplinary curricula.
The integration of science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) attracted the interest of educator and policymakers from the early 1990s. It was first introduced in the United States as a solution to the educational reforms at that time to provide the society with highly qualified labors with complex technology and engineering skills to perform in the high-tech knowledge-based economy (Quang1 et al., 2015;Wang, Moore, Roehrig, & Park, 2011). In addition, integrating STEM into curricula has been an element of many recent curriculum reforms, such as the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) (NGSS Lead States, 2013), the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics (CCSSM) (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), and the NAE and NRC (2014).
The advancement of current and future economic and overall well-being, not only for advanced economies such as the United States (Rockland et al., 2010) but also for growing economies worldwide, was the driver behind the initiation of interdisciplinary STEM curriculum. For this advancement to occur, STEM professionals are highly needed. The United States, for example, aimed to increase the number of STEM professionals and highly trained workers by 17% between 2008 and 2018 (Langdon, McKittrick, Beede, Khan, & Doms, 2011). An increase in STEM professionals and highly trained workers may increase the percentage of students who are interested in pursuing studies in STEM (Rockland et al., 2010), which is decreasing in the United States, Western countries and more prosperous Asian nations (Thomas & Watters, 2015, p. 42). To increase students' interest in STEM by integrating engineering and technology concepts into science and mathematics curricula, many approaches, which incorporate engineering design-based units into the STEM curriculum have been introduced. An example of projectbased learning that was found to increase students' interest in STEM learning (Hernandez et al., 2013), and using engineering design curricula to engage students in solving authentic problems while collaborating with others to build, design, or conceptualize real solutions (Laboy-Rush, 2011), which has been adopted in the reform of K-12 curricula (Brown, Brown, Reardon, & Merrill, 2011). Integrated STEM curriculum and teaching will provide society with highly qualified scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians and hence may drive these societies to achieve economic prosperity. Therefore, it is important to train teachers to successfully design and effectively teach an integrated STEM curriculum (Harris & Felix, 2010;Rogers & Portsmore, 2004).
Saudi Arabia also launched an ambitious program focusing on STEM education. However, this program was introduced "without a clear description of its meaning, purpose and framework of application" (Madani, 2017). Despite the fact that STEM is believed to have a great impact on mathematics and science learning, it was not fully adopted in the development of science, mathematics, engineering and technology subjects, and hence, those reforms could not be can be considered as STEM integration or implementation. It should be noted that curricular reform in Saudi Arabia has been launched to enable the Kingdom of Saudi Arabian Educational system to cope with the most advanced educational reforms projects in the world. The Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia launched new science and mathematics curricula which were distributed to school in the beginning of the academic year 2009. These the science and mathematics curricula were adapted from textbooks' series, produced by the American publishing company McGraw Hill (Al ghamdi & Al-salouli, 2013; Almazroa & Al-Shamrani, 2015). To cope with the most advance reforms around the globe, Saudi Arabia needs to launch an ambitious project to integrate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in a unified multi-disciplinary curriculum that could enhance students learning and skills, which may, in turn, ensure sustainable development in the country.
Implementing integrated STEM into actual classrooms can be successful if science and mathematics educators place an emphasis on promoting positive attitudes toward STEM, which in turn increases the number of students who are interested in STEM courses and careers (Bettinger, 2010;Krapp & Prenzel, 2011;OECD, 2006). In this regard, Laboy-Rush (2011) asserted that the improvement of teachers' attitudes toward STEM integration will lead to success in the implementation of this type of integrated curricula into the classroom. The new integrated STEM curriculum should address the demands of twenty-first-century skills, which is necessary to keep students motivated as well as to increase students' motivation to engage in STEM (Angell et al., 2003;Atkinson and Mayo, 2010).
The major challenge facing educators in implementing this reform is developing the ability to teach an interdisciplinary curriculum. To address this challenge, studies have suggested that teachers' professional development (PD) should focus on both the skills involved in and attitudes toward interdisciplinary teaching (English, 2016;Marginson, Tytler, Freeman, & Roberts, 2013;NAE and NRC, 2014). This type of PD should not be provided as a short and fast training session; rather, it should be an extended and continuous program focusing on interdisciplinary STEM teaching (Lauer et al., 2014). However, Al Salami, Makela, and De-Miranda (2017) showed that short PD sessions may help in changing teachers' attitudes toward teaching Integrated STEM curriculum. The authors found a positive change in teachers' attitudes toward Integrated STEM teaching in their quasi-experimental and single group pretest-posttest design study, which was conducted with 29 self-selected middle and high school teachers participating in a 12-to 15-week PD opportunity focused on an interdisciplinary teaching and design problem unit that spanned multiple STEM subjects.
Additionally, integrated STEM curricula that use project-based design have been found to increase K-12 students' interest in STEM. To achieve this result, we must increase teacher's positive perceptions and interest in teaching STEM curricula. Shifting teachers from teaching a specific domain to teaching interdisciplinary curricula represents a significant challenge. To improve teacher's interest in teaching STEM education, we must develop their skills for teaching this type of approach. We should also focus on the improvement of their attitudes toward such an interdisciplinary approach. This can be done through professional development (PD) that focuses on an interdisciplinary STEM curriculum that focuses on both skills and affective domains.
Attitude is one factor which may influence teachers' interest in teaching a specific subject in addition to students' academic achievement. The origin of the word 'attitude' came from French and then from the Latin word "aptitude"-"aptus" means (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) fit. Attitude may also be defined as a positive or negative evaluation of anything of one's surroundings or environments. Attitude comes from our beliefs, intention and action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 1975) and it is a psychological tendency which is expressed by appraising a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor . Mensah et al. (2013) defined attitudes as: "Psychological orientations developed as a result of one's experiences which influences a person's view of situations, objects people and how to respond to them either positively or negatively or favorably or unfavorably" (p. 1). Koballa (1988) also defined attitude as "a feeling toward an object". Meanwhile, , defined it as "a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (p. 1). Silverman and Subramaniam (1999) indicated that there is a positive relationship between attitudes and beliefs. Jung (1921/71, p. 687) suggested that "attitude can be explicit and implicit that is consciousness and unconsciousness of our belief and behavior". Studies pointed out several components for the formation of attitude among students. Some of these components are; Emotional, Cognitive and Behavioral. In this study, the attitude scale has three major components, which are; Cognition, Affect, and Perceived Control. The first component "cognition" includes two themes; perceived relevance, and perceived difficulty, the second component "affect" includes also two themes, which are; anxiety, and enjoyment, while the third component "Perceived control" includes only one theme, which is "self-efficacy".
Several tools are used to measure teachers' and students' attitudes toward STEM-integrated curricula or courses. Among these tools is the STEM Semantics Survey (Tyler-Wood, Knezek, & Christensen, 2010), which is used to measure interest in each STEM subject as well as interest in STEM careers; this survey was developed by Knezek and Christensen (1998). Other examples of tool include the "Instrument for Teachers' Attitudes toward Teaching Integrated STEM", which was developed by the Research Institute for Work and Society (Thibaut, Knipprath, Dehaene, & Depaepe, 2018), under the title of "Development and Validation of An Instrument for Measuring Teachers' Attitudes toward Teaching Integrated STEM".
Although the formation of attitudes requires relatively long programs, however, long professional development programs for teachers are not currently available in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The majority of the training and development programs that are carried out for science and mathematics teachers in KSA are too short and do not take more than one week. Our study is trying to fill this gap by investigating the effect of one of those short training programs, which was organized by and conducted by the educational district in Riyadh and focused on STEM education on science and math teacher's attitudes toward integrating STEM in teaching.

Purpose and research questions
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of a 6-day PD program on science and mathematics teachers' attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM. To achieve this aim, the following research question was investigated: Does the PD program improve science and mathematics teachers' attitudes toward teaching Integrated STEM?

Method
To achieve the goal of this study, the researchers used pre-post methodology (Fraenkel, Wallen, & Hyun, 2012) by employing an attitude scale designed by Thibaut et al. (2018). Although the formation of attitudes requires relatively long programs, however, long professional development programs for teachers are not currently available in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). The majority of the training and development programs for science and mathematics teachers in KSA are too short and do not take more than one week. As a result, the reason for conducting this study was to try to identify the impact of such short programs in some factors, which can impact science and mathematics teachers' professional development. Among those factors are teachers' attitudes in general and views about topics covered by professional development programs. No doubt that such trends and attitudes have an impact on teacher development, thus, they may improve science and mathematics teachers ' teaching practices.

Participants
The participants include science and mathematics teachers from Riyadh City, SA (48 science and mathematics teachers, 21 males and 27 females), who were selected by the department of education in Riyadh district. The participants were attending a 6-day PD program on integrating STEM in the curriculum, entitled "Applying STEM in our classrooms". All 48 participating teachers were pretested prior to the start of the program, and 45 of the participants (21 males and 24 females) were post-tested immediately following the end of the program. Most of the participants had 6-10 years or more than 10 years of teaching experience. All the participants with fewer than 6 years of teaching experience were female.

Program specification
A 6-day professional development program was held from 12 to 17 January 2018 at King Saud University, KSA, in Riyadh. The program organizer focused the dialogue, content, and practical activities on a number of areas related to the theoretical and practical aspects of the integration and implementation of STEM lessons in the classroom. The program had three parts, each took 12 h within 2 days. This indicates that the whole period of the program added up to 6 days. It should be clear that we neither did nor design this program, but it was designed and organized by a specialist from the ministry of education, as part of the development programs. From our side, we design this study and selected the proper tool to examine the effect of such short (one shot) programs on teacher's attitudes on STEM education. Table 1 provides a detailed description of the development program.

Instrumentation
The primary data source was the "Instrument for Teachers' Attitudes Toward Teaching Integrated STEM", which was developed by Research Institute for Work and Society, HIVA (2017), under the title "Development and Validation of An Instrument for measuring Teachers' Attitudes toward Teaching Integrated STEM". This instrument includes 25 items that use a 5-point Likert scale to measure participants' attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM subjects. It covers three major domains: cognition, 10 items; affect, 10 items; and perceived control, 5 items. The first domain includes two subscales (perceived relevance, 5 items, and perceived difficulty, 5 items), the second domain includes two subscales (anxiety, 5 items, and enjoyment, 5 items), and the third domain includes one subscale (self-efficacy, 5 items).
Each of the developed instruments' subscales is also associated with one of five different subcomponents according to the order listed above: Integration of STEM content (int), Problemcentered learning (pcl), Inquiry-based learning (inq), Design-based learning (des) and Cooperative learning (co). The instrument, which was originally prepared in English, was translated into Arabic because the participating teachers' mother language is the Arabic language. To ensure the validity of this instrument, the translated version was then translated back into English by a translator who did not read or look at the original copy. Then, some experts in science and math education reviewed the instrument to ensure that it was understandable. Program goals General goal Informing practitioners of the theoretical and practical aspects of the implementation of STEM lessons in the classroom

Specific goals
• Strengthening teachers' knowledge of the following concepts: STEM education, teaching for conceptual understanding of scientific discourse, scientific inquiry, and discrepant phenomena in science and mathematics education.
• Strengthening science and mathematics teachers' practices for teaching the subject "heat transfer" through engineering design.
• Building an understanding that could contribute to other science and mathematics subjects taught according to the STEM approach.
The targeted groups • Science and mathematics education practitioners and associates (teachers and supervisors, superintendents and teachers).
• Researchers in the field of science and mathematics curriculum and teaching methods.
Program details First part: dialogue (2 days, 12 hours) • Presentation of common experiences in teaching science and mathematics where scientific concepts do not necessarily appear.
• The concept of STEM education.
• The general framework for the implementation of STEM in our classrooms.
• Engineering design in science and mathematics classrooms: teaching the science and mathematics of heat transfer through engineering design.
• First day ends with describing the following concepts: scientific inquiry, discrepant phenomena in teaching science and mathematics, teaching for conceptual understanding and scientific discourse.
Second part: content (2 days, 12 hours) • Discussion of the concepts related to scientific inquiry, teaching for conceptual understanding, scientific discourse, contradictory phenomena in science and mathematics teaching, and how they would observe science and mathematics classes.
• Presentation of the concepts of convection and radiation.
• Demonstration of the reverse radiation of light.
• Provide a challenge for participants in building a dwelling that keeps penguins from melting.
• Testing of different materials.
• Testing the design.
• Reframing the points learned from the demos and engineering activities to reach the bottom line about the following: what STEM lessons need, what framework I will use to support learning science and mathematics.
• Presentation of supportive sources for researchers and teachers dealing with the derivation of an engineering problem associated with the targeted unit and the teaching of STEM.

Results
This section includes the presentation, discussion and interpretation of the results for the five themes in the attitude scale. Each theme is presented in a separate table; hence, the results for each theme are presented, interpreted, and discussed separately. The following sections present the results for each theme relating to teachers' attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM curriculum. It should be noted that some of the participants did not respond to some of the items, which interprets the difference in sample numbers in the results' tables.

Theme 1: Perceived difficulty
This theme includes five items, each of which belongs to one component of Learning Environments for Integrated STEM. Table 2 includes the means, standard deviations, and t-tests of the differences between the pre-and posttest responses from the science and mathematics teachers. Significant differences between the pre-and posttest administrations were observed for three items: the item associated with the problem-solving component, the item related to inquiry-based learning, and the item associated with design-based learning. All the differences were in favor of the pretest, indicating that the teachers' perceptions of difficulties regarding these elements decreased due to their participation in the 6-day professional development program.

Theme 2: Perceived relevance
As was the case with the first theme, the theme of perceived relevance includes also five items. However, no significant differences were found between the pretest that was administered before the PD program and the posttest that was administered after the PD program for any of the items in this theme. This result (Table 3) indicates that the participants' views on the perceived relevance of Integrated STEM teaching did not change due to their participation in the PD training program.

Theme 3: Anxiety
The data in Table 4, which are related to theme 3, show that the scores for the pretest administration are higher than the scores for the posttest, but these differences are not significant. This result means that no differences were found between the pre-and posttest administration of the questionnaire for the theme of teachers' anxiety about Integrated STEM teaching. We can deduce that the 6-day program had no impact on teachers' anxiety about Integrated STEM teaching.

Theme 4: Enjoyment
Theme 4, which focuses on teachers' enjoyment of Integrated STEM teaching, also includes five items. The data in Table 5 indicate that there were no significant differences between the pre-and posttest for any of the items associated with the enjoyment of teaching Integrated STEM subjects or curricula. This result indicates that the participants' views regarding their enjoyment of teaching Integrated STEM curriculum did not change due to their participation in the PD training program.

Theme 5: Self-efficacy
Theme 5 includes five items that are associated with self-efficacy in Integrated STEM teaching. Table 6 includes the means, standard deviations, and t-tests of the differences between the preand posttest administrations with science and mathematics teachers. Significant differences between the pre-and posttest were observed for three items: the item associated with inquirybased learning, the item related to design-based learning, and the item associated with cooperative learning. All the differences were in favor of the posttest, indicating that self-efficacy in integrated STEM teaching increased slightly following participation in the 6-day professional development program.

Discussion
The result of the first part indicating that the teachers' felt that the perceived difficulties decreased due to their participation in the 6-day professional development program. The reason behind this result may be due to teacher's lack of a clear conception of STEM before the training program. Therefore, their choices in pre-testing were inaccurate, but after having a clear conception of STEM education, particularly, the strategies (problem-solving and inquiry). As a result, teachers find it difficult to implement this approach in teaching, especially in light of their knowledge of the schools' situation and the lack of the necessary means to implement STEM, in addition to the increased number of students in the lab.
The results indicated that there were no statistically significant differences related to perceived difficulty among participating teachers due to the development program. This could be happened due to the short period for the implementation of the PD program. This may also indicate that the teachers had a clear picture of STEM, but they found it as difficult to apply. This interpretation is clarified by Scott and Martin (2013) study, which have pointed out that teachers hold beliefs that using the Steam input is not easy. Scott and Martin (2013) added that teachers perceive STEM subjects as being more difficult than separate, non-STEM subjects and think that students may achieve better results in non-STEM subjects. This perception regarding the difficulties of STEM subjects causes teachers to believe that students may have more success in non-STEM subjects. However, these challenges or difficulties could be eased by having teachers engage in intentional CPD programs that concentrate on teaching Integrated STEM fields. Even though this training program was short, the teachers appeared to perceive fewer difficulties after participating in the program.
Result related to the second part "Perceived relevance" proved that the participants' views on the perceived relevance of Integrated STEM teaching did not change due to their participation in the PD training program. Scott and Martin (2013. P. 14) argued that "the perceptions of challenges in pursuing STEM studies can lead to disengagement and lowered expectations, despite actual aptitude and potential". In this study, the teachers' perceptions of STEM relevance were not low for the pretest or the posttest: the mean ranges were between 4.59 and 4.76 for the pretest administration of the attitude scale and between 4.62 and 4.78 for the posttest administration; these values are considered high according to our ratings.
Other research studies (Osborne, Simon & Collins, 2003;Russell & Hollander, 1975;Shrigley, Koballa & Simpson, 1988) have shown also that there is a positive correlation between teachers' attitudes toward science and their personal effectiveness in the classroom as well as their choice of effective teaching strategies. Therefore, teachers may perform better when teaching STEMrelated curricula if they perceive these curricula to be relevant to them and to society.
From the overview of the result of this theme; it is noted that the mean scores for pre and post-testing are relatively high. This result could be due to the generality of these terms (items), which are related to the integration of teaching courses in general. For example, by looking at the result for the first item (Linking technological, mathematical & scientific concepts increases students' understanding), we can find that the teachers may be convinced about it, either before or after the program, because it is not specific to science or math courses. However, the problem was found in linking the shapes with each other, and in the ability of teachers themselves to link the concepts together as it happened with the first theme, where teachers felt that there is difficulty in performing adjustments in their courses to fit with other STEM components.
Regarding the third part "anxiety" the result indicated that the 6-day program had no impact on teachers' anxiety about Integrated STEM teaching. The reason for this result could be that short PD sessions have little or no effect on teachers' attitudes toward teaching Integrated STEM curriculum, especially their anxiety regarding the approach to teaching STEM.
As indicated in theme 1, teachers perceive difficulties associated with teaching Integrated STEM curriculum because they are anxious that students may experience lower achievement in Integrated STEM subjects than in traditional or non-integrated subjects (Scott & Martin, 2013).
They think that the challenges that students face in achieving success in STEM subjects may arise from internal and external barriers to STEM education. Studies (CaSE, 2014;Dearing & King, 2006;Myers, 2006;Smith, 2011) have indicated that there is a perceived concern among teachers that students may prefer non-STEM fields or subjects because they view those subjects as being less difficult than Integrated STEM subjects. In terms of the teachers' perceived difficulties, the teachers' anxiety about teaching integrated STEM subjects appeared to be lower after the 6-day STEM program, which indicates that any type of intentional CPD program could be effective in mitigating teachers' anxiety about teaching integrated STEM subjects.
Regarding the fourth part "enjoyment", the result indicates that the participants' views regarding their enjoyment of teaching Integrated STEM curriculum did not change due to their participation in the PD training program. The reason for this result could be associated with the short period of the professional development training program; it is possible that a 6-day PD session may not be sufficient to make the desired change in teachers' enjoyment of Integrated STEM teaching. As indicated by this theme, teachers may perform better when teaching STEM-related curricula if they enjoy working in STEM subjects or curricula and in the STEM environment. In addition, Derri, Vasiliadou, and Kioumourtzoglou (2015) proved that short-term training programs have a noticeable effect on teacher behavior and student engagement in learning. Those results are contradicting our result for this theme, which indicated that short training programs have no impact on teachers' enjoyment in the subject of training. On the other hand, Benfield et al. (2001) indicated that long-term CPD was very effective in performance/behavior (impact on practice); learning (improved knowledge of participants); reaction (e.g., from an end of course evaluation); and participation (attendance).
Results for the fifth part "self-efficacy" showed that the short PD program had slightly improved science and math teacher's self-efficacy in their ability to deal with integrated STEM teaching. In line with the result of our study, Weißenrieder, Roesken-Winter, Schueler, Binner, and Blömeke (2015) study showed different developments within the two specific CPD courses, with one course featuring a significant development. They found that developments differ with respect to the duration of the CPD course.

Conclusion and implications
The result of this study indicated that no perceived impact was found on science and math teachers' perceptions of the relevance of or their anxiety about or enjoyment of Integrated STEM teaching due to their participation in the 6-day PD program. This means that the PD program did not contribute to improving science and mathematics teachers' attitudes toward teaching Integrated STEM curriculum. This could have resulted from the period of the PD program being too short. On the other hand, science and mathematics teachers' perceptions of difficulties decreased due to their participation in the professional development program on integrated STEM. In addition, the teachers' self-efficacy improved following their participation in the STEM professional development (PD) program. We could conclude that short PD programs may have an impact on teacher's perceived difficulty of STEM education and could improve their self-efficacy. Although the formation of attitudes requires relatively long programs, however, such long professional development programs for teachers are not currently available in KSA. The majority of the training and development programs for science and math teachers in KSA are too short and do not take more than one week. Our point from this study was to try to identify the impact of pre-designed and organized short or one-shot program in some factors, which can impact science and mathematics teacher's professional development. Among those factors are teachers' attitudes about topics covered by professional development programs. No doubt that attitude has an impact on teacher behavior and development, as they may improve science and mathematics teachers ' teaching practice.
Following are some implications that can be drawn from the present study: • Engaging teachers in integrated STEM professional development may improve their attitudes toward and increase their interest in teaching this approach.
• Students will be able to transfer the knowledge and skills they learn in the STEM context into action and hence will be able to solve the problems facing them.
• There is a greater demand to change teachers' skills and attitudes through preparation programs to encourage them to be more attentive and responsive to fast-changing education trends, including the current focus on teaching interdisciplinary subjects.
Based on the results of the study, we offer the following recommendations: • Future PD programs should focus on training science and mathematics teachers who specialize in all fields of science and mathematics to teach integrated STEM subjects.
• These PD programs should be continuous throughout the year rather than brief sessions, as brief sessions proved to be less effective in changing teachers' attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM curriculum.
• These PD programs should be held in schools so that all science and mathematics teachers, rather than a limited number of teachers, can participate in the programs. Problem-centered learning I think teachers find it difficult to use complex tasks with multiple solutions.
Inquiry-based learning I think teachers find it hard to teach a class in which students execute experiments.
Design-based learning I think teachers find it hard to teach a class in which students are involved in design.
Cooperative learning I think teachers find it hard to ensure that all students are actively involved in group work.
Theme 2: Perceived relevance Integration of STEM content Linking technological, mathematical & scientific concepts increases students' understanding.
Problem-centered learning Involving students in real-life challenges gives them a better understanding of the relevance of STEM.
Inquiry-based learning Students gain insight by doing experiments.
Design-based learning Designing helps students to develop their reasoning skills.
Cooperative learning Students acquire social skills by working in groups.
Theme 3: Anxiety Integration of STEM content I find it stressful to align the content of my course with that of other STEM courses.
Problem-centered learning I find it stressful to use complex tasks with multiple solutions.
Inquiry-based learning I find it stressful to teach a class in which students execute experiments.
Design-based learning I find it stressful to teach a class in which students are involved in design.
Cooperative learning I find it stressful to ensure that all students are actively involved in group work.
(Continued) Problem-centered learning I like using complex tasks with multiple solutions.
Inquiry-based learning I like teaching a class in which students execute experiments.
Design-based learning I like teaching a class in which students are involved in design.
Cooperative learning I like ensuring that all students are actively involved in group work.
Theme 5: Self-efficacy Integration of STEM content I feel capable of aligning the content of my course with that of other STEM courses.
Problem-centered learning I feel capable of using complex tasks with multiple solutions.
Inquiry-based learning I feel capable of teaching a lesson in which students execute experiments.
Design-based learning I feel capable of teaching a class in which students are involved in design.
Cooperative learning I feel capable of ensuring that all students are actively involved in group work.