ICT Devices and STEM Education to Develop Problem-Solving Skills in Engineering Students

Problem-solving is a crucial skill for engineering students, yet traditional instructional methods often fall short in effectively fostering it. This study proposes a STEMintegrated educational strategy that leverages Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools and technology-based classroom projects to strengthen problem-solving skills in first-year systems engineering students. The methodology follows a quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-test evaluations conducted on 34 students from a public university in Peru. Projects were developed using Arduinobased hardware, sensors, and block-based programming (mBlock) to address real-world problems. Quantitative results show statistically significant improvements (p < 0.05) across all dimensions of problem-solving: understanding the problem, planning, implementation, and solution review. The most notable gains were observed in problem understanding and solution review. These findings underscore the effectiveness of STEM-integrated, ICT-supported interventions in developing problem-solving competencies, and have pedagogical implications for courses such as formative research, ICT, and project-based learning in engineering education.