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Is Science Me? Exploring Middle School Students’ STE-M Career Aspirations
Abstract
This study explores middle school students' aspirations in science, technology, engineering, and medical (STE-M) careers by analyzing survey data during their eighth and ninth grade years from an ethnically and economically diverse sample of Southern California urban and suburban public school students (n = 493). Students were classified based on their responses to questions about their science ability beliefs and subjective task values using latent class analysis (LCA). Four distinct groups of students were identified: Science is Me; I Value Science But Don't Do It Well; I Can Do Science but I Don't Value It Highly; and Science is Not Me. Few students (22 %) were classified as having strong science ability beliefs, and only a third as strongly valuing learning/doing science; a majority (57 %) were in the Science is Not Me category, underscoring the scope of the challenge to invite more young people to want to learn science. As predicted, students who believed they could do science and valued science were more likely than others to indicate interest in STE-M careers. This relationship between perceptions and aspirations was true regardless of gender, ethnicity, and type of STE-M field, but varied depending on socioeconomic status. Using LCA to organize information about students' science self-perceptions may help target specific interventions to student interests and aspirations and better support and encourage their persistence in STE-M careers.
... Caspi and colleagues (2019) found high correlations between nineth graders' self-efficacy, attainment value, intrinsic value, utility value, and relative cost in terms of picking STEM disciplines in high school. In much of the empirical research on task values, the three subconstructs of task values (intrinsic, utility, and attainment) have not been measured separately (e.g., Aschbacher et al., 2014;Bong, 2001;Neuville et al., 2007;Perez et al., 2014). This is perhaps because intrinsic, utility, and attainment value are sometimes positively correlated with each other (e.g., Beier et al., 2019), and attainment value and intrinsic value are often highly correlated (Hulleman et al., 2008;Trautwein et al., 2012). ...
... For instance, although the value variables were related, they did not always occur at the same levels. However, many studies have treated the three value subconstructs as a composite variable (e.g., Aschbacher et al., 2014;Chow et al., 2012;Dang & Nylund-Gibson, 2017) or even combined expectancy and value as a single motivational variable (e.g., Gaspard et al., 2019). Extant research also recognized the importance of using a person-oriented approach to investigate how math and science motivation relate to STEM career aspirations STEM major choice. ...
... However, it must be noted that even though there is variation in their expectancy and value levels, one still needs to have all of them on a relatively high level to be more likely to choose STEM careers. This has been shown by previous research findings with person-centered approaches (e.g., Aschbacher et al., 2014;Lazarides et al., 2020) and variable-centered approaches (e.g., Trautwein et al., 2012). ...
Motivation to study mathematics and science is an important influencing factor of career aspirations in STEM fields which predicts STEM major choice in college and STEM careers after graduation. Using restricted data from a nationally representative sample HSLS:09, the current study identified U.S. high school students’ motivation profiles in mathematics and science courses in 9th and 11th grade, examined the stability of these profiles across the two time points, and studied the association between 11th grade motivation profiles and STEM career aspirations. Differences between male and female students in motivation profiles, profile stability and career aspirations were examined. The stability of STEM career aspirations between 9th grade and 11th grade and the consistency between 11th grade STEM career aspirations and STEM major choice in college were also investigated. Latent profile analysis revealed four distinct motivation profiles at both time points. Latent transition analysis found substantial stability in profiles: participants were most likely to stay in their original profiles than transition to another profile. Students in the High All profile in 11th grade were more likely to aspire for STEM careers and health occupations than those in other profiles. Students in the Higher Science profile were more likely to aspire for health occupations than those in the Higher Math profile. There were significant differences between male and female students in profile membership, transition probability, and STEM career aspirations. In general, male students were more likely to be in latent profiles characterized by higher math and science motivation and aspire for traditional STEM careers. Female students were more likely to be in profiles characterized by lower motivation and aspire for health occupations. Career aspirations remained relatively stable from 9th grade to 11th grade. About 70% of students had the same career aspirations in 11th grade as in 9th grade. About 62.5 % of the participants’ first major in college was consistent with their career aspirations in 11th grade. Implications of these results for research and interventions on math and science motivation and STEM career aspirations are discussed.
... It is well established that there is a strong relationship between students' perceptions of themselves as professionals in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and their career interest [7,9,58,93], indicating the importance of developing young peoples' attitudes and interests early on. Furthermore, student interest is a key predictor of persistence and achievement 29:2 S. R. Jacob et al. [59]. ...
... Kang et al. [69] underscore the influence of students' personal and family backgrounds on disciplinary identification. Family factors, especially parental support, represents a key factor contributing to disciplinary identification [6,7,93,97,115,116,130] The survey item with one of the largest increases was "I talk with friends and family about CS. " These dis- cussions provided multiple opportunities for children to perceive their families showing their support for CS and becoming more involved in their childrens' learning. Three major themes emerged from the analysis of parental involvement, which were rooted in their positive perceptions towards CS, strong interests in CS, and viewing and creating work with their children. ...
... Findings from this study suggest that multilingual students' discussions of CS with family and friends helped to normalize it and contributed to greater identification with the field [65]. While family and community engagement are critical to providing responsive CS education [6,7,93,97,115,116,130], the current focus on testing, which constrains other disciplines such as math and science, leaves little time for CS learning and fails to account for the sociocultural processes that underlie multilingual student identity development. Sharing projects with family and friends has had the reciprocal advantage of shaping how students perceive being seen by members of their households and communities, namely, as having CS expertise. ...
Developing student interest is critical to supporting student learning in computer science. Research indicates that student interest is a key predictor of persistence and achievement. While there is a growing body of work on developing computing identities for diverse students, little research focuses on early exposure to develop multilingual students’ interest in computing. These students represent one of the fastest growing populations in the US, yet they are dramatically underrepresented in computer science education. This study examines identity development of upper elementary multilingual students as they engage in a year-long computational thinking curriculum, and follows their engagement across multiple settings (i.e., school, club, home, community). Findings from pre- and -post surveys of identity showed significant differences favoring students’ experiences with computer science, their perceptions of computer science, their perceptions of themselves as computer scientists, and their family support for computer science. Findings from follow-up interviews and prior research suggest that tailored instruction provides opportunities for connections to out-of-school learning environments with friends and family that may shift students’ perceptions of their abilities to pursue computer science and persist when encountering challenges.
... Research also suggests that a contributing factor to this decline in the construction workforce is the low level of attraction among the younger generation [4]. A poll of young adults (ages [18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] found that only 3% considered a career in the construction industry as a desirable career path [5]. This low level of attraction amongst the youth impacts the construction industry's current state [6]. ...
... Studies found that if a middle school student indicated an interest in a STEM field, 66% of them are more likely to achieve a STEM field degree during their college education [19]. Students make choices during middle school years, such as what courses to enroll in, impacting future career aspirations [20]. Also, middle school students make choices that can affect future career and education opportunities [21], emphasizing the need to understand the middle school curriculum. ...
... High school students' CTE course choices can impact the unemployment and underemployment rate of the future workforce. [20]. ...
... This is based on the work of Hernandez et al. [14]. Additionally, since participation in the camps was voluntary, on average it was expected that participants came to the camp with an interest in science as observed by Aschbacher, Ing, & Tsai [15]. An examination of the students that came with low interest in science gave a more accurate indication of the success of the camp in improving interest in STEM. ...
... The nature of this research involved students who volunteered to participate, which explains their high initial interest in STEM [15]. Additionally, the GEAR UP program targets students from low-income families. ...
... However, working closely with parents, teachers and students can aid in finding out which students have low interest and to try to recruit those students to attend these camps. Students starting with low interest having significant gains compared to their peers who started with high interest is similar to the findings by [15]. ...
... Science identity is dynamic, and student trajectories may shift directions over time depending on students' lived experiences and social interactions with others [30][31][32][33]. Identity begets identity, as students with a high science identity are more likely to make decisions that validate that identity [34]. ...
... Our model cycles, as students continue to engage with new experiences they have the opportunity to synthesize these new experience with past experiences (Fig 5F cycles back to Fig 5B). This agrees with science identity being dynamic, with student trajectories shifting directions over time depending on students' lived experiences and social interactions with others [30][31][32][33]. ...
Improving the rate at which individuals enter into STEM careers remains a national concern. STEM fields are currently facing a crisis with respect to filling jobs with qualified workers, suggesting that STEM jobs are available yet remain open and waiting for qualified graduates. Although researchers have previously investigated variables such as demographics and attrition rates for the lack of STEM graduates available to fill these job vacancies, there is a critical need for additional research examining the impact of additional career-related variables. To explore the impact of a biology-focused career development course (CDC), we surveyed 277 biology majors in their final semester who participated in the CDC. Respondents were asked to describe their perceptions of the professional development modules contained within the CDC and to describe what they would have done differently had the CDC been available earlier in their academic career. We grounded data analysis in science and biology identity frameworks. In agreement with earlier identity studies, we found that engagement with the CDC enhanced student's performance/competence in biology and recognition as a biologist, two factors that are important for identity formation. Additionally, we show that students prefer to have the CDC earlier in their academic careers. Collectively, our data advance our understanding of career development of biology majors in two novel ways. First, we provide much needed qualitative data highlighting the mechanisms underlying the biology-focused CDC. Second, we provide both quantitative and qualitative data focused on the timing of the CDC, a topic which has not yet been purposely explored in biology.
... As a result, a study of elementary school students' science career interests is needed (Miller 2021;Tai et al. 2006). Research indicates that students who express an early interest in science are more likely to pursue science-related studies (Maltese and Tai 2011), with competence beliefs and valuing what they study being important factors in the development of their aspirations (Aschbacher, Ing, and Tsai 2014). To the best of the author's knowledge, research has largely overlooked such an endeavour in low elementary grades, with few exceptions (Toma and Meneses-Villagrá 2019b), and the beginnings of gendered pathways (i.e. ...
... Given that slightly more girls than boys were grouped in the 'disinterest' cluster, these results suggest their attitudes in terms of intentions to further enrol in science, enjoyableness, usefulness, and perceived relevance of school science are compromised even from the elementary levels of the education system. These findings are significant because the literature suggests that attitudes play an important role in academic and career choices (Aschbacher, Ing, and Tsai 2014;Reilly, Neumann, and Andrews 2019;Sikora 2014). Thus, if girls develop a negative attitude towards school science as early as elementary school, this will influence future subject choices, hence leading to an educational pathway away from science-related studies. ...
Despite improvements in female science enrolment, the gender gap remains in some disciplines. This study examines whether elementary school students (N = 1012, third to sixth graders) display gender-stereotypical interest in learning biology and physics content and how this affects their attitudes towards school science. K-means cluster analysis revealed four interest profiles that resemble career enrolment patterns, with slightly more girls in profiles of high interest in biology over physics (biology interest) and low interest in both disciplines (disinterested), and more boys in high interest in physics over biology (physics interest) and high interest in both disciplines (interested). Students in the interested profile had more positive attitudes towards school science than those in the other profiles. These findings suggest gender segregation in science may be shaped before students make career decisions, calling for attitude-based, gender-inclusive educational interventions from elementary grades.
... For the 2018 camp, the number of participating students was 44 and the number of teachers was also 10. This paper builds on the work of researchers who had presented results from a previous year of the program [6]. ...
... The nature of this research involved students who volunteered to participate, which explains their high initial interest in STEM [10]. Additionally, the GEAR UP program targets students from low-income families. ...
... For example, studies examined the impact of student-level factors on having STEM-related careers by looking at race (Charleston 2012), gender (Olitsky 2014;Stout et al. 2016), grade level (Yerdelen et al. 2016), and socioeconomic level (Dickerson et al. 2014). Other studies have examined student motivation (Aschbacher et al. 2014), ability beliefs (Moakler and Kim 2014), and interest (Nugent et al. 2015;Van Tuijl and Van der Molen 2016). In contrast, researchers considering the influence of contextual factors on choosing STEM-related careers have focused on school differences (Bahar and Adiguzel 2016), STEM-specific programming (Hiller and Kitsantas 2014), and the effects of school type (e.g., private vs. public) and urbanicity (e.g., urban vs. rural) on student interest in STEM-related careers (Wang and Degol 2013). ...
... The results of the study demonstrated that students had positive perceptions about having a STEM career, which did not differ across gender and grade level. Aschbacher et al. (2014) explored middle school students' aspirations in STEM careers by analyzing survey data from 493 ethnically and economically diverse students in Southern California. Students who believed they could do science and valued science were more likely than others to indicate their interest in STEM careers. ...
Despite great institutional efforts to recruit students, including those from underrepresented groups, into the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) pipeline, the number of students choosing STEM-related careers remains low. Using data from the Educational Longitudinal Study, we estimated a two-level model of high school sophomores’ choice of STEM-related careers with gender, math self-efficacy, socioeconomic status (SES), school type, and urbanicity as predictors. Our findings show that notwithstanding the obvious private school advantage for attaining a STEM career, attainment is still lower for female students with high math self-efficacy. The gender gap persists among private and public schools regardless of students’ math self-efficacy level. Students are significantly more likely to choose a STEM-related career if they are male in a private school with high SES and math self-efficacy. School urbanicity is also a significant predictor for students having a STEM-related career. We discuss this study’s implications and future research directions.
... Multiple factors can impact this: the prevalence of stereotypical social views of science and scientists, experience with STEM subjects, and more importantly, science capital (Archer & DeWitt, 2017;Archer et al., 2015). A concept of science capital (Archer et al., 2015) has shown that children's backgrounds such as class, gender and race impact crucially on children's STEM aspirations (Aschbacher, Ing & Tsai, 2014;Archer & DeWitt, 2017;Mujtaba, Sheldrake & Reiss, 2020), and young people from rural areas may perceive more obstacles to obtain STEM education. On the contrary, persons with a family background or acquaintances in STEM professions, or experiences with STEM themes are more likely to choose the field. ...
The main objective of this paper is to highlight the potential impact of transport
disadvantage on young people in rural areas, focusing on rural NEETs. Lika in Croatia is used as a case study. Mobility and accessibility to various activities and services are very important segments in people's lives. People's mobility and accessibility to activities and services are also influenced by the characteristics of the area in which they live (the extent of transport services available in that area and the extent of activities' locations that people want to access) (Hurni, 2006). These factors can lead to transport disadvantage. Rural areas are severely affected by transport problems. This is due to physical and social heterogeneity, low population density and small numbers of inhabitants. Certain areas (e.g. urban or rural areas) may be disadvantaged by transport. Low frequency of public transport or its complete absence, inadequate roads, lack of sidewalks or lighting are just some of the reasons that make one area worse off compared to another (Murray & Davis, 2001). The main components of transport disadvantage are mobility and accessibility (Kamruzzaman & Hine, 2011). Mobility is a fundamental and important feature of human activity as it fulfils the basic need to get from one place to another in order to participate in employment, kinship and education. Thus, mobility enables social, cultural, political, and economic activities to take place with relative ease (Gasparovic & Prieto Flores, 2021). Accessibility is parameter which is crucial part of the function of determining transport disadvantaged space. It is also the most important spatial factor influencing the development and use of public transport (Bole, 2004; Kozina, 2010). Assuming that public transport is a service that should be available to everyone, the simplest approach to exploring transport disadvantaged spaces is the relationship between the space and the public transport system. Some authors (Murray & Davis, 2001; Hurni, 2007) defined transport disadvantaged spaces as areas where public transport is unavailable or very limited. People's mobility can be affected by the fact that public transport is not available in a given area or runs infrequently, that a person cannot afford transport, that the place of residence is unfavourable in terms of transport and desired activities, and so on. Public transport is used by different social groups for different reasons, so this paper is based on the interrelation between space and the public transport system. Public transport is a particular problem in rural areas. It is often characterised by lower levels of development, low frequency, inadequate timetables, distant stops, etc. (Fawcet, 2009; Knowles et al., 2010). Such problems affect all users of public transport, including young people, with the problem being particularly evident for rural NEETs. In addition, public transport problems could lead to a greater need for personal transport, leading to disadvantage and exclusion of those unable to drive a car, with young people being particularly vulnerable (Gasparovic, 2016). Lika is a rural region in the mountainous part of Croatia, characterised by depopulation and a small population. The methodology of the article is primarily based on the GIS tools and the spatial analysis of public transport and its timetables. The research shows that Lika is characterised by a poorly developed and spatially poorly distributed public transport network. This shows how poorly public transport connectivity negatively affects young people's daily lives and directly influences their mobility and accessibility to various life services, which can also be considered under the broader aspect of the social and economic pillars of sustainability
... Multiple factors can impact this: the prevalence of stereotypical social views of science and scientists, experience with STEM subjects, and more importantly, science capital (Archer & DeWitt, 2017;Archer et al., 2015). A concept of science capital (Archer et al., 2015) has shown that children's backgrounds such as class, gender and race impact crucially on children's STEM aspirations (Aschbacher, Ing & Tsai, 2014;Archer & DeWitt, 2017;Mujtaba, Sheldrake & Reiss, 2020), and young people from rural areas may perceive more obstacles to obtain STEM education. On the contrary, persons with a family background or acquaintances in STEM professions, or experiences with STEM themes are more likely to choose the field. ...
Food security in Algeria depends very closely on the foreign market. The Covid-19 crisis has brought to light the extroversion of the Algerian food system, with all the resulting risks, and reminds the need for a redeployment of efforts with a view to setting up a vigorous approach of food security. The national data show that the unemployment rates among young people are alarming: 31.1% (2005), 21.3% (2009), and 26.9% (2019). In the rural areas, the problem is more important and increases the internal migration toward cities. A category strongly impacted by unemployment is the category of young people aged 16 to 24 who are three times more likely than adults to be out of work, due to the difficulties they encounter in entering the labour market, closely linked to the question of the adequacy between training and employment and the employability of young graduates.
In this sense, agriculture occupies an important place within the Algerian national economy as well as in the development of its rural territories, with just over 12% of non-hydrocarbon GDP, just over 20% of the active population, and 70% of the national value of food consumption. The rapid urbanisation (70% of the total population in 2020 against 30% in 1970s) raises the issues of food availability, rural development, resilience, and rural poverty. Agricultural/rural dualism is apparent in the public policies ignoring, in fact, the others rural population aspirations (culture, sport …). The rural entrepreneurship concept is less known in Algeria and is not taken into account in the nomenclature of public policies.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the different on-going public programs targeting the rural youth entrepreneurship in relation with the national food security objective and to propose new policy implications in order to enhance the public intervention regarding the rural youth population.
... Multiple factors can impact this: the prevalence of stereotypical social views of science and scientists, experience with STEM subjects, and more importantly, science capital (Archer & DeWitt, 2017;Archer et al., 2015). A concept of science capital (Archer et al., 2015) has shown that children's backgrounds such as class, gender and race impact crucially on children's STEM aspirations (Aschbacher, Ing & Tsai, 2014;Archer & DeWitt, 2017;Mujtaba, Sheldrake & Reiss, 2020), and young people from rural areas may perceive more obstacles to obtain STEM education. On the contrary, persons with a family background or acquaintances in STEM professions, or experiences with STEM themes are more likely to choose the field. ...
Rural society is facing numerous difficulties in the form of poverty, social exclusion, low level of education, etc. (Salamońska & Czeranowska, 2019; FAO, 2022). Youth are especially adversely affected by this situation. Setting up one's own business is crucial because they can produce and sell their agricultural products in rural areas. Sustainable business approach with farm and rural entrepreneurship are a key issue in rural areas to alleviate rural poverty (Naminse & Zhuang, 2018), but rural youth do not want to be involved and work in agricultural, forestry and even fishery activities. This is an important obstacle in sustainable rural development and development of new initiatives and approaches needed for rural youth not employed, nor in education or training (NEETs).
Most rural societies in developing countries struggle with both poverty and low levels of education (Salamońska & Czeranowska, 2019; FAO, 2022). Rural development can be explained as increasing production, income and welfare levels, eliminating imbalances, establishing physical and social infrastructure similar to urban areas, processes, activities and organizations in order to improve the socio-economic and cultural aspects of people living in rural areas and to evaluate agricultural products and initiatives (Nejadrezaei & Ben-Othmen, 2019). Rural development aims to minimize the socio-cultural and economic development difference between the city and the countryside by using rural resources effectively, increasing employment opportunities in rural areas, preventing
migration to the city and raising living standards (Kennedy et al., 2001; Dorobantu &
Nistoreanu, 2012). Within the scope of rural development activities, the target group consists of young people living in rural areas.
Despite the fact that the NEET concept has different definitions according to age groups there are common features on these vulnerable young people. The widest age group range is 15-34 in the NEET based on Eurostat description (Eurostat, 2020). OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) defines the NEET aged 15-29. The main aim of this paper is to define rural NEET’s current situation, describe their skills development opportunities through entrepreneurship and new initiatives in the rural areas. The paper also aims to reveal new and convenient initiatives by analyzing the scientific papers. This paper especially aimed to emphasize the importance of adaptation of rural youth to digital and technologic innovations in terms of eco-entrepreneurship approaches.
Entrepreneurship can be defined as the creation or extraction of economic value
(Gaddefors & Anderson, 2017). Entrepreneurship concept widely covers the
establishment of a new business, bringing together the production factors properly,
undertaking financial, psychological and social risks. Establishing new job opportunities and initiatives are crucial to increase rural inhabitants' welfare. This vulnerable group needs investments from both the public and private sector. On the other hand, urban society has increased environmental concerns. We described the rural NEETs basics required through content analysis and document analysis in this paper (Kuckartz, 2014; Riffe et al., 2014; Erdoğan et al., 2022). The Web of Science (WoS) database was used to collect related studies on rural NEET and entrepreneurship. We applied web based search including these keywords: “rural + NEET, NEET + entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship + cooperative”. We found over 150.000 articles related to the mentioned keywords. After the first examination we decided to reduce highly related according to the highest cited
articles to apply content analysis. After the content analysis we continued to categorize topics through document analysis.
According to both content and document analysis results, new training platforms were identified, using technology and social media, including environmentally friendly practices that can create opportunities to start an enterprise and increase motivation of youth in rural areas. Interactive learning programs and entrepreneurship courses can be effective for the potential young entrepreneurs with the application of good practices in rural areas. Based on identified results in this paper, we propose a “Rural Youth Cooperative” that could be a good initiative and eco-entrepreneurship model for rural youth. In addition, it is aimed to develop support mechanisms that will contribute to the employment of young people in the NEET group and to develop various proposals for the employment of these young people in existing cooperatives. Because rural areas are still importantly connected to agriculture, forestry (especially non-wood forest products), and ecotourism activities. This policy implementation can also be a pioneer for the other nature-based solutions for instance to establish a new eco-entrepreneurship ecosystem
and sustainable rural marketing strategy. Another suggestion could be enhancement of youth in the current rural cooperative and financial support by local governments to improve capacity building and co-creation for the rural NEETs.
... No indica No indica IRIS-Q Por su parte, la variable Expectativas de resultado ha sido explorada con más amplitud; en la revisión de literatura se ubicaron 16 instrumentos que miden dicha variable en jóvenes estudiantes relacionados con las disciplinas STEM, sin embargo, algunos de ellos se enfocan a poblaciones diferentes a la que este estudio interesa (Chemers et al., 2011;Mitchell, 2016;Robnett y Thoman, 2017;Vázquez y Manassero, 2015;Vogel, 2016) y en otros más no se presentan los suficientes datos para evaluar las características psicométricas (Aschbacher et al., 2014;Aschbacher et al.,2010;Hillman et al., 2016;Kier et al., 2014;Means et al., 2017), por lo que el análisis se centró en seis instrumentos (ver Tabla 2). ...
Identificar los factores que influyen en la elección de carrera de los jóvenes mexicanos resulta fundamental para generar estrategias que permitan atraer nuevos estudiantes al área de ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas (STEM, por sus siglas en inglés). El objetivo del estudio fue desarrollar y verificar las propiedades psicométricas (fiabilidad y validez de constructo) para las escalas Apoyo de pares estudiantiles (APE-STEM) y Expectativas de resultado (EXREC-STEM) en la elección de carreras universitarias STEM en estudiantes de nivel medio superior, generando un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales. Las escalas (tipo Likert) se aplicaron a 167 estudiantes de instituciones rurales y urbanas del sureste mexicano: los resultados de los análisis factoriales, exploratorio y confirmatorio muestran un adecuado ajuste, además de una consistencia interna de α = .82 y .84, confirmándose la solidez empírica del modelo, por lo que se concluye que las escalas son altamente confiables para su utilización en este contexto.
... Career expectations are a person's stated career-related choices or goals (Rojewski, 2005). Career development theorists and researchers have suggested that, although they reflect aspirations more than realities, students' career expectations at age 15 are relatively stable and a significant predictor of their later actual career choices (Archer et al., 2020;Aschbacher & Tsai, 2014;Lent et al., 1994;Sadler et al., 2012;Tai et al., 2006). Bandura et al. (2001) concluded that the ages between 10 and 14 are critical for students to consider and prepare for their future occupations. ...
In response to growing concerns about adolescents’ low expectations for science-related careers, this study explores the mechanisms of the ternary associations among science learning experiences, science-related attitudes and beliefs, and science-related career expectations, involving a sample of 9841 15-year-old students from four Chinese provinces (Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Guangdong) who took part in the sixth cycle of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). The results of the path analysis reveal that (i) both formal and informal learning experiences had positive relationships with science-related attitudes and beliefs; (ii) enjoyment of science, science self-efficacy, science outcome expectations, and epistemological beliefs about science had positive effects on career expectations; (iii) inquiry-based learning experiences were negatively associated with career expectations, although the direct association was suppressed by enjoyment of science, science self-efficacy, and science outcome expectations; (iv) teacher-directed science learning experiences had a positive impact on career expectations, fully mediated by enjoyment of science, epistemological beliefs about science, and science outcome expectations; and (v) all four science-related attitudes and beliefs played full mediating roles in the relationship between informal science learning experiences and career expectations.
... To understand complexities in engagement with learning and longer-term participation patterns in science pathways, there has been for the last two decades increasing interest in exploring students' identity in relation to science and science learning. A range of studies have shown that science identity plays a significant role in students' persistence in learning science subjects and their selection of science careers (Aschbacher et al. 2014;Hazari et al. 2010). The identity construct goes beyond considerations of short-term attitudes and affective responses to classroom events, to frame engagement with science and longer-term aspirations in terms of selfprocesses that are bounded by social structures and interactions with others that shape the organisation and content of self. ...
... The educational implications of this body of research are significant. Students' interest in a science career has been steadily declining over the last decade (Aschbacher et al., 2014;Gottlieb, 2018;Liou, 2021;Newell et al., 2015;Tytler, 2014;Tytler & Osborne, 2012). This waning interest is highly concerning given the concomitant need for a specialised scientific workforce (Bybee, 2010;Gago et al., 2004;Tanenbaum, 2016). ...
A growing body of research addresses students’ images of scientists using the Draw-a-Scientist-Test (DAST) and its Checklist (DAST-C). These protocols rest on the assumption that stereotypical views of scientists, as identified by the presence of multiple indicators in student drawings (e.g. lab coat, male gender; eyeglasses; facial hair), may affect science career interest. Yet, such an assumption remains unexplored. This study investigated whether stereotyped images of scientists identified by the DAST and DAST-C predicted and affected students’ science career interests. A total of 1799 students in grades 3, 6, 9, and 11 in Colombia drew a picture of a scientist at work and reported their interest in a scientific career. Contrary to theoretical expectations, neither the original seven DAST stereotypical indicators nor the eight alternative DAST-C indicators predicted students’ science career interests. Similarly, drawings of male or female scientists had no predictive power of students’ science career interest. On the contrary, students interested in a science career drew significantly more stereotyped indicators than their counterparts with low interest. This study failed to find evidence supporting the contention of DAST and DAST-C protocols, and raises questions about their validity in identifying stereotipical images of scientists.
... Furthermore, 28 students from across the three chemistry classrooms were interviewed at the end of the year to gain the perspectives about the inclusive units from the students who experienced them. Of those interviewed, 18 students in the fall had completed a science identity survey "Is Science Me?" (ISME), an empirically validated questionnaire used to measure high schoolers' science identity (Aschbacher et al, 2014;Aschbacher et al, 2010;Gilmartin, Li, Aschbacher & McPhee, 2006). ...
... The lack of positivity in the boys and positivity in the girls may indicate a mismatch in career aspiration and a developing personal identity in both the boys and girls or it may indicate that girls make decisions about careers later than boys; which then appear resistant to change (Finlayson & Roach, 2007;Moote et al., 2020;Zubair & Nasir, 2011). The lack of a strong correlation between the pupils' liking of science maths and design and technology appear to be counter to the research in secondary/high school that indicates that positive attitudes to science and maths as one indicator, along with other factors , of considering engineering careers (Aschbacher et al., 2014). It may be that younger pupils have unformed ideas about the nature of engineering as a career or have had less time to gain science capital. ...
Across Europe, there is concern about the number and diversity of pupils taking study routes leading to Engineering. There is growing evidence that these career choices begin to form at elementary school age (Moote et al., 2020). Science, maths and design and technology are seen as subject choices necessary for pupils’ progression into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) related occupations. Achievement in these subjects, identity, gender attitudes to the subjects, parents and informal activities may have an impact on these career choices. This mixed methods research draws on participants in the Children as Engineers project to investigate aspirations to a career in engineering and the links between these aspirations and attitudes to STEM subjects. It explores findings that suggest that there is little relationship between aspirations and positive attitudes to individual curriculum subjects. Pupils’ out-of-school activities and the links to aspirations in engineering are also researched and discussed. The article discusses the pupils’ rationales for these choices and the implications for intervention and informal engineering experiences that rely on a science and maths context for elementary school activities and for fostering interest in engineering.
... Furthermore, teachers at early levels are bound by curricular constraints that prioritize literacy and mathematics [43]. As such, Aschbacher, Ing, and Tsai [44] as well as others (e.g., Ref. [10]) suggest turning to informal experiences as a way of enhancing students' scientific interests, knowledge, and skills. In terms of interest, ISE experiences have been found to be critical for the development of students' current and future interest in STEM, as well as their subsequent STEM identity development [6,7,13,17,33,45,46]. ...
Both in physics education and in science education more generally concerns exist that formal K-12 education structures limit and, in some cases, diminish students’ interest and agency in these fields. Many stakeholders have turned to informal learning experiences as a means to inspire young people to pursue continual learning in these fields in ways that foster creativity and self-determination. While research exists on the effect of these informal science experiences on students’ science identities and broader science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) identities, little is known about how specific informal science education experiences relate to students’ physics identity—a construct strongly associated with physics career choice. The current study contributes to the literature by examining the effect of several informal science experiences on students’ physics identity. Drawing on data from a national survey administered to students in required English courses at 27 colleges and universities across the US (N=15 847), we used multiple regression to test the relationship between informal science experiences in various topical areas at two educational levels (K-8 and 9–12) and students’ physics identity, while controlling for science background and demographics. The results reveal positive effects for stereotypic informal experiences in physical science (e.g., tinkering, competitions) as well as for talking science with friends or family. In addition, there were negative relationships between biology-related experiences (at both levels) and physics identity. Group comparisons further revealed that female students were more likely to report participating in biology-related activities and less likely to report participating in tinkering, STEM competitions, and talking science with friends or family. Students who identified themselves as Black or Hispanic were also less likely than those of other racial or ethnic groups to report tinkering and talking science with friends or family. We use this evidence to build the case that informal learning experiences in physics should move beyond stereotypic activities, increase accessibility, facilitate discourse with family or friends, and focus on interdisciplinary experiences that better engage young participants with a wide range of interests that are connected to physics.
... It also allowed teachers to see how students refined their ideas in response to teacher guidance. Providing personalized and timely guidance was particularly salient for affirming students' identities as science learners during a time when much of students' school experience was occurring in isolation (Aschbacher et al., 2014). A second teaching practice was leveraging the web-based authoring system of the OER to customize the curriculum content. ...
Prompted by the sudden shift to remote instruction in March 2020 brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, teachers explored online resources to support their students learning from home. We report on how twelve teachers identified and creatively leveraged open educational resources (OERs) and practices to facilitate self-directed science learning. Based on interviews and logged data, we illustrate how teachers’ use of OER starkly differed from the typical uses of technology for transmitting information or increasing productivity. These experiences provide insights into ways teachers and professional developers can take advantage of OER to promote self-directed learning when in-person instruction resumes.
... The academic experiences of students before college often influence their career aspirations and how they make choices to reach these goals (Aschbacher et al. 2014;Ashford et al. 2016). High school academic course selection is an important consideration in engineering admissions, since post-secondary success in engineering study has often been linked to precollege course preparation in advanced mathematics and science (May and Chubin 2003;Tyson 2011). ...
Background
With widespread adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in the USA (US), research is needed on how secondary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers conceptualize the integration of engineering knowledge and practices in traditional STEM classrooms. The present study explored the affective impacts of participation in an engineering education workshop for secondary STEM teachers as part of a 200-h professional development program. The workshop focused on the implementation of electrical engineering and biotechnology principles and design practices in disciplinary instruction, as well as training teachers to differentiate among engineering fields and advise on career pathways. The conceptual framework for the workshop design was based upon elements of the interconnected model of professional growth to identify influences contributing to engineering pedagogical self-efficacy and career awareness.
Results
The overarching research questions addressed how professional development in engineering education affected secondary STEM teachers’ beliefs about the value of using engineering design to support learning, their self-efficacy regarding teaching engineering in their courses, perceived obstacles to effective STEM integration, and their confidence advising students about engineering post-secondary study and careers. The convergent parallel mixed methods design involved factor analysis, comparisons of means, and phenomenology with elements of grounded theory. The survey sample included 60 STEM teachers in the treatment group and 28 teachers in the control group. Six science teachers participated in interviews before and after the engineering workshops. Findings indicated that participating teachers significantly improved their confidence in engineering pedagogy, as well as their knowledge of engineering careers and precollege preparation for post-secondary engineering. Teachers expressed their views of engineering as a potentially powerful tool in developing students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills, particularly when integrating the practices of science and engineering with the instruction of disciplinary content.
Conclusions
The results from this study demonstrate that a university-based professional development workshop series, developed by engineering and science education faculty, is an effective first-step intervention to improve the engineering knowledge and skills of secondary STEM educators, ultimately facilitating NGSS adoption in classroom instruction. Educating teachers on engineering career pathways is another innovation for the promotion of more diverse participation in engineering fields.
... This finding of parents influencing motivation to pursue STEM learning is similar to that of prior research on the influence of family on STEM learning outside of school (Archer et al., 2012;Archer et al., 2010;Aschbacher, Ing, & Tsai, 2014;Corin, Jones, Andre, & Childers, 2018;Maltese, Melki, & Wiebke, 2014). Although family members (parents, siblings, and grandparents) are external to the students' real-time OST STEM experiences, they still played a major role in the students' initial and continued STEM interests and motivations, which may influence the nature of their OST STEM activity participation. ...
To not only build a knowledgeable, but also a persistent STEM pipeline, it is important to understand how Outside of (regular) School Time (OST) STEM opportunities spur middle school students’ learning, yet also their interests in and motivations for STEM. The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of a small group of independent (private) middle school students’ interest in and motivation for STEM while participating in one or two OST STEM activities (i.e., SeaPerch/robotics, Science Olympiad, Girls Who Code, and/or eCYBERMISSION). Using an illustrative experimental single case study design, data was sourced from observations, a questionnaire, and interviews from 15 independent (private) middle school students participating in one (or two) 13- to 16-week OST STEM activities. Results suggest that sources of student interest and motivation related to OST STEM activities were mostly (representing 30% of data coded) sourced from students’ self-motivation and intrinsic interests in STEM, followed by teachers (20%), the enjoyment of (OST) STEM activities content (20%), family (10%), friends (10%), and other supportive persons and entities (outside of school, family, and friends) (1%). Recommendations for strengthening OST STEM activity participation and outcomes as well as avenues for further research are discussed.
... Youth may determine career paths by the age of 13 (Tai et al., 2006;Bernstein et al., 2019;Shet & Tremblay, 2019). Furthermore, the literature addressing middle school students' engagement and identification with STEM and STEM-related careers indicates that developing STEM-specific individual interest (Staus et al., 2020) and preserving feelings of self-efficacy in STEM during middle school is crucial (Aschbacher et al., 2014;Barmby, Kind, & Jones, 2008;Kang et al., 2019;Haussler & Hoffmann, 2002;Nugent et al., 2015). Partovi (2016) of Code.org ...
Increasing the inclusion of underrepresented individuals in coding is an intractable problem, with a variety of initiatives trying to improve the situation. Many of these initiatives involve STEAM education, which combines the arts with traditional STEM disciplines. Evidence is emerging that this approach is making headway on this complex problem. We present one such initiative, iLumiDance Coding, which attempts to pique the interest and increase confidence of students in coding, by combining it with a fun and physical activity: dance. The connections between dance and coding, while not immediately obvious, are authentic, and we hypothesize that this approach will increase student comfort level with coding. We used student surveys of attitudes toward coding and a variety of statistical approaches to analyze our initiative. Each analysis showed a positive effect on student comfort level with coding. These results are useful for both educators and researchers since they contribute to a deeper understanding of how to increase interest in coding, which we hope will lead to an increase in representation.
... These disparities compound the steady decline in science interest that is typically seen for all students around this period (e.g., Potvin & Hasni, 2014;Vedder-Weiss & Fortus, 2010), leading to particularly low levels of science motivation for low SES adolescents (Aschbacher, Ing, & Tsai, 2014). Because greater interest in science has been shown to predict science identity (Maltese & Tai, 2010) and STEM career choices (Maltese & Tai, 2011), this can have significant implications for low SES students' persistence in STEM. ...
Background
Large achievement and motivation gaps exist in science between students from higher and lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds. Middle and high school are an important time to address these disparities, as science motivation typically declines for all students at this time, leading to particularly low science interest and achievement for lower SES students on average when the gaps are left unaddressed. Students’ control over their free time also increases at this time, providing opportunities for optional science experiences that may improve science attitudes and skills to combat these achievement and motivation gaps. Using a longitudinal dataset of 2252 middle and high school students from two regions in the USA, we investigate (1) disparities between higher and lower SES students in participation in optional summer science experiences and post-summer science attitudes and skills; (2) whether the child and family characteristics that predict participation in home-related, nature-related, and STEM camp experiences in the summer differ for higher and lower SES students; and (3) how participation in these types of optional summer science experiences contribute to post-summer science attitudes and skills when controlling for self-selection biases.
Results
Higher SES students reported greater participation in optional summer science experiences and higher post-summer science attitudes and sensemaking skills. Fascination for science was more important for participation in home-related and nature-related experiences for higher SES participants, whereas science competency beliefs were more important for lower SES participants. For STEM camp experiences, higher SES participants with higher competency beliefs and lower SES participants with lower scientific sensemaking skills were more likely to participate. After controlling for self-selection biases that may influence participation in these experiences, we found that home-related and nature-related experiences had a positive impact on students’ attitudes toward science.
Conclusions
Our findings suggest two pathways for increasing participation in optional summer science experiences for higher SES and lower SES students. Specifically, it may be helpful to support interest in science for higher SES students and competency beliefs for lower SES students. Greater participation in home-related and nature-related summer science experiences can also increase science attitudes during middle and high school.
... The nature of the camps examined in this research is that they attract students who volunteer to participate, which could explain their high initial interest in STEM [11]. Additionally, the GEAR UP program targets students from low-income families. ...
... The researchers conducted interrater reliability checks on the rubric data. After each scorer completed ten projects, interraterreliability ranged from 75% to 80. Finally, this study adapted the "Is Science Me?" [29] survey to computer science to measure student attitudes towards and identification with the field of computer science. ...
Central to the theory of learning are inquiry-based approaches to education. Whereas there is a plethora of research on inquiry learning in the domain of science [19, 20], few studies have analyzed how inquiry-based learning can be applied to computer science education, and how different approaches to inquiry may benefit diverse learners. This is one of the first studies to analyze teacher enactment of inquiry-based learning during the implementation of an upper elementary, computational thinking curriculum, and to explore how teacher approaches to inquiry appear to support or constrain multilingual students' development of computational thinking and computer science identities. Design-based research was used to iteratively develop, test, and refine the inquiry-based curriculum, which aligns with computer science and literacy standards, provides linguistic scaffolding, and integrates culturally responsive materials. We adopt a cross-case mixed-methods design to collect data from five teachers and 149 students including detailed field notes, teacher interviews, student computational artifacts, and student identity surveys. Through analyses of teacher moves, we find that teachers adopt different approaches to inquiry that can be indexed along a continuum ranging from open to closed. Patterns in student data revealed that those who received more structured inquiry lessons developed more sophisticated computational artifacts and showed greater identification with the field of computer science. Findings from this study are being used to add more structured inquiry approaches to the next iteration of our curriculum, including integrating USE/MODIFY/CREATE models into lessons and applying metacognitive strategies from reading research to students' programming activities.
... Similar argument from corporations, preparing qualified candidates to fill in STEM-related jobs such as "software developers, petroleum engineers, data scientists, and those in skilled trades" (Xue & Larson, 2015, p. 12), drive current STEM reform initiatives. Thus, STEM education is an important topic for educational practitioners, policymakers, and researchers, especially in K-12 settings where students' STEM identities are being developed toward consideration for future STEM pathways (Archer et al., 2012;Aschbacher, Ing, & Tsai, 2014). ...
Background
Recent policies have given momentum to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the USA and throughout the world. This has resulted in rapid growth in engineering and STEM curricula, many of which incorporate global contexts to frame student experiences; however, little research has been done on the effects of this contextualization. Thus, it is critical to explore the impact of these curricula on student learning and the development of STEM identities, especially those who have historically been marginalized in STEM fields. The purposes of this study are to critically examine how STEM curriculum helps shape students’ perceptions of the underlying cultural context and suggest ways that anti-oppressive education theory can be applied in middle school physical science classrooms. This study draws on classroom observational data and the curriculum text itself to understand how students perceive culture that they do not identify with.
Results
We found that the curriculum provides very limited perspectives of the non-dominant culture in which the learning was situated. Our results also indicate three emerging themes showing students to be demonstrating an elitist viewpoint, having a narrow view of another culture, or being indifferent toward the embedded cultural context in the lessons. As a class, deficit-based views of the people and places presented in the lesson were created rather than the desired culturally competent views. These negative perceptions were imprinted and solidified through limited portrayal of the embedded culture in the curriculum.
Conclusions
This work highlights the importance of curriculum context in students’ learning. Beliefs about the people and places are created through global context presented in the curriculum. Portrayal of these people and places was not representative of the culture; thus, resulting in limited perceptions of the situated contexts. It is crucial that the teachers critically evaluate the curriculum prior to its implementation to make sure Others are represented appropriately by drawing upon the anti-oppressive education theory. Lastly, we also advocate for the incorporation of global culture in STEM curriculum by having students learn beyond what the written curriculum offers.
... In a study by Spencer (2011), it was concluded that seventh grade students in secondary school did not even know which courses they should master in order to become engineers. Similarly, Aschbacher, Ing and Tsai (2014) stated that most of the secondary school students (78%) do not have science competence and beliefs. Aydın, Saka and Güzey (2017) reached the conclusion that students with a high attitude level of STEM at the 4-8. ...
Günümüz gelişen bilgi dünyasında disiplinler arası çalışmaların önem kazanmasıyla birlikte, öğretim programlarında bu yönde yenilikçi eğitim yaklaşımları benimsenmeye başlanmıştır. Yenilikçi eğitim yaklaşımlarından biri de FeTeMM (STEM) eğitimidir. Türkiye’nin 2011 ve 2015 TIMSS uygulamasındaki performansı matematik ve fen alanındaki yeterlik düzeylerine göre incelendiğinde; matematik ve fen alanında 4. sınıf öğrencilerinin büyük bir çoğunluğunun henüz orta düzey yetenek seviyesine erişemediği görülmektedir. Elde edilen sonuçların değişmesi ve gelecek dönemin ihtiyaç duyduğu bireyleri yetiştirmek için FeTeMM eğitimi önemli bir yere sahiptir. Erken yaşlarda edinilen tutumlarda, önemli yaşantı ve deneyimler yaşanmadığı sürece, tutumun kolay bir şekilde değişmediği dikkate alınırsa özellikle öğrencinin ilk eğitim-öğretim yeri olan ilkokul döneminin, bireyin bir duruma yönelik tutum oluşturmasında oldukça etken bir faktör olduğu düşünülmektedir. Bu bağlamda çalışmanın amacı, ilkokul dördüncü sınıf öğrencilerinin FeTeMM tutum düzeylerini belirlemektir. Araştırmada, ilkokul dördüncü sınıf öğrencilerinin FeTeMM tutum düzeylerinin belirlenmesi amacıyla nicel araştırma desenlerinden betimsel tarama modeli kullanılmıştır. Araştırma 2018-2019 eğitim öğretim yılı bahar döneminde gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu Türkiye’nin güneyinde yer alan ve orta sosyo-ekonomik düzeydeki devlet okullarında öğrenim gören ilkokul dördüncü sınıf düzeyinden 322 öğrenci oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada veri toplama aracı olarak STEM Tutum Ölçeği kullanılmıştır. STEM Tutum Ölçeği, Guzey, Harwell ve Moore (2014) tarafından geliştirilmiş ve dilimize Aydın, Saka ve Guzey (2017) tarafından uyarlanmıştır. Verilerin çözümlenmesinde frekans, aritmetik ortalama, standart sapma değerleri ve fark testleri kullanılmıştır. İlkokul dördüncü sınıf öğrencilerinin FeTeMM tutum düzeylerinin araştırıldığı çalışmada, öğrencilerin fen, mühendislik, matematik ve teknolojinin entegre edilerek uygulandığı herhangi bir FeTeMM uygulamasını deneyimlememiş olmalarına rağmen FeTeMM tutumlarının katılıyorum düzeyinde yani iyi seviyede olduğu belirlenmiştir. Öğrencilerin FeTeMM tutumlarının, cinsiyet, okul öncesi eğitim alma, meslek seçimi ve baba eğitim düzeyine göre farklılık göstermediği belirlenirken, anne eğitim düzeyine göre anlamlı farklılık gösterdiği belirlenmiştir.
Informal science education researchers have become increasingly interested in how out-of-school spaces that offer STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) programs inform learners’ STEM achievement, interests, and affective outcomes. Studies have found that these spaces can offer critical learning and developmental opportunities for underrepresented racially minoritized (URM) students (Black, Latinx, low socioeconomic status) in STEM subjects. Shifting away from the leaky STEM pipeline analogy, researchers have posited contemporary understandings to explain why the minoritization of URM girls persists. Informal learning environments such as STEM summer camps are being studied to assess how URM girls experience and interact with STEM in novel ways. These environments can inform the research field about how URM girls’ perceptions of their STEM identities, abilities, efficacy, and belonging in STEM develop as they engage in those spaces. This mixed-method study used a multiple-case-study approach to examine how aspects of URM middle school girls’ STEM identities positively changed after participating in a one-week, sleep-away, single-gender STEM summer camp held at a university in the Southwestern U.S. Drawing on intersectionality and STEM identity, we used ecological systems theory to design our research study, examining how URM middle school girls narrate their STEM identities in this informal learning environment. Using quantitative analyses and deductive coding methods, we explored how elements of girls’ STEM identities were shaped during and after their participation in the STEM summer camp. Findings from our study highlight (1) quantitative changes in girl participants’ STEM identities, sense of belonging in STEM, and perceived STEM ability belief, (2) qualitative results supporting our quantitative findings, and (3) how the intersectionality of participants’ race and gender played a role in their STEM identities. This study points to the potential of STEM informal learning camps as a way of developing and fostering URM girls’ STEM identities.
The Expectancy-Value model has been extensively used to understand students' achievement motivation. However, recent studies propose the inclusion of cost as a separate construct from values, leading to the development of the Expectancy-Value-Cost model. This study aimed to adapt Kosovich et al.’s ( The Journal of Early Adolescence, 35, 5–6, 2015) instrument for assessing achievement motivation in science and math among Spanish-speaking students aged 9–12. The psychometric evaluation encompassed examining validity, reliability, and measurement invariance for gender. The findings support the applicability of the expectancy-value-cost model in elementary school students, providing a valid and reliable tool for assessing achievement motivation in the science and math domain. However, the findings for the measurement invariance for gender are less conclusive and warrant future psychometric evaluations. This study opens avenues for future research on achievement motivation in Spanish-speaking contexts and populations.
STEM disciplines are considered essential for human development, and they are associated with low unemployment rates and good economic prospects. However, many countries are faced with the problem of too few STEM graduates, which raises the question of why more students do not choose STEM majors. This study presents a systematic mapping of studies published prior to 2021 in Web of Science or Scopus in order to examine the research trends on the factors that cause students to choose a career in Computer Science, or more generically, in the STEM fields. These factors have been identified and classified in 3 categories: Environmental factors, Social influencers and Personal factors. The categories are made up of 4 levels of subcategories. We analyzed (1) the countries in which the study was conducted, (2) the characteristics of the study and (3) the frameworks used. The results show that the bulk of the studies were conducted in developed countries, mainly in North America and Europe. The frameworks most commonly used in the studies are Expectancy-Value Theory and Social Cognitive Career Theory, and consequently, the most commonly studied factors for STEM degrees are those related to personal psychological factors. For Computer Science degrees, the most frequently studied factor is career prospects. On the other hand, a small number of studies on the impact of social media on the choice of studies in the technology field were detected. Among the studies analyzed, there is great interest in determining the factors that specifically affect women and the differences between men and women, especially in studies dealing with the Computer Sciences. Furthermore, there are few studies that analyze the effect of informal educational experiences among women. Given that this kind of experiences has become very popular in recent years among women, future research should analyze their impact on the choice of STEM studies. Taking into account the current relevance of the social media, additional research on their impact on the choice of studies should be conducted. It would also be necessary to analyze the situation in underdeveloped countries, especially among women, given that this field is currently a driver of economic development.
Introducción: El objetivo del estudio fue la validación psicométrica de una escala de elaboración propia para medir la percepción de apoyo organizacional y contextual sobre el fomento hacia las disciplinas STEM (ciencia, tecnología, ingeniería y matemáticas por sus siglas en inglés) para estudiantes de nivel medio superior. Método: El cuestionario fue administrado a papel y lápiz de forma anónima y cada participante brindó su consentimiento informado al comenzar el cuestionario. Se realizó un muestreo determinístico a 390 estudiantes que cumplieron los criterios de inclusión. Resultados: Para la validez de contenido se realizó una consulta a expertos sobre el tema, y la validez de constructo se estimó realizando un análisis factorial exploratorio (AFE), mediante el método de extracción de factores por máxima verosimilitud con rotación oblimin directo, reportando cargas factoriales superiores a 0.5. Para validar el modelo teórico se realizó de igual forma un Análisis Factorial Confirmatorio (AFC) que permitió demostrar la validez de la estructura previamente obtenida, pero con ajustes. Se estimaron los indicadores de ajuste del modelo de medida, (χ2= 15.20, gl= 8, p > 0.055, SRMR=0.05, AGFI=0.96, RMSEA 0.04 IC90[0.00-0.08], TLI=0.98, y CFI=0.99), cuyos valores obtenidos, al igual que los de fiabilidad se consideran aceptables de acuerdo con los estándares reportados en la literatura. Discusión o Conclusión: El modelo de medida se corrobora con ajustes a la estructura teórica según lo que se reporta en los indicadores de ajuste tanto del análisis factorial exploratorio como del confirmatorio. Los resultados presentan una contribución importante en la medición de los elementos que coadyuvan al fomento de vocaciones en disciplinas STEM. Desde una mirada metodológica se propone
This thesis investigates the interplay between students attitudes towards the science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning areas—the STEM subjects—as taught in Australian high-schools and their intentions to enrol in these subject areas in post-compulsory education. Falling enrolment rates in these areas have attracted much attention in recent years and there have been numerous strategies implemented in an attempt to reduce the declines. A common approach to addressing the problem of declining participation has been to devise strategies that target students’ attitudes towards the STEM subjects with the implication that positive attitudes increases the likelihood of continued student enrolments. Research findings have provided different insights into students’ intentions or enrolments, though there has been little conclusive evidence of an association between intentions and enrolments.
Given the lack of clarity surrounding some of these issues apparent in the research corpus, this thesis takes a novel approach to address a number of methodological impediments to further progress in this field. In studying changes in students’ attitudes towards individual STEM subjects this study also considered students’ changes in attitudes towards the academic aspects of school more generally. This approach enables a measure of student attitudes to school subjects overall, to be used as a point of reference against which to assess attitudes specifically in relation to the STEM subjects. Further, while the majority of attitude studies have been cross-sectional—either surveying a single age cohort at a point in time, or surveying different age cohorts and drawing conclusions about differences—this thesis adopted a longitudinal approach to the research design. Finally, in contrast to common media rhetoric, enrolment trends and attitudinal patterns across the wide range of STEM subject areas were investigated and were not limited to just science and mathematics.
This thesis explores the nexus between enrolments and attitudes through the format of two introductory chapters, four published and one unpublished journal articles, and a general discussion combining the conclusions of each article with each other and with the existing literature.
The first two papers illustrate how patterns of student participation in the STEM subject areas in Australian high-schools have changed since 1992 onward. The data were then interrogated in search of common enrolment themes and correlations. It was found that the enrolment patterns and the scale of the changes in them were noticeably different for each of the STEM subjects indicating that they were each subject to separate underlying influences.
The third paper presents the development, validation and use of the School Science Attitude Survey (SSAS). This digital survey instrument captures students’ self-measures of attitudes towards school subjects, across seven attitudinal constructs and enables changes in those attitudes to be investigated using Attitude Profiles and Attitude trajectories. The fourth and fifth papers make use of the SSAS data to investigate changes in attitudes for Year 7 students across science, mathematics and technologies, and to analyse differences in attitude trajectories for students in science as they proceed through Year 7 and 8.
The SSAS also obtained qualitative data around changes to student attitudes that were analysed though the use of network maps. These revealed that among many explanatory factors offered by students, there were a small number of key explanations that were particularly central to the formation and refinement of attitudes towards STEM areas.
Following this approach, this thesis shows that while participation rates in some STEM subject areas continue to decline, albeit slowly, other areas are either stable or experiencing mild growth. It is also shown that students’ attitudes towards STEM subjects are strongly interrelated with the nature of the attitudes that students hold for those subjects.
The number of women and underrepresented individuals working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields does not reflect the diversity of our societies. Even if children have an interest in STEM, they may not consider choosing a study or career in that direction if their perception is that they would not belong in science. This study examines the effects of a STEM lesson series aimed at inclusivity and diversity on children’s perception and sense of belonging in space science. Before and after the lesson series, children filled out a questionnaire aimed at eliciting their perception of space science and space scientists. After the lessons, a subsample of children was interviewed about the effects of the lesson series on the children’s perception and sense of belonging regarding space science. Six months after the last lesson took place, children from two classes filled out a short survey with open questions to measure retention. The results of this study showed that the lesson series had a significant impact on children’s perception of space scientists, and that the implementation of the lessons facilitated thinking about (a future in) space science. This lesson series has succeeded in changing children’s perception of space scientists as a diverse and international group of people.
Dance may not seem like it has much to do with computing but there are some clear links between dance and computing. Basically, a dance is just a series to follow. To dance we have to follow the steps exactly in a defined and repeated order. The same loop we need to execute again and again. This same concept we implement in algorithms. Step by step formation of instructions leads to an algorithm in the programming languages of computer science. A dance is just an algorithm executed by people that is enjoyable to watch. Writing a program and choreographing a dance is very similar to each other. Dance and computing could be a great fusion in coming future for the one who is technical by profession and dancer by passion or vice versa. The primary objective of this study is to understand relation between dance and computing, understanding its practical implementation and obstacles if any.
Science demonstrations are a simple, cost-effective method of improving interest in STEM and highlighting the diversity of scientists, which can impact audience members’ sense of belonging and, in turn, influence self-efficacy. However, the pedagogy of science demonstrations has been criticized as creating a power imbalance between the presenter and audience, for being too far removed from the audience’s prior experiences, and for lacking interactivity. We report here on an intervention that designed demonstration-experiments to address a lack of interactivity while supporting interest; contextualized demonstrations within everyday experiences to address a lack of prior experiences and support interest, and implemented a near-peer role modeling strategy through high school near-peer role models to address power imbalances while supporting self-efficacy and expanding fourth-grade students’ perceptions of who can be a scientist. The study explores the effects of the intervention using a pre-post survey design analyzed by repeated measures multiple analysis of variance (rmMANOVA) (n = 444). Significant improvement was observed for all motivational variables. These results suggest that interactive science demonstrations focused on students’ everyday experiences may be an effective strategy to foster STEM interest and self-efficacy and to improve perceptions of who can be a scientist when enacted through high school near-peer role models.
This study aimed to determine whether science standard type had a significant impact on student interest in science, technology, engineering, math, and overall STEM. The study was conducted with a sample population of ninth and tenth grade students in Pennsylvania enrolled in science classes at school districts implementing the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) or the traditional Pennsylvania science standards. The study also focused on the differences between male and female interest in STEM. The Science Technology Engineering and Math Career Interest Survey (STEM-CIS), a Likert-style survey, was digitally administered to participants and a MANOVA was utilized to compare mean scores on the instrument subscales and overall scores. The results showed a statistically significant difference in science and technology subtest scores and for the overall STEM score based on standard type. There was no statistically significant difference in the interest in STEM overall between male and female participants when analyzed based on standard type. Implications for practice and suggestions for future study are offered.
We examined how upper secondary school students perceive the usefulness and difficulty of biology disciplines. Czech students (N = 192) from three schools answered a questionnaire with 5-point Likert scales. We tested the influence of gender and experience with the individual biological disciplines at upper secondary school on the perception of the biological disciplines. We examined differences among the perception of individual biological disciplines. All disciplines were perceived as useful for life which did not change during studies. Human biology was perceived as the most useful for life, protozoology was considered the least useful followed by mycology and cell biology. Girls perceived several disciplines as more useful than did boys. The perceived difficulty of some disciplines decreased during studies. Genetics was perceived as the most difficult followed by cell biology. Ecology and environmental protection were perceived as the easiest disciplines. Further research is needed to explain whether pupils feel studying biology answered their questions about nature or their fulfilled their expectations about the complexity of science.
There have been increasing concerns about the significant decline in teenagers’ intentions to pursue STEM subjects or careers. This study examined how students’ perceptions of parental expectations, STEM cultural capital, mathematics/science self-efficacy, gender, and parents’ jobs were associated with STEM career aspirations and tested whether these associations differed by school level. Data were collected from 1,864 junior and 665 senior secondary students in Hong Kong via an online survey. Results indicated that, perceived parental long-term expectations were closely linked to STEM career aspirations, whereas, perceived parental short-term expectations were closely linked to self-efficacy. Out-of-school STEM experiences and STEM media consumption both had positive impacts on aspirations and shaped different aspects of students’ perceived parental expectations. Additionally, significant gender differences were found in STEM media consumption, self-efficacy, and aspirations. These relationships mainly were invariant across school levels. However, the indirect paths from STEM media consumption to aspirations via self-efficacy varied significantly between junior and senior secondary students. Based on these findings, this study argues for the essential role of perceived parental expectations in shaping STEM career aspirations for teenagers. STEM cultural capital may be more productive and supportive if it promotes teenagers’ interpretations of parental expectations and their mathematics and science self-efficacy.
The growth of a STEM-focused economy has intensified the focus on developing kindergarten through grade 12 (K-12) students’ STEM competencies and on the STEM practices of K-12 STEM teachers. The present study utilised secondary analysis of nationally-representative STEM teacher survey data to examine the ways in which middle grades teachers’ perceptions of their instructional practices are impacted by the contexts in which teachers work. Statistically significant school- and teacher-level predictors in all areas of the Supportive Contexts for Teachers’ Learning (SCTL) framework suggest that building teachers’ professional capacity, providing coherent instructional guidance, leadership, and provision of adequate time and funding are impactful areas of study for those seeking to improve middle grades STEM instruction. This study’s focus on a core set of malleable factors has the potential to provide actionable information to middle grades district and school personnel on what levers can be adjusted to improve STEM teaching and learning.
Making science relevant to students' lives, future careers, or societies by introducing controversial socio-scientific issues in classrooms motivates students to take more active roles in learning science. This study explored the influence of integrating two sustainability-oriented socio-scientific issues (SOS2Is) - alternative energies and nanotechnology-into the General Chemistry curriculum on 743 students' career aspirations and perceptions of science relevancy. For the presentation of topics, two learning environments on Prezi were prepared. The participants were guided to explore these learning environments that focused on pros and cons of each topic, including environmental and health hazards of technological developments. In addition, students were encouraged to link these discussions to sustainability issues in the context of the UN SDGs. The analysis of Changes in Attitude Towards the Relevancy of Science and Career Aspirations surveys indicated that the interventions improved students' perception of science relevancy and altered their career aspirations in many areas, regardless of their socioeconomic status and ethnic background. This study provides empirical evidence for the effectiveness of discussions around socio-scientific issues in changing students’ perceptions of science and career aspirations and recommends practical methods to encourage students to become global and scientifically literate citizens.
Free Access Link Until February 2022: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1eAJY8MwAmidm-
In an effort to keep pace with an expanding knowledge-based economy, K-12 schools across the U.S. are increasingly shifting their STEM teacher professional learning programs to help teachers foster student experiences with skills such as problem solving, adaptability, and creativity. This study utilized quantitative and qualitative data to examine the impact of school culture and teacher professional learning factors on teachers’ self-reported instructional practices in a sample of Texas middle grades STEM teachers (n = 115). Triangulation of quantitative and qualitative survey data revealed connections between the influence of predictors on teaching practice and teachers’ reported perceptions of barriers to effective instruction. Building teachers’ professional capacity and the provision of adequate time and/or funding significantly and positively predicted teachers’ use of effective STEM practices, such as whole-group discussion and small group collaboration. Qualitative analysis of teachers’ perceptions of barriers to STEM instruction showed that teachers perceived that a lack of time for collaboration, external expectations, and teacher motivation were among the greatest barriers to high-quality STEM instruction. Building teachers’ professional capacity by strengthening teachers’ feelings of instructional preparedness, providing opportunities for collaboration, and building teacher motivation were identified as key areas of focus for encouraging teacher use of reform-based instructional practices.
In this article, we explore how children of late elementary to middle school age, from low‐income communities in an East‐Central metropolitan area of Canada, described their interests in and attitudes toward science in an out‐of‐school science club program. We used the children's descriptions of emotional engagement to gain insights into the identity work being carried out in the science club. Our analysis was based on survey responses from 202 children enrolled for at least one academic year in the science club program at 21 different club sites and focus group commentary from a subset of 45 children attending 14 of the clubs. We added context to the children's perspectives by including commentary from semistructured interviews with nine science club staffers and insights from field notes made after club promotional events. Analysis revealed the enthusiasm of children and/or their families for science education prior to engaging with the clubs. The children's anticipation that club science would reflect their school‐based science experiences was quickly dispelled by the hands‐on nature of club activities and the positive relationships built with club staffers. Of concern was the finding that staff and children frequently reinforced a rigid dichotomy between school and club science. This distinction meant that, although children described themselves as improving their performance in school science, they often found it difficult to relate the fun enacted during club sessions to the learning that is required during school science classes. This finding is problematic given the club's focus on keeping children's options in formal and informal science education open for as long as possible. The paper concludes by using the insights provided by children and club staffers to propose ways of enhancing the club/school/home science connection to better support transfer of the positive outcomes of the club‐based science identity work.
We report on national trends in STEM program quality using the Dimensions of Success (DoS), an empirical observation tool that provides a common definition of STEM program quality. We analyzed ratings for 12 dimensions of quality obtained from 452 DoS observations performed in 452 STEM-focused OST programs across 25 U.S. states by certified DoS observers. When plotted on a graph, the averages for the 12 quality dimensions display a ‘double-dip’ – a phrase that has been used in practice to communicate OST STEM strengths (higher ratings) and challenges (lower ratings). Nationally, OST programs excelled in quality indicators related to features of the learning environment, including preparation, materials, and space, as well as relationships. However, programs demonstrated less consistent evidence for quality in dimensions related to STEM knowledge and practices, including STEM content learning, inquiry, and reflection (dip #1), as well as areas related to supporting youth voice and STEM relevance (dip #2). This ‘double-dip’ persisted regardless of region, locale, season, and participant age or gender, though certain program and participant characteristics changed the magnitude of the scores. Ongoing professional development efforts are needed to address persistently challenging areas that are essential for building children’s STEM skills, content knowledge, and fluency. Key words: Informal education, STEM, research trend, professional development.
Interest drives our vocations and avocations. It influences what we do and enjoy at home, at school, at work, and at play. This chapter will define interest and explore the nature of interest and learning, especially in the STEM classroom. Pedagogical recommendations are offered to educators and instructional designers based on viewing learning through the lens of interest development.
Young Black women face dual marginality in the classroom due to longstanding racial and gender stereotypes. However, critical examinations of their academic dispositions remain relatively absent from current discourse on Black student achievement. The mathematics dispositions of Black girls (N = 1707) who completed the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009/2012 (HSLS:09/12) were analyzed through cluster analysis. The results of this study suggest that the mathematics dispositions of young Black women can be characterized in four distinct categories. Within these categories, several trends that carry direct implications for the preparation and motivation of young Black women in mathematics are provided.
This article reports findings from a study of an integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education program on student interest and awareness in science and engineering. The analysis features grade 3–5 students from a high‐poverty, urban school system in the Mid‐Atlantic region. Through the quantitative analysis of closed ended survey responses and the qualitative analysis of an open‐ended query, we describe how the adoption of an intensive STEM‐focused partnership could influence students’ early interest in and awareness of science and engineering as disciplines and careers. The analysis of the student responses revealed that after 1 year of the project, the students enrolled in the program demonstrated developing interest in science and engineering and were better able to articulate a greater understanding of engineering as a discipline. These findings have implications for the effectiveness of an integrated STEM approach for upper elementary students participating and succeeding in the STEM fields.
Having college-associated career aspirations has long-term implications for adolescents' education and career attainment. However, important precursors of adolescents' career aspirations, such as academic motivation and performance, decline during middle school and high school, leaving college-associated career aspirations at risk. In our study, we investigated the changes in adolescents' college-related career aspirations from 7th to 11th grade and examined protective factors for negative development. Using longitudinal data (N = 706, 54% girls; 60% African American, 29% European American, 11% other ethnic groups or multiracial/multiethnic), we found four distinct patterns: stable high (N = 398), decrease (N = 136), increase (N = 102) and stable low (N = 70). Higher academic subjective task values and parent education level predict less probability of lowering one's aspirations, whereas no variable was found to uniquely predict the probability of increasing one's aspirations. Findings suggest that the development of career aspirations exhibits significant heterogeneity in adolescence. Future studies should investigate the association between the patterns of career aspiration and long-term career outcomes.
Researchers using latent class (LC) analysis often proceed using the following three steps: (1) an LC model is built for a set of response variables, (2) subjects are assigned to LCs based on their posterior class membership probabilities, and (3) the association between the assigned class membership and external variables is investigated using simple cross-tabulations or multinomial logistic regression analysis. Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars (2004) demonstrated that such a three-step approach underestimates the associations between covariates and class membership. They proposed resolving this problem by means of a specific correction method that involves modifying the third step. In this article, I extend the correction method of Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars by showing that it involves maximizing a weighted log-likelihood function for clustered data. This conceptualization makes it possible to apply the method not only with categorical but also with continuous explanatory variables, to obtain correct tests using complex sampling variance estimation methods, and to implement it in standard software for logistic regression analysis. In addition, a new maximum likelihood (ML)-based correction method is proposed, which is more direct in the sense that it does not require analyzing weighted data. This new three-step ML method can be easily implemented in software for LC analysis. The reported simulation study shows that both correction methods perform very well in the sense that their parameter estimates and their SEs can be trusted, except for situations with very poorly separated classes. The main advantage of the ML method compared with the Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars approach is that it is much more efficient and almost as efficient as one-step ML estimation. © The Author 2010. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology. All rights reserved.
Low participation rates in the study of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) post-16 are a matter of international concern. Existing evidence suggests children’s science aspirations are largely formed within the critical 10 to 14 age period. This article reports on survey data from over 9,000 elementary school children in England (age 10/11) and qualitative data from 160 semi-structured interviews (92 children aged 10/11 and 78 parents), collected as part of an ongoing 5-year longitudinal study in the United Kingdom tracking children from 10 to 14. Drawing on the conceptual framework of Bourdieu, the article explores how the interplay of family habitus and capital can make science aspirations more “thinkable” for some (notably middle-class) children than others. It is argued that while family habitus is not deterministic (there is no straightforward alignment between family habitus, capital, and a child’s science aspirations), social inequalities in the distribution of capital and differentially classed family habitus combine to produce uneven (classed, racialized) patterns in children’s science aspirations and potential future participation.
Latent class analysis is used in the political science literature in both substantive applications and as a tool to estimate
measurement error. Many studies in the social and political sciences relate estimated class assignments from a latent class
model to external variables. Although common, such a “three-step” procedure effectively ignores classification error in the
class assignments; Vermunt (2010, “Latent class modeling with covariates: Two improved three-step approaches,” Political Analysis 18:450–69) showed that this leads to inconsistent parameter estimates and proposed a correction. Although this correction
for bias is now implemented in standard software, inconsistency is not the only consequence of classification error. We demonstrate
that the correction method introduces an additional source of variance in the estimates, so that standard errors and confidence
intervals are overly optimistic when not taking this into account. We derive the asymptotic variance of the third-step estimates
of interest, as well as several candidate-corrected sample estimators of the standard errors. These corrected standard error
estimators are evaluated using a Monte Carlo study, and we provide practical advice to researchers as to which should be used
so that valid inferences can be obtained when relating estimated class membership to external variables.
The underrepresentation of girls from nondominant backgrounds in the sciences and engineering continues despite recent gains in achievement. This longitudinal ethnographic study traces the identity work that girls from nondominant backgrounds do as they engage in science-related activities across school, club, and home during the middle school years. Building a conceptual argument for identity trajectories, the authors discuss the ongoing, cumulative, and contentious nature of identity work and the mechanisms that foster critical shifts in trajectories. The authors argue that the girls view possible future selves in science when their identity work is recognized, supported, and leveraged toward expanded opportunities for engagement in science. This process yields layered meanings of (possible) selves and of science and reconfigures meaningful participation in science.
This article offers a review of the major literature about attitudes to science and its implications over the past 20 years. It argues that the continuing decline in numbers choosing to study science at the point of choice requires a research focus on students' attitudes to science if the nature of the problem is to be understood and remediated. Starting from a consideration of what is meant by attitudes to science, it considers the problems inherent to their measurement, what is known about students' attitudes towards science and the many factors of influence such as gender, teachers, curricula, cultural and other variables. The literature itself points to the crucial importance of gender and the quality of teaching. Given the importance of the latter we argue that there is a greater need for research to identify those aspects of science teaching that make school science engaging for pupils. In particular, a growing body of research on motivation offers important pointers to the kind of classroom environment and activities that might raise pupils' interest in studying school science and a focus for future research.
The purpose of this study was to design a psychometrically sound instrument to measure adolescents' attitudes toward school, attitudes toward teachers, goal-valuation, motivation, and general academic self-perceptions that could be used to explore the underachievement of academically able secondary school students. The final School Attitude Assessment Survey-Revised (SAAS-R) instrument consisted of 35 questions, each of which being an indicator of one of the five factors. The final model exhibited reasonable fit, X2(550) = 1,581.7, Comparative Fit Index = .91, Tucker Lewis Index = .92, root mean square error of approximation = .059, standardized root mean squared residual = .057. The scores in this study showed internal consistency reliability coefficient of at least .85 on each of the five factors. In addition, four of the five factors of the SAAS-R appear to differentiate gifted achievers from gifted underachievers. It is the authors' hope that the SAAS-R will allow researchers to more fully understand the relationship between these five factors and underachievement in gifted and nongifted populations.
The authors assessed change over 3 years in elementary school children's competence beliefs and subjective task value in the domains of math, reading, instrumental music, and sports. The longitudinal sample consisted of approximately 615 mostly White, lower middle to middle-class children. Stability correlations indicated moderate to strong stability in children's beliefs, especially older children's competence beliefs. The relation of children's ratings of their competence in each domain to estimates of their competence in those domains provided by both parents and teachers increased over the early elementary grades. Children's competence beliefs and ratings of the usefulness and importance of each activity decreased over time. Children's interest in reading and instrumental music decreased, but their interest in sports and math did not. Gender differences in children's competence beliefs and subjective task values did not change over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined 1,850 school age children achievement self-perceptions in 4 activity domains (math, English, social activities, and sports) and self-esteem across the transition from elementary to junior high school. Self-esteem scores declined across the transition to junior high, but increased during 7th grade. Self-concepts of ability for math, English, and social activities declined after transition, but perceptions of social ability increased during 7th grade. Perceptions of sports ability declined across 6th and 7th grades. The liking of math and sports declined over time, whereas the liking of English and social activities declined immediately after transition but increased across 7th grade. Many of these changes are attributed to changes in the school and classroom environments encountered on entering junior high school. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Mixture modeling is a widely applied data analysis technique used to identify unobserved heterogeneity in a population. Despite mixture models' usefulness in practice, one unresolved issue in the application of mixture models is that there is not one commonly accepted statistical indicator for deciding on the number of classes in a study population. This article presents the results of a simulation study that examines the performance of likelihood-based tests and the traditionally used Information Criterion (ICs) used for determining the number of classes in mixture modeling. We look at the performance of these tests and indexes for 3 types of mixture models: latent class analysis (LCA), a factor mixture model (FMA), and a growth mixture models (GMM). We evaluate the ability of the tests and indexes to correctly identify the number of classes at three different sample sizes (n D 200, 500, 1,000). Whereas the Bayesian Information Criterion performed the best of the ICs, the bootstrap likelihood ratio test proved to be a very consistent indicator of classes across all of the models considered.
Researchers using latent class (LC) analysis often proceed using the following three steps: (1) an LC model is built for a set of response variables, (2) subjects are assigned to LCs based on their posterior class membership probabilities, and (3) the association between the assigned class membership and external variables is investigated using simple cross-tabulations or multinomial logistic regression analysis. Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars (2004) demonstrated that such a three-step approach underestimates the associations between covariates and class membership. They proposed resolving this problem by means of a specific correction method that involves modifying the third step. In this article, I extend the correction method of Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars by showing that it involves maximizing a weighted log-likelihood function for clustered data. This conceptualization makes it possible to apply the method not only with categorical but also with continuous explanatory variables, to obtain correct tests using complex sampling variance estimation methods, and to implement it in standard software for logistic regression analysis. In addition, a new maximum likelihood (ML)—based correction method is proposed, which is more direct in the sense that it does not require analyzing weighted data. This new three-step ML method can be easily implemented in software for LC analysis. The reported simulation study shows that both correction methods perform very well in the sense that their parameter estimates and their SEs can be trusted, except for situations with very poorly separated classes. The main advantage of the ML method compared with the Bolck, Croon, and Hagenaars approach is that it is much more efficient and almost as efficient as one-step ML estimation.
The authors report on two longitudinal studies that explored changes in aspirations, experiences, and attitudes in science over three years among students in California public middle and high schools. One study surveyed an ethnically and economically diverse group of over 400 students who participated voluntarily in 7th through 9th grades, and then interviewed 48 students. The study identified four trajectories that students' interest in science, engineering, and medical (S/E/M) careers took over time and described factors that affected their aspirations. The other study looked in depth at what happened to an equally diverse group of 33 10th graders who were very interested in a S/E/M career. It followed them through the 12th grade to discover what happened to their aspirations in high school.
The authors report on two longitudinal studies that explored changes in aspirations, experiences, and attitudes in science over three years among students in California public middle and high schools. One study surveyed an ethnically and economically diverse group of over 400 students who participated voluntarily in 7th through 9th grades, and then interviewed 48 students. The study identified four trajectories that students’ interest in science, engineering, and medical (S/E/M) careers took over time and described factors that affected their aspirations. The other study looked in depth at what happened to an equally diverse group of 33 10th graders who were very interested in a S/E/M career. It followed them through the 12th grade to discover what happened to their aspirations in high school.
Next Generation Science Standards identifies the science all K-12 students should know. These new standards are based on the National Research Council's A Framework for K-12 Science Education. The National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve have partnered to create standards through a collaborative state-led process. The standards are rich in content and practice and arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally benchmarked science education. The print version of Next Generation Science Standards complements the nextgenscience.org website and: Provides an authoritative offline reference to the standards when creating lesson plans. Arranged by grade level and by core discipline, making information quick and easy to find. Printed in full color with a lay-flat spiral binding. Allows for bookmarking, highlighting, and annotating.
The main purpose of the present study is to investigate middle school students’ science self-efficacy as well as its sources and outcomes as a function of gender. Bandura’s hypothesized sources of self-efficacy (i.e., mastery experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal) in addition to being inviting with self and inviting with others were examined as sources of self-efficacy, while cognitive and metacognitive strategy use was examined as an outcome of self-efficacy. A total of 1,932 students participated in the study and were administered self-report instruments. Results showed that the relationship between science self-efficacy and its proposed sources does not change as a function of gender. All proposed sources, except for vicarious experience, were found to be significantly related to students’ scientific self-efficacy. Moreover, girls were found to experience significantly more emotional arousal and to send positive messages to others more than boys. On the other hand, no gender difference was found concerning science self-efficacy and strategy use. The findings also revealed a positive association between science self-efficacy and strategy use. Overall, findings supported Bandura’s conception of self-efficacy and suggested invitations as additional sources of self-efficacy.
This paper examines the experiences reported by scientists and graduate students regarding the experiences that first engaged them in science. The interviews analysed for this paper come from Project Crossover, a mixed-methods study of the transition from graduate student to PhD scientist in the fields of chemistry and physics. This analysis involved review of 116 interviews collected from graduate students and scientists and focused on the timing, source, and nature of their earliest interest in science. The majority (65%) of participants reported that their interest in science began before middle school. Females were more likely to report that their interest was sparked by school-related activities, while most males recounted self-initiated activities. Our findings indicate that current policy efforts (which focus on high school science reform) to increase the numbers of students studying in the science fields, may be misguided.
We demonstrate that, under a theorem proposed by Q.H. Vuong [Econometrica 57, No. 2, 307-333 (1989; Zbl 0701.62106)], the likelihood ratio statistic based on the Kullback-Leibler information criterion or the null hypothesis that a random sample is drawn from a k 0 -component normal mixture distribution against the alternative hypothesis that the sample is drawn from a k 1 -component normal mixture distribution is asymptotically distributed as a weighted sum of independent chi-squared random variables with one degree of freedom, under general regularity conditions. We report simulation studies of two cases where we are testing a single normal versus a two-component normal mixture and a two-component normal mixture versus a three-component normal mixture. An empirical adjustment to the likelihood ratio statistic is proposed that appears to improve the rate of convergence to the limiting distribution.
Drawing from a sample of 1,126 10th-grade students across four school districts in Southern California, this study examined the net effects of family - and science class - related variables on students' interests in a physical science and/or engineering career, with particular attention to variations in these relationships by students' gender and racial/ethnic background. Findings indicate the role of family science orientation is contingent less on gender than on race/ethnicity, and students' perceptions of their science class experiences are not strongly related to their science career aspirations regardless of gender and race/ethnicity. Implications for patterns of underrepresentation in the science and engineering pipeline are discussed.
The authors of this article argue both the urgency and the promise of establishing a constructive conversation among different bodies of research, including science interest, sociocultural studies in science education, and culturally relevant teaching. With the instructional practices of eight exemplary African American elementary teachers serving their investigative site, they begin to develop a theory for promoting student interest in science. They argue that this emerging theory is distinguishable by three broad propositions: having a genuine interest, scaffolding student interest, and offering multiple standpoints. They further show that their theory based on these three related propositions has provided an important framework to better understand a number of important issues in science education (e.g., early interest in science and hands-on science activities).
This article offers a review of the major literature about attitudes to science and its implications over the past 20 years. It argues that the continuing decline in numbers choosing to study science at the point of choice requires a research focus on students? attitudes to science if the nature of the problem is to be understood and remediated. Starting from a consideration of what is meant by attitudes to science, it considers the problems inherent to their measurement and what is known about students' attitudes towards science and the many factors of influence such as gender, teachers, curricula, cultural and other variables. The literature itself points to the crucial importance of gender and the quality of teaching. Given the importance of the latter we argue that there is a greater need for research to identify those aspects of science teaching that make school science engaging for pupils. In particular, a growing body of research on motivation offers important pointers to the kind of classroom environment and activities that might raise pupils' interest in studying school science and a focus for future research.
This paper considers a wide class of latent structure models. These models can serve as possible explanations of the observed
relationships among a set of m manifest polytomous variables. The class of models considered here includes both models in which the parameters are identifiable
and also models in which the parameters are not. For each of the models considered here, a relatively simple method is presented
for calculating the maximum likelihood estimate of the frequencies in the m-way contingency table expected under the model, and for determining whether the parameters in the estimated model are identifiable.
In addition, methods are presented for testing whether the model fits the observed data, and for replacing unidentifiable
models that fit by identifiable models that fit. Some illustrative applications to data are also included.
With the growth of the field of sport psychology has come a growing interest and concern over gender differences in achievement and participation in various sports. Why do girls and boys differ from one another in their participation rates and participation patterns in sports? Over the past 10 years, Eccles and her colleagues have put together a theoretical model for analyzing the motivational factors underlying individuals' decisions regarding achievement-related choices. This paper describes this theoretical model and uses data from two studies, one focusing on adolescents, and one focusing on elementary school-aged children, to evaluate the utility of this model for understanding gender differences in sport participation. It reaches the following conclusions: (a) the Eccles et al. model holds for sport as well as, if not better than, it does for academic subjects; (b) gender differences in children's attitudes toward sport are quite strong and emerge at a very young age; and (c) these gender differences seem to be a consequence more of gender-role socialization than of “natural” aptitudinal differences.
To encourage students to seek careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, it is important to gauge students’ implicit and explicit attitudes towards scientific professions. We asked high school and college students to rate the similarity of pairs of occupations, and then used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to create a spatial representation of occupational similarity. Other students confirmed the emergent MDS map by rating each of the occupations along several dimensions. We found that participants across age and sex considered scientific professions to be less creative and less people‐oriented than other popular career choices. We conclude that students may be led away from STEM careers by common misperceptions that science is a difficult, uncreative, and socially isolating pursuit.
The twenty‐first century is characterized by multiple, frequent and remarkable scientific advancements, which have a major effect on the decisions that govern everyday life. It is therefore vital to give proper comprehensive scientific education to the population and provide it with the right tools for decision‐making. This in turn requires that we foster a positive attitude among students towards science studies and encourage them to choose sciences as their major subjects. The following study examines 10th‐grade high school students in an attempt to understand and document the influential factors underlying their attitudes towards science studies. The study is conducted through a qualitative research methodology, gathering data based on interviews. This methodology exposes the students’ feelings, views and beliefs, and explores the characteristics of the factors influencing students’ attitudes. Of these factors, we found the most significant for high school students to be interpersonal interaction between teacher and student, the relevance and authenticity of the topics being studied, and the diversity of the teaching methods. We therefore suggest that these three elements should be given particular emphasis by teachers and teacher educators.
Discusses some uses of latent variable modeling (LVM) in alcohol epidemiology. Problems associated with measurement error are illustrated using computer-simulated data. Examples demonstrate how LVM can be used to represent indirectly observed variables. Additionally, examples of LVM for alcohol abuse and dependence are discussed in detail using data from the Alcohol Supplement of the 1988 National Health Interview Survey. The paper reports that LVM is useful in situations where random or systematic measurement error is a problem, where phenomena under study are not directly observed, and where multiple indicators are needed to describe various aspects of a phenomenon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
As science educators struggle to reform science education, we need a better understanding of the conundrums associated with the ways educators enact innovative science within and against the “academic,” “rigorous,” and “elite” sociohistorical constructions of science. I ethnographically investigated the meanings of an innovative, reform-based curriculum (Active Physics) in various micro (classroom) and macro (school and community) contexts. I conducted the study in a high school serving primarily upper middle class students, the majority of whom (97%) planned to attend college. I explored how meanings of the curriculum transformed as the curriculum traveled across space and time. While certain aspects of the context enabled innovative science (e.g., support from the administration, pressure to serve a wider range of students), other aspects of the context constrained the potential of the curriculum (e.g., the need to establish for students, parents, and administrators the legitimacy of Active Physics as “real” and “rigorous” physics). Using practice theory to understand the influence of context and agency in shaping school science practice, this study demonstrates the potential for viewing meanings of science in local settings as partially fluid entities, sometimes reproducing and sometimes contesting sociohistorical legacies. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed87:307–328, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/sce.10071
This article examines gender differences in science achievements and attitudes during the middle grade, when our nation's scientific pipeline begins to emerge. It uses data from a large, nationally representative sample of eighth-grade students (NELS-88). The findings show that in these grades female students do not lag behind their male classmates in science achievements tests, grades, and course enrollments. Actually, some female students have higher probabilities of enrolling in high-ability classes than males. However, female students have less positive attitudes toward science, participate in fewer relevant extracurricular activities, and aspire less often to science careers than males. Students' science attitudes and career interests vary according to students' gender as well as their racial or ethnic background. These findings emphasize the need to further examine the interrelationships between gender and race or ethnicity in our efforts to understand the processes leading to women's limited participation in science-related careers.
A view of science as a culturally-mediated way of thinking and knowing suggests that learning can be defined as engagement with scientific practices. How students engage in school science is influenced by whether and how students view themselves and whether or not they are the kind of person who engages in science. It is therefore crucial to understand students' identities and how they do or do not overlap with school science identities. In this paper, we describe four middle school African American girls' engagement with science. They were selected in the 7th grade because they expressed a fondness for science in school or because they had science-related hobbies outside of school. The data were collected from the following sources: interviews of students, their parents and their teachers; observations in science classes; journal writing; and focus groups. These girls' stories provide us with a better understanding of the variety of ways girls choose to engage in science and how this engagement is shaped by their views of what kind of girl they are. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 37: 441–458, 2000.
Overview Empirical example: Positive health behaviors Preparing to conduct LCA with covariates LCA with covariates: Model and notation Hypothesis testing in LCA with covariates Interpretation of the intercepts and regression coefficients Empirical examples of LCA with a single covariate Empirical example of multiple covariates and interaction terms Multiple-group LCA with covariates: Model and notation Grouping variable or covariate? Use of a Bayesian prior to stabilize estimation Binomial logistic regression Suggested supplemental readings Points to remember What's next