-The authors findings reinforce prior research that students across key demographic factors perceive biological/clinical and physical science career paths differently, resulting in two career clusters.
-The relationship of mathematics attitudes to career
interest varied by STEM career cluster.
-Findings were supportive of the conclusion that students’ attitudes towards STEM careers are not static over their primary and
secondary grades, stabilizing and leveling during their secondary years.
-Gender showed significantly different interest levels for the two career clusters: males higher for physical sciences and females higher for biological/clinical sciences.
-Racial/ethnic disparity in STEM career interests can be seen more readily in physical sciences and engineering than in the biological sciences.
-The authors’ work reinforces findings that students, as young as elementary grades, are forming attitudinal associations between their academic and life experience and future STEM careers.
2018 - The Relationship of STEM Attitudes and Career Interest
– For this research, students’ attitudes towards STEM careers are guided by expectancy-value theory, which takes the fundamental notions of self-determination theory and sets them within a goal-directed environment, such as academic and career trajectories.
– Expectancy-value theory helps frame both self-efficacy in terms of expectancies of success in a particular academic domain and outcome expectancy in terms of the value of this academic subject area to future goals.
– The authors developed and administered the Student Attitudes toward STEM (S-STEM) Survey to 15,155 fourth through twelfth-grade students in 2012-2013 in North Carolina public schools that were in their first and second years implementing STEM-focused education initiatives.
– The survey was administered anonymously, with only grade and school information collected.
– The approximate response rate was 69.1% for the first grant initiative and 66.2% for the second initiative.
– Survey respondents were 1) 50.8% male and 49.2% female, and 2) 55.8% Caucasian, 16.5% African American, 12.8% Hispanic/Latino, 4.7% Multiracial, 4.6% Other, 3.1% American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 2.4% Asian/Pacific Islander.
– In the S-STEM Survey, three constructs measure student attitudes toward all four primary STEM subjects: science (9 items), mathematics (8 items), and engineering/technology (9 items). Each item uses a five-point Likert scale from strongly disagree to strongly agree and asks students to agree or disagree with both self-efficacy items
– The S-STEM Survey measures student interest in twelve STEM career pathways: physics, environmental work,
biology and zoology, veterinary work, mathematics, medicine, earth science, computer science, medical science, chemistry, energy, and engineering.
– IVs: Science Attitudes, Mathematics Attitudes, Engineering/Technology Attitudes, 21st Century Skills Attitudes, Science Academic Outcome Expectancy, Mathematics Outcome Expectancy, English/Language Arts Academic Outcome Expectancy
-Controls: race, if they know someone who works in STEM (STEM adults), grade, gender, initiative (grant initiative)
-Dvs: STEM career cluster scores