Retrospective analysis of a STEM outreach event reveals positive influences on student attitudes toward STEM careers but not scientific methodology

Abstract

Substantial, involved, and expensive efforts to promote the dissemination of scientific knowledge and career interest in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) are enthusiastically supported by many scientific, federal, and local organizations. The articulated underlying goals for these efforts include an enhanced public understanding of science and science-related policy, an increased diversity in STEM careers, and an increase in the future STEM workforce. This effort is primarily driven by an underperformance of the United States that includes poor test performance and limited number of students pursuing STEM degrees. Despite this investment, attitudes toward STEM have not notably changed. The goal of this project was to determine students’ attitudes toward STEM in response to a previously established scientific outreach event. This event was used to address three common goals in STEM outreach: STEM literacy, diversity and inclusion, and career preparedness. We found there was a notable difference in the attitudes toward scientific activities and interest in pursuing a “Science Career” after participation in this event. Strikingly, interest in hypothesis development, the keystone of all STEM disciplines, was the least liked of all the activities offered during the event. Our data suggest that events designed to enhance interest in pursuing a STEM career may benefit from different elements compared with events designed to increase understanding of STEM literacy concepts, such as hypothesis development.

Rocks Really Rock: Generating positive impacts in middle and high school students’ attitudes toward geology via Web Google-Earth electronic field trips

“…According to the Council of Advisors on Science and Technology of the President of the United States, there will be a shortage of nearly one million STEM professionals in the coming years. Their projections show that STEM fields will need to increase their recruitment by 34% (Crawford et al, 2021;Olson & Riordan, 2012). As noted previously, this situation may be more challenging for ES careers given the lack of exposure/awareness of ES disciplines among K-12 students, in addition to the low ES literacy of the general population.…”

“…Outreach and scicomm have the potential to have a positive impact on the development of positive attitudes toward ES careers and ES literacy. Outreach refers to the activities or processes whose main objective is to promote awareness of STEM in real life, the pursuit of STEM careers, and to motivate non-experts to learn STEM topics (Crawford et al, 2021;Jeffers et al, 2004;Vennix et al, 2017). Outreach can use scicomm strategies to achieve these goals because they have the potential to increase non-expert science-learners' comprehension (literacy), interest, and engagement (Dahlstrom, 2014), and can be used to increase positive attitudes toward STEM subjects and careers (Burns et al, 2003;Choi et al, 2020;Schmidt & Kelter, 2017).…”

Conceptualizing bioinformatics education in STEM literacy development for pre-service biology teachers

“…We found that 100% of papers on STEM literacy in the ERIC database were at the undergraduate level from 2019-2023. There are two articles related to biology subject matter, such as physiology (Crawford et al, 2021), ecology (Wu et al, 2021), and one article related to the interdisciplinary course. Based on these findings, we can conclude that STEM literacy can be increased by activities in biology learning, especially for pre-service biology teachers.…”

“…Table 2 also provides information on key points of background research from three STEM literacy articles. Crawford et al (2021) examined STEM literacy to build a strong foundation in STEM literacy, increase STEM diversity and inclusion, and prepare students to meet the demands of STEM careers. Wu et al (2021) recognized that reforms in undergraduate science education are urgently needed to develop scientific literacy and STEM skills.…”

Undergraduate STEM Students’ Science Communication Skills, Science Identity, and Science Self-Efficacy Influence Their Motivations and Behaviors in STEM Community Engagement

“…Science outreach or engagement programs can have multiple benefits, from encouraging K–12 students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields ( 1 – 3 ) to increasing community science literacy ( 4 ). More universities and informal science centers like museums, industry, or individual scientists have begun to value community engagement as an essential element to the role of their institution ( 5 ).…”